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HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY REVOLUTION

TRADITIONAL VERSUS INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AGE

INTRODUCTION

Hospitality industry can be defined as provision of services and facilities that provide to met the need of people such as accommodation, food and entertainment. It usually means different things to different people. The hospitality industry is comprised of businesses that provide services and products or facilities for a fee. Generally there is two sectors in hospitality which is commercial and non commercial. Commercial hospitality usually the sector of business that make a profit such as hotel industry, fast food industries and more. Beside the non commercial venues do not generally operate to making a profit. It will include the services such as institutional catering in hospitals and schools. It's not profit oriented business but generally operated to provide a services and products with certain fees that already stated in contract.

Hospitality industry is the industry that provide product and services that always try to fulfill the needs of people. Products are the tangible aspect of hospitality. It is something that guest can touch, consumed and see with naked eyes. They can stored it and have it at anytime. Services refers to an action of activity  that cannot be store for future use  but can be experienced by the customers. It is something that cannot be touch by hand but can be feel. It is something that we do to the guest in a way to give them experience and fulfill their needs.

Traditional hospitality:

Before the bombarded of the technology, the hospitality industry are running traditionally. The using of computer or internet are limited and everything are done manually. There is no online system that will help to make work more easily. For example, hotel industry. All the data will be log in the books and it will take a long time to process. Customer will need to spend a lot of time just to register their name during check in. The management also  need a lot of space to stored all the organization's documents and data of customers. If there is problem regarding customer information or the hotel itself, it will take some times to find it.  It also bring highly cost not only to manage all the document but also to consumed the properties.

All the information or advertising that want to be distribute to the customers will use traditional marketing media such as television, radio or newspaper. Its more to one way mass marketing. It not worldwide and the information of the products or services sometimes only reach certain people or certain target market. Its only in our country and it will hard to reach the international market. There will always a gap to distribute information in wide market. From apart of human resource, all the thing also do manually. All the performance appraisal or information will documented manually. It will increase the cost and taking a lot of time to concern.

Information technology age:

The new revolution is in the making. Information age is knowledge based industrial revolution. The company would be networked when using the information technology. The information technology (IT) is widely use in all industries included hospitality industry. The hospitality industry always be the first to capitalize on the new technology. The hospitality industry is the information rich industry where it depends heavily on finding and developing to distribute the services and the products, marketing information  and also provided comfort to the customers. Consumers usually seeking new sources of information to help them make a decision before purchase certain product or getting certain services.

Information technology (IT) investments play a critical role in managing hotels strategically. Efficient and timely deployment of new IT applications may offer opportunities for enhanced guest services to meet increasing customer expectations, improved cost control, more effective marketing strategies, and expanded opportunities for hotels (Piccolo 2008, as cited in Bilgihan, 2011). It's meant that the information technology investment will increase the productivity, reduce the cost and the same time add value to the services and products  provided to the customers. Electronic commerce is one of example of this kind value addition for businesses in the market place. Technologies that are associated with electronic commerce have brought about veritable revolution in the way business take place. It is the new buzzword in the global economy.

From the security part, all the confidential data will be more secure because it will stored on safety way such as on data bank in the organization. All data are stored and save securely by certain security procedure. Not only that, with the technology attach in the safety programmed, the security way are looks more efficient with the introduction of CCTV that are more proper rather than before.  

Information and communication technologies (ICT) have revolutionized the entire tourism industry (Buhalis and Law, 2008 as cited in Reino, Frew, Albacete-Saes, 2010), supporting the development of new business models, by building the bridge between different stakeholders. These new technologies have been extensively adopted by airlines, hotel chains, travel agencies, tourism management organizations. (Karanasios and Burgess, 2008 as cited in Reino et al, 2010). This is due to the role of technology in supporting the disinter mediated marketing and distribution of tourism products.

Some of the benefits that ICT provide to tourism businesses include the more efficient transactions, a low-cost distribution chain, improved customer service through personalized services, enhanced service quality and cost reduction (Huang, 2008; Zelenka, 2009, as cited in Reino et al, 2010). ICT has shortened distribution channels, making the communication easier and cheaper. Hence, the enormous influence that ICT has presented in the distribution of traditional types of tourism, such as sun and sea, urban and cultural tourism. Reflecting the overwhelming role that ICT has played in the last three decades in reshaping the communication of our industry and society, technology adoption has been extensively covered in the research literature (Buhalis and Law, 2008, as cited in Reino et al, 2010 ).

The bombarded of technology also bring a good value to the organization themselves. From part of human resources, the training programmed can be organized more efficiently. For example, e-learning process which rapidly growing application that can reduce a company’s training costs, increase trainees’ convenience, and provide a viable alternative to other forms of instruction (Bray,2002; Erdem, 2004; Little, 2001, as cited in Kim, Erdem, Byun, Jeong, 2010). According to a recent study by the Sloan Consortium (Allen and Seaman, 2010, as cited in Kim et al, 2010), the demand for online courses has been growing, with 66 percent of institutions reporting increased demand for new courses, and 73 percent seeing increased demand for existing online courses in 2009. Given these advantages, e-learning is increasingly used for soft skills training in the hospitality industry, especially in the hotel segment (Cobanoglu et al., 2006; Swanson, 2000; Weber et al., 2009,as cited in Kim et al, 2010, ). Its mean that with the growth of information technology, it's not only will help to updated the status of product or services to the customers thoroughly, but also will help in training process. It will cut the cost and make easy for all. It is other alternative for the management in a way to train the staff. Not only that, information technology age also make documented work done smoothly and faster. All data just need to be key in computer and it will not take a lot of space to store all the things. The performance appraisal also can be done more easy.

Nowadays IT application becomes important in all operation of the business and support the firm's competitiveness in the market place. IT is the engine behind hyper-competition, an accelerated and intensified rate of competition due to the digitization of the various processes comprising and supporting firms’ value chains (McAfee and Brynjolfsson 2008, as cited in Lee and Connolly, 2010).

Business centers in hotels are very likely to become far less in demand. It is because of the using of iPads and others similar gadget that has take over the world of business communication. There are almost nothing are faxed anymore and not much that are printed. Everything is going digital and maybe in a few years later there will be no more customer center in hotels but only needs the access of internet in the hotel rooms. Joel Ross is principal of Citadel Realty Advisors, has stated in his article that the individual guestroom with Internet access is the new personal business center. Designers need to pay attention to this trend. Ease of internet and electric plug access, and a good and sizable desk workspace will be essential.

The growing importance of innovation in hospitality industry mainly stems from the recent growth of demand and competitiveness in this sector, and from the rapid advances in the technologies available for hospitality organizations. Beginning last century, academics have waxed on about the fit between tourism and information technologies (IT). Tourism's are dependence on the supply and exchange of the information throughout the service chain where is particularly suitable for IT application. IT benefits a lot such as reducing transaction and distribution cost and time and also enable to make last minutes changes. Continuous improvement and high performance in Internet applications such as e-mail correspondence, website effectiveness, online marketing and bookings grow as a critical competitive factor. Consistent and efficient management has been a formula for past hotel success, but global competition demands innovation and flexibility in today’s dynamic marketplace make the hospitality industry to be more concern and faster in technology used. Successful Internet use exemplifies responding to this dynamic market place.

CONCLUSION

As a conclusion, the bombarded of technology nowadays have give a big changes to the hospitality industry. It is good for the industry themselves where the technology took place in all aspect of the organization. The work become more easy  and well manage. It also need less time concern compare the traditional way. The organization only need to be aware of the changes in the technology to be sure they are not leave on the back. All the new information need to be always updated. All the technology  revolution in the hospitality industry are run in flow. Although there is a lot of benefit of technology, it still have a problems occur but it still can be control by the backup system provided.

For the customer, they will get more option and choice to get services or products. It will give them the opportunity to get better services and products. Everything in their hand. Only a few second, they can know where the best services or products from the internet. That why the service provider need to be always updated their status and make sure the right and latest information can be access easily by the customers.