Analysis of Emerging Issues in Hospitality and Tourism Industry

This report examines the emerging issues in the hospitality and tourism industry, focusing on the significant impact of technology. It explores the challenges of staff training, the importance of social media, and the need for manual data backup systems. The report analyzes how technology has broadened marketing convenience, improved customer satisfaction, and streamlined operations through online check-in, ordering, and payment systems. It also addresses the negative impacts of technology, such as payment system errors and misleading information, while providing recommendations for improvement, including staff training programs, social media management, and the use of manual data alongside server data. The report emphasizes the need for hotels to adapt to technological advancements to enhance customer experience and maintain a competitive edge.

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Emerging Issues in Hospitality and Tourism

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Contents
Emerging Issues in Hospitality and Tourism.............................................................................1
Technology in Hospitality and Tourism Industry......................................................................3
Technology for future growth of Hospitality and Tourism Industry.........................................4
Ways to solve problems of technology......................................................................................5
Proper training of the staff members......................................................................................5
Take charge of social media...................................................................................................5
Be where the customers are................................................................................................6
Listen to what customers want to say.................................................................................6
Usage of manual data along with server data.....................................................................6
References..................................................................................................................................7

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Executive Summary
“Technology” has significant impact on the tourism industry in current economic climate in
the following ways:
1. Improper training of the staff to use new devices
2. The problem in providing expert technical support
3. Lack of awareness of the new technologies (Perini, 2011)
Technology is having an adverse effect on the hospitality and tourism industry in few more
ways for example, paying services online are not highly authenticate. And, whenever the
server goes done all the activities gets stop and hence there is wastage of time. The customers
also give bad ratings on the social media if they are not satisfied with the services which
results in a bad reputation of the business (Murphy, 2016).
This report will investigate these issues and detail recommendations based on the findings.
Introduction
Technology has evolved in hospitality industry eventually and has changed the business
models. It has broadened the marketing convenience; along with this it is convenient for the
customers to book hotels easily and utilizes the services.
Hospitality industry has adopted many wireless technologies like check-in and check-out
online system, food and drinks ordering online, and payment online. All these things have led
to rise in staff productivity along with an increase in customer satisfaction.
These issues are getting solved easily and the hospitality and tourism industry is evolving
more in the technology sectors. The industry has taken various adaptations to come out of
these problems as described below,
1. Implementation of radio frequency identification (RFID) key card-This technology is
evolved to decrease the hotel electricity budget. As the customers have to insert the
key card into the key card holder to power on electricity inside the room. Along with
this there would be a fingerprint-activated room entry systems and retina scanning

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devices. This technology will remove the responsibility of handling keys from the
guests (Robinson, 2016).
2. Social exposure-Recently, hotels have started using social listening tools with the help
of which customers give their reviews. These tools let hotels to know the needs and
desires of the guests along with their complaints.
3. Location-based services-To enhance the guest experience, hotels have implemented
location-based services. With the help of these services, the guests will be able to
locate the hotel staff. This will also increase the efficiency of the hotel staff (Berger,
2003).
4. Yield Management –It is a computer based process by which the managers match the
guest demands according to the rates of rooms. If the rates are high more services will
be provided to the customers and if rates are low then economy services will be
provide.
Technology for future growth of Hospitality and Tourism Industry
Positive impacts of technology
Technology is evolving day by day in every sector of life and taking over major areas of
the market. Similarly, technology is one of the most import aspect for the future growth
and development of the Tourism and Hospitality Industries as,
 It lowers many costs
 It enhances distribution
 It attracts customers and gives them valuable experience
 It expands new market (Cheung, 2000)
In coming future, technology will be taking over the following areas of hospitality and
tourism industries,
1. Food and beverage control
2. Telecommunication
3. Marketing, distribution, reservation along with sales
4. Room management
5. Safety and security

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6. Back office
7. Energy management
The online reservation systems used by Hilton hotel helps it in marketing and sales. The
linkage of all the offices i.e. front office and back office is efficient and cost-effective for the
distribution of the services (Oracle, 2017).
The reservation systems also contain the information of the hotel and will showcase the
availability of rooms and the customer reviews. The guests are able to login and choose room
of their own choice, and in certain conditions they can cancel it. Technology is helping this
industry to improve its inter-departmental communications as well as communication with
external departments like agents, suppliers and the data networks. In coming future, Hilton
will be using technologies like digital telephone systems, satellite broadcasting, audio-visual
information tools, image communication and many more (Hospitality, 2017).
Negative impacts of technology
Although, technology is very important for future growth and development of hospitality and
tourism industry but it is also having few negative impacts on this industry. The use of
payment system of Hilton hotel at times has resulted in wrong monetary transactions and it
has affected the reputation of the company. Also the hotel website and the ratings from the
social media are misleading and provide wrong information about the hotels and the travel
packages (Hospitality, 2017).
The most negative impact is that the staff members do not have proper knowledge of the
technologies and it results in a blunder. This arises due to lack of proper training of the
employees.
The recovery from wrong usage of technology is very difficult and leads to problems. For
example, wrong transactions from e payment system will be very time-consuming to recover.
Recommendations
Few proposals that may solve the problems of technology in hospitality and tourism
industries are,

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Proper training of the staff members
As the staff members are not updated with the latest technologies in trend as a result they
fail to adapt them. Therefore, whenever any new technology is introduced in the market a
proper training program of that technology should take place. A brief introduction of the
technology and the way it will be used should be explained. After that the staff members
should use them as demo and see the results. The results should be evaluated, if the
technology is beneficial it should be used otherwise it should be discarded. The staff
members should also have freedom to explore and advise new ideas according to them
which are profitable for the industry (Hertzfeld, 2017).
Take charge of social media
As the customer feedbacks and reviews are the most important key elements of growth in
hospitality industry therefore, hotels should make ways to enhance it. Social media is the
place where the reputation of the hotel can be degraded or upgraded and is the best place
for marketing and advertising (Mangan, 2015). Few ways by which best services can be
provided to the customers to gain good reviews are,
Be where the customers are
This is the best way to attract large number of customers. The best way to find where
customers are is by searching the brand on the popular social sites. The marketing
team should look for ways to advertise their brand on social sites (Zendesk, 2016).
Listen to what customers want to say
Hotels should collect the review and feedback data from all the social sites and then
should evaluate it so that they will be able to understand the problems of the customers. If
the issues will be known it will be easy for the teams to resolve them and make ways to
improve them.
Along with this a regular check of the social media page is important. Regular update of the
site can uplift the customer service efforts and a sense of communication with the customers
will be formed.

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Usage of manual data along with server data
It has been seen that when the server gets down, the whole system gets down and hence
no work is done. Therefore, manually work should be done along with the server work so
that whenever the server gets down the work does not stop. The hotels should also make
sure that the server hardware’s like switches and routers are up to date. Even if they are
buying the servers from outside they should choose the right servers. At times, the data on
the server is not secure and the guest’s privacy is not maintained. Hence, if the data is
handled manually it will be authenticated too (Cheung, 2000).

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References
Berger, S., Lehmann, H. & Lehner, F 2003, Location-Based Services In The Tourist
Industry, Information Technology & Tourism, vol.5,no.4, pp.243-256.
Cheung, L. & Law, R. 2000, ‘Industrial Information Technology Applications: Have Hospitality
and Tourism Graduates Learned the Needed Skills?’, Journal of Hospitality & Tourism
Education, vol.12,no.2, pp.19-23.
Hertzfeld, E 2017, Training users on new hotel technology no simple task, viewed on 6 January
2018, <https://www.hotelmanagement.net/tech/do-tech-companies-offer-training-needed>.
Hospitality 2016, How Does Technology Affect the Hospitality Industry?, viewed on 6 January
2018,<http://www.besthospitalitydegrees.com/faq/how-does-technology-affect-the-
hospitality-industry/>.
Hospitality 2017, How Does Social Media Affect the Hospitality Industry?, viewed on 6 January
2018, <http://www.besthospitalitydegrees.com/faq/how-does-social-media-affect-the-
hospitality-industry/>.
Mangan, M 2015, The impact of Social Media on the Tourism Industry, viewed on 6 January
2018, <https://www.hospitalitynet.org/news/4071855.htmlhttps://www.hospitalitynet.org/
news/4071855.html>.
Murphy, H 2016, Hoteliers face up to tech challenges |EHL Hospitality Insights, viewed on 6
January 2018, < http://www.ehl.edu/en/research/hospitality-insights/hoteliers-face-tech-
challenges>.
Oracle 2017, How Technology Impacts Hospitality, viewed on 6 January 2018,
<https://hotelandtourismonline.com/2017/02/17/how-technology-impacts-hospitality/>.
Ordóñez de Pablos, P., Tennyson, R. & Zhao, J 2012, Global hospitality and tourism management
technologies, Business Science Reference, Hersey.
Perini, V 2011, What are the three big technology issues for the hotel industry?, viewed on 6
January 2018,<https://www.tnooz.com/article/what-are-the-three-big-technology-issues-
for-the-hotel-industry/>.
Robinson, J 2016, Technology in the hospitality industry – exploring the very latest trends, viewed
on 6 January 2018, <https://www.aurecongroup.com/thinking/insights/aurecons-
successful-hotels/technology-in-the-hospitality-industry-exploring-the-very-latest-trends>.

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Zendesk 2016, Providing great social media customer service – Zendesk, viewed on 6 January
2018, <https://www.zendesk.com/resources/customer-service-through-social-media/>.