Overview

Tourism and Hospitality is a combined force in which one is irrelevant without the other. Both these sectors go hand in hand and together constitute a broad industry. On the most basic level, tourism is concerned with services for people who have journeyed away from their homes for a short time span. And hospitality encompasses the services related to leisure, accommodation, and traveler satisfaction. Hospitality encompasses a number of sub-categories like hotels, restaurants, resorts, spas, travel operators, conveyance, casinos, and to some extent, even healthcare. In a nutshell, both tourism and hospitality deal with providing services to travelers to make their stay hassle-free and pleasant. From itinerary planning to food and beverages to booking return flights, everything from top to toe and in between comes within the tourism and hospitality industry. With the advent of the Internet and widespread digitalization, this industry has also experienced disruptive changes.

Not long ago, the physical travel agents counted on the travelers to reach out to them for hassle-free holiday planning. These travel agents had a well-connected network of hotels, resorts, native tour operators, and other service providers. But with heavily funded travel operators, hotel chains, flight bookings going online, the popularity of local tour operators have taken a beating.

Challenges

Technological advancements have had a deep and unsettling impact on those local tour operators who don’t have a digital presence and rely solely on footfalls to advance their business. A few years ago, the traditional agencies were booming as tourism was still a thing of luxury, and planning a vacation seemed like a difficult task. Therefore, consumers flocked to these travel companies to get their holiday planned and booked. Much of the business was due to the lack of information and the fear of uncertainty that made people visit physical tour operators. With the internet space growing at a rapid pace, traditional players are finding it hard to survive.

Today, technology and tourism have become the perfect combination. It has changed the way we travel, right from choosing a destination to actually arriving there and then back from there. According to a report by Google Travel, 74% of tourists plan their trips online, and only 13% of travelers use traditional travel agencies to plan their trips. Technological advancements have been propelled by the millennial culture that loves to do things at their fingertips. With a pervasive social media presence, only those tour operators are growing that have a good social media presence. Customer satisfaction is the major concern of any hospitality business, and it starts right from the booking process. As a traditional Tourism and Hospitality operator, here are the major hurdles you are going to face in this rapidly changing business environment:

Digital Innovation

With the Internet becoming more and more accessible, information and choices are also expanding for the consumers to make an informed decision. Their decisions are being influenced by the content they view online. The Internet has brought about a shift in consumer behaviour and has also changed their perspective towards traveling. It is becoming more and more imperative for the traditional tour operators to make a digital presence to let customers know about their facilities and the range of their service.

Exposure and Credibility

Having an online presence via a website enables companies to design and target their ads to a wide range of customers based on their behavior. These ads and informative content are what helps consumers choose one travel operator over the other. Bigger and heavily funded tour companies race ahead in this aspect. They have a prudent and user-friendly web portal that allows travelers to obtain the required information and make customized bookings as per their requirements. Hence it is all the more important for small tour operators and hospitality owners to build a platform that keeps them abreast of dynamic players.

Remaining Competitive

We are living in an era of Airbnb where traveler expectations have gone up, especially in the accommodation sector. It is imperative for the hotel industry to come up with innovative strategies to reclaim its user base and stay abreast of the quality of service provided by big travel companies. Hotels and companies can promote their facilities and experiences virtually through social media portals and their websites.

Going Mobile

Bookings through smartphones have risen in the last three years, so much so that more than 50% of the total flight bookings in the US were made on smartphones. In 2017 alone, about 79% of users made bookings after researching on the phone. In 2016, more than 29% of total travel bookings in the USA were performed on mobile devices, and the numbers are increasing ever since. It is, therefore, important to have mobile-friendly websites that will allow users to make their bookings easily in just a few clicks.

Solutions

The tourism and hospitality sector is one of the most information-intensive sectors, and therein lies its opportunities. At e-GSS, we deliver solutions that will help you capitalize on the wealth of information that your company possesses. We help travel operators, tour guides, hotels, restaurants, and other tourism-based businesses make the digital shift and enhance their market capabilities. We have a team of creative web developers and result-driven digital marketing experts who will maximize the potential of your business and help you bring in more profits. We streamline your operations and provide exposure to your brand.

We build a robust web platform for your travel company with targeted solutions to reach customers far and wide, breaking the hurdles of regional and national markets. We convert your vision into a stout website that enables you to venture into the unforeseen market. Our team develops an aesthetically pleasing web space that harbors myriad information exhibiting growth. We offer state-of-the-art web development and digital marketing solutions that transform your entire business and make it future-proof. We bring your business on the digital map and benefit from a vibrant marketplace and compete with the fat cats of tourism and hospitality.