Tourism for the 21st Century

Tourism is big business

Tourism is the world’s largest industry, having enjoyed continued growth over the past three decades. During 2005, the UK welcomed 30 million overseas visitors who, between them, spent ?14 billion. Domestic tourism is even bigger, worth ?27 billion and comprises UK residents taking holidays as well as business travel. UK residents also spend around ?15 billion on eating out. The leisure market is changing and our attitude to travel is altering as well, with tourists becoming increasingly demanding. Domestic travel is vital to the UK economy too.

Technology is impacting on how we purchase tourism products. It is estimated that 7.9 million domestic holidays were booked online in 2005, accounting for 20% of domestic bookings. Many short breaks are often sourced online at the last minute and with more and more people gaining access to the Internet – 63% of adults in Great Britain (29 million) – this is set to grow. In fact, tourism is now the largest single category of products sold electronically so tourism businesses first need to get online, use email and get the wider benefits of new technology. This means they can promote their services and raise their visibility to millions of internet users while e-mail will help them respond more quickly to customers and give a better service.

The hospitality industry (businesses providing food, beverage and/or accommodation) in the UK is booming, employing over 1.8 million people. Eating out is now worth ?28 billion – with ?6 billion accounted for by the restaurant sector (35,000 in the UK), which is driven by owner-operated small businesses, at around 70% of the market.

Having grasped the ICT opportunity, tourism businesses can then harness a wide range of sophisticated applications to satisfy their customers’ needs. For example, more demanding business travellers can have online access in their rooms and in public areas, while some cities are embracing wireless broadband to bring the power of the internet to all visitors. New technology also enables 24/7 bookings, calls to be automatically forwarded to a mobile and Broadband Voice can provide a highly cost effective second line to dial out on or as a nongeographic specific tool for inbound calls.

Some hotels and restaurants have chosen to offset these sophisticated technology costs by adding a small margin to their rates. Many have found that new ICT services bring in new customers and increase customer loyalty, so are self funding.

Overall, maximising the benefits of ICT is not just about getting online or having a website. The really big benefits come from additional sophisticated applications such as e-commerce, flexible working via mobile communications and moving pictures – sometimes live! For the tourism industry it means more customers, more customer loyalty (repeat bookings) and more efficiently run businesses.

The challenge

The tourism industry is still dominated by thousands of independent hotels, restaurants and pubs which are not yet even doing the basics – i.e. online presence, email, booking, allowing people to research hotel and restaurant options. This means that they are not reaching UK residents and millions of overseas visitors.

The challenge is to encourage all players in the sector to use ICT to its full potential and give new customers access to their businesses. It is about encouraging all tourism providers, large or small, to use technology to improve the customer experience and meet their customer requirements.