Digital transformation of travel and tourism business

 Author : Jain Paul

The emergence of new technology, particularly the Internet, has spurred industries like tourism to adapt their business models to the twenty-first century and new forms of marketing in recent years. Tourism marketing has grown into a digital ecosystem with products and services available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all over the world, thanks to the advancement of these new technologies.

The goal of digital tourism is to explore shared difficulties and possibilities in the tourism industry's digital transformation, as well as to share best practices for increasing the innovation capacity of tourism entrepreneurs, particularly SMEs. The network will assist in the development of new measures to support the tourism industry's digital transformation, increase the sector's adoption of digital technologies, and improve tourism SMEs' integration into the global digital value chain.

Our tourism and travel business portal has a wealth of articles, tutorials, online tools, and best practice links to assist entrepreneurs learn about running a tourism business in the digital age. In the tourism industry, we offer advice on how to employ digital technologies. The webinars will address practical digital, e-management, and online marketing skills that will assist tourism organizations in responding to the expansion of digitalisation in tourism, as well as contemporary trends in traveller’s use of technology to discover, plan, and share their trip experiences (OECD, 2020).

Opportunities of Digitalisation

We are focusing on the tourism industry, which has likewise embraced the new digital trend and adopted digital-based business structures. Companies have refocused their key marketing strategies as a result of the digital revolution. The digital tourism business is described as firms that are related to tourism and have the Internet as their primary sales channel, as well as initiatives to increase their business models that are based on digital marketing approaches. For our customers, we provide a wide range of digital tourism marketing and promotional instruments.

SMEs and destinations can use digitalisation to get access to new markets and develop innovative travel products and services. It's all about ensuring that your business is optimized to target and reach the ideal customer for your service in today's competitive environment.

The following are some examples of digitization processes in the tourism industry:

 Daily operations are becoming digitalized- Integrate digitisation into your internal company procedures, such as linked calendars, email systems, and automated billing.

Big data- To determine a customer's interests and personalize products to their unique demands, software technologies are used to acquire and analyse huge data.

Website optimisation- Having your own website and utilizing technology to evaluate performance, monitor the health of your organization, and optimize it for your target market are both beneficial.

Social media- Managing social media accounts, as well as developing and executing campaigns based on big data insights.

Online sales- Using e-commerce platforms, you may sell excursions, tours, vacations, and other experiences online, either through your own website or through an OTA (Ministry of foreign affairs, 2022).

A tourism business's transition to complete digitization is a long one. Traditional tourism businesses place a strong emphasis on internal operations and providing value to visitors. Full digitization becomes 'smart' tourism with a high level of innovation, instant and real-time e-commerce, and strong linkages with customers and suppliers as they progress towards increasing digitalisation through digital marketing and online sales.

Sell tourism services online

Consumers are increasingly opting to make purchases online in this digital age. This includes airline tickets, hotel accommodations, vacation packages, multi-day travel experiences, short getaways, auto rental, and other travel products. The convenience of making purchases online is the largest advantage for customers. The world is a busy place, and customers of all types have evolved to value quick transactions that meet immediate needs.

We assure you that after using our services, your website will be clear, informative, and transparent, allowing potential customers to feel confident in the quality of your product and eager to do business with you.

Establish a CRM system

 CRM systems let you manage information on clients and future customers gathered through interactions with them, such as marketing, sales, and customer support engagements, so you can grow your business. CRM is essential for SMEs to effectively target and develop their travel services. To compete effectively, you must have a CRM system in place.

Our firm specializes in CRM solutions for small enterprises and the tourism industry. In terms of enquires, quotations, itinerary builders, notifications, managing bookings, customer profiling, and reporting, we give powerful CRM tools that help to simplify and automate operations.

Since CRM, or customer relationship management software, is the key to helping you develop those strong relationships with your client base and ensuring that your tour operator business continues to expand, we're presenting a quick and easy-to-digest CRM guide filled with suggestions and techniques.

To provide knowledge our company frequently produces research reports that offer insights based on big data analysis. We frequently devote additional time to research in order to do effective and accurate research. Create a list of resources that you should check on a regular basis to help you stay on top of current trends and insights in the tourist industry (Saura, Reyes-Menendez and Palos-Sanchez, 2020).

Using data to improve SME management

In the digital age, data is a valuable resource, and tourism organizations' capacity to use data to improve company planning, operations, and service delivery is becoming increasingly important. Business can use data to improve revenue management methods and employ dynamic pricing, which is popular in larger companies. The larger digital platforms can operate as gatekeepers to enormous volumes of data acquired about individual firms, their clients, and market transactions, which can be a problem for smaller tourism businesses.

Business tactics and procedures are always changing.

The development of digital economy business acumen should be a key component of SMEs' tourism business strategy. Business management skills and a company's ability to seek capital investment have been proved to be linked. This shows that tourism SMEs who receive assistance in refining and innovating business strategies may have an easier time raising finance. Traditional scientific management systems, which isolate strategy and business planning from day-to-day operations, are becoming increasingly obsolete. If tourism enterprises are to compete in the global tourism system, they must gain business acumen, new flexible ways of working, and dynamic management (European commission, 2020).

 Keywords: #digital transformation #travel business #travel and tourism #online tourism

 References:

1. Ministry of foreign affairs (2022) 10 tips to go digital in the tourism sector | CBI. Available at: https://www.cbi.eu/market-information/tourism/tips-go-digital (Accessed: 21 March 2022).

2. OECD (2020) OECD Tourism Trends and Policies 2020. Available at: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/f528d444-en/index.html?itemId=/content/component/f528d444-en (Accessed: 21 March 2022).

3. Saura, J.R., Reyes-Menendez, A. and Palos-Sanchez, P.R. (2020) The Digital Tourism Business: A Systematic Review of Essential Digital Marketing Strategies and Trends, Digital Marketing Strategies for Tourism, Hospitality, and Airline Industries. Available at: https:// https://www.igi-global.com/chapter/the-digital-tourism-business/234569 (Accessed: 21 March 2022).