The Main Purpose for Leisure Travel Within a Tourism Format - Research Paper Example

The debate: the accelerating and synergistic interaction between technology and tourism in recent times has brought fundamental changes in the industry (Buhalis and Law 2008, p. 609) Introduction There have been a great many changes in the last 20 years within the tourist industry. The rise of computer technologies, specifically involved with internet technology, has created innovations that have increased the potential communication between tourists and destinations. IT technologies have also become relevant to the way in which hotels are managed. Any hotel who has not by now upgraded their technologies to include interaction with IT systems is more than likely suffering from their lack of a relationship with the global community. In creating systems that are interconnected to the whole world, the tourist is connected to the purveyor of hospitality in a whole new way. The industry has been revolutionized by the advent of IT technologies that connect the world. The statement that is being debated as said by Buhalis and Law (2008) is that “the accelerating and synergistic interaction between technology and tourism in recent times has brought fundamental changes in the industry” (p. 609). Initially, the relationship of the tourist and the operators of venues is not changed by IT technologies. People still travel with goals that are associated with leisure with expectations of services that relate to the type of travel that is intended. However, the way in which travel is accomplished has been significantly affected. Tourism The phenomenon of tourism is not as easy as it might seem in creating an encompassing definition. Hunziker and Krapf of the Berne University, Switzerland defined tourism as the “sum of the phenomena and relationships arising from the travel and stay of non-residents, in so far as they do not lead to permanent residence and are not connected to any earning activity” (Cruz 2006, p. 2). Through this definition, there is a definitive line drawn between tourism and immigration. The problem with this definition, however, is that it does nothing to include trips that are not concerned with a stay. Day-trips, according to Cruz (2006), are not included within this framework (p. 2). The Tourism Society in Cardiff defined the concept of tourism by “the temporary short-term movement of people to destinations outside the places where they normally live and work and their activities during their stay at these destinations” (Cruz 2006, p. 2). Burkart and Medlik identified five characteristics of tourism: Because of its complexity, tourism is a combination of phenomena and relationships. It has two essential elements: the dynamic element - the journey, and the static element - the stay. The journey and stay are to and from destinations outside the place of residence and work. The movement to destinations is temporary and short term with the intention to return within a few days, weeks or months. Destinations are visited for purposes not connected with paid work, that is, not to be employed and not for business or vocational reasons (Cruz 2006, p. 2). Tourism is associated with leisure, but certainly not all forms of leisure can be defined as tourism. Tourism is different than leisure, recreation, travel and immigration and is defined by some parts of those concepts, but not by all. The difference between tourists and excursionists was defined by the 1963 United Nations Conference on International Tourism and Travel in that a tourist stays for more than 24 hours where an excursionist stays for less than 24 hours. There are four basic elements that define the concept of the tourist. The first element is distance. A tourist will travel at least one hundred miles from home in order to get to a destination to enjoy intended leisure activities. Length of stay, as described in the difference between the tourist and the excursionist, is the second element. The third element is the place of residence of the traveler and the relationship that it holds with the destination. The final element that will help to define the tourist is that of the purpose of the event of traveling, whether it is associated with leisure or business purposes (Cruz 2006, p. 5). The basic nature of travel, tourism, and the tourist has not changed due to the innovations of IT technologies. The ways in which it is accomplished, in the creation of itineraries and arrangements have been affected and has been changed, but the basic concept of tourism is still the active participation of travel in association with efforts towards leisure activities that are outside of the residence or work environment. The phenomenon of tourism has not changed, nor has the eventual result of it. The basic idea is to travel to a destination and experience something that has not been experienced previously, or has been experienced and a leisure associated benefit was the result. The industry of tourism is defined by the relationship of the tourist to the destination. Thus, the side of the tourist and their goals has not been changed by the IT innovations that have created changes within the industry. The tourist still has the same goals, the same objectives, and the same needs when traveling to a destination. The operators still have to provide the same services in order to keep the tourist happy and to increase participation by the satisfaction of those who attend their venue. In this way, the industry has not changed and has not been affected by the innovations that have changed the business side of the industry. Tourism is still defined by a need to create an experience that is associated through leisure. Tourism Service According to Williams and Buswell (2003), “the main strategic issue facing all organizations is achieving customer-perceived service quality” (p. 3). It is also brought forth that the concept of quality is increasing in importance and that quality and value have become associated in creating the proper tourist experience. In order to create the perception of positive experience, the quality must be tipped against the value in that the quality must seem like it is higher than the monetary value that was paid for that service. In order to better understand this concept, it is important to understand that it is the little things, the things that cost the venue little to nothing such as courtesy and energy in the performance of the product that will create the highest experiential value to the tourist. According to Middleton, Fyall, and Morgan (2009), a service industry is best assessed at the ground level through interaction with customers and the impressions that are captured of the needs that those customers have expressed as either fulfilled or lacking (p. 175). It is important to have that kind of contact with customers in order to understand how their needs are being met and in what ways improvement will create a higher level of meeting those needs. However, with larger companies, management teams are further away from their customers and do not have the hands on experience with the daily ‘life’ in a venue. Therefore, other ways in which customer communication of satisfaction must be employed. New systems of communication have increased the methods through which customer comments can be communicated to management. According to Tyrell and Woods (2005), less than 5% of dissatisfied customers will bother to voice their complaints, while complaints that are resolved to the satisfaction of the customer can result in 54% to 70% retention of customers who do voice their complaints (p. 183). Customer retention and loyalty is created when a complaint is handled with attention and given a resolution. Complaining through the internet has provided for a better method of communication between customers and venues, but it has also provided a resource through which a customer can publicly voice their experience to the detriment of the venue. As long ago as the year 2000, a public forum called planetfeedback.com was receiving as many as 500,000 hits per month with 500 consumer letters per day being put into the public eye (Tyrell and Woods 2005, p. 184). With that level of response and the level to which IT solutions in feedback have improved, the attention that is paid to e-complaints must be taken into consideration for marketing purposes. Measuring satisfaction, however, is difficult to accomplish. Most people will create feedback only when they are dissatisfied, thus the measure of satisfaction is skewed to the negative. Reisinger and Turner (2003) define satisfaction as “an outcome of the comparison between expectations and experience; a difference between expectations and perceptions of performance; a fit between expectations and the environment; a fit between the tourist and the host value systems; and input/output of social exchange” (p. 196). Determining the overall satisfaction of the customer is dependent on the perception of their experience, and communicating that perception is crucial to overall comprehension of the value that is involved within the venue. Through the use of IT solutions in feedback, there is a greater sense of communication with venues once the customer has concluded their holiday. Through the use of the internet and through simple systems, a customer can discuss their satisfactory and dissatisfactory experiences with the company and with other future attendees of the venue. Before commencing on an adventure, a tourist can discover what the general opinion of others who have been there will consider their thoughts about the experience. The use of publicly revealed information allows for an empowerment of the general traveler that has never before been experienced within history. eTourism In 2002, Buhalis and Licata discussed the future of eTourism. At that time, three primary technologies allowed for interactions between tourists and venues in order to create a more empowered experience. No longer did tourists need to depend on travel agents who would navigate computer systems that took specialized training to utilize, but the average traveler with a little knowledge could create interaction with tourism needs in order to create reservations and itineraries. The three primary technologies were through the computer via the internet, interactive digital television, and mobile devices (p. 207). Buhalis and Licata (2002) state that “The tourism and travel industries were particularly affected by these developments and in particular, the way organizations distributed their tourism products” (p. 207). By 2008, Buhalis and Law were discussing the ways in which eTourism had effectively integrated into the industry. They go so far as to say that “The energetic growth and development of the industry are perhaps only mirrored by the growth of ICT’s” (p. 609). They suggest that ICT’s have significantly affected the speed with which the industry can conduct business. Efficiency and effectiveness of tourism organizations is greatly improved through the implementation of solid IT solutions. Buhalis and Law suggest that “The ICT driven business processes re-engineering observed in the industry gradually generates a new paradigm shift. This alters the structure of the entire industry and develops a whole range of opportunities and threats for all stakeholders” (p. 610). These writers believe that the entire industry has been repositioned, the theories behind the various factors altered and changed in regard to the way in which IT has influenced significant change. Consumer Use The ways in which ICT’s have developed useful tools for tourists in order to create their holiday plans have increased the ease with which vacations can be administered by the consumer. There are several aspects of use in which the consumer has been given considerably more control over their relationship with the venue. Research, previous comments, reservations, check-ins, and feedback are all easily within the reach of the average consumer. The new consumer is empowered to evaluate their own needs in regard to value and experience, their use of time and money within their own discretion in relationship to their ability to use the technologies to facilitate the phenomena event of tourism. Patience is no longer a virtue of the traveler, the instantaneous nature of internet access to solutions for their needs now creating ease of access. Those who do not keep up with the technologies will find their businesses left behind. “Gradually, new, experienced, sophisticated, and demanding travelers require interacting with suppliers to satisfy their own specific needs and wishes” (Buhalis and Law 2008, p. 611). Without adequate IT solutions for the common consumer, a travel business will see a significant drop in deference to related competitors who have kept up with the latest systems. Not having access to such systems will significantly reduce consumer participation, reducing revenue and affecting the overall bottom line. According to Egger and Buhalis (2008), IT solutions are dependent upon the ownerships, relationship and size of the business in regard to the need that is seen within a tourism company (p. 5). Use by accommodation forms of the industry have been in place since the 1970’s, the need to be able to easily search availability and rates coming to the forefront of that sector. CRS, or Computer Reservation Systems have been in use since that time, providing an easily accessible form of discovery in order to assess the value of the property in question against the need of the consumer. Most of these systems, and the GDS or Global Distribution Systems were accessible through those with professional status (Egger and Buhalis 2008, p. 8). When the internet began to connect the common user to the world accessibility was changed. The purpose for state of the art interconnectivity, however, has not diminished and the need to keep on top of the technologies is increasingly pressing upon accommodation sectors. Not only are major brands on the internet with viable and usable interface, but small venues can access larger audiences through good internet usage. Marketing is a matter of communicating the solution to the consumer that will fulfill their need. There is no intermediary and no amount of incentive to inspire an agent to push a consumer in one direction or another. The consumer is moved by the most powerful interface that can easily and successfully fulfill their need. Without this type of ease incentive, a marketing plan will have no chance of working. An example of a larger venue that uses internet accessibility to influence the world in their holiday choices can be seen through the Walt Disney Company. The internet site for the Walt Disney Company has a variety of choices from which to plan a holiday, including each of their properties, their cruise line, and a variety of other options. The site is appealing to their secondary market, children, in order to reach their primary target which is their parents in order to get them to spend the money to attend their venues. More importantly, the access within the site allows for full vacation packages to be planned, everything from accommodations to tickets and dining plans. A complex holiday can be planned by the average consumer without the help of a mediating party. This example shows that while the Walt Disney Company does not need a third party marketing resource, it does need the latest technologies to facilitate the use of their venues for holidays through interaction and planning done through the internet. Mediating marketing sites can connect properties to consumers through advertising and interactive choices that are made through comparison. A website such as Expedia.com will provide a large number of choices to the consumer in order to provide competitive marketing. The information that a venue gives to the umbrella site will determine its viability within the market. As well, because sites such as these are marketed as cheaper sites from which to book travel, the pricing must be highly competitive and monitored in order to ensure the best possible exposure for the venue. Web Interaction Expectations According to Kozak and Decrop (2009), 95% of web users will do research on the web for their travel needs with 93% utilizing tourism websites in order to accomplish their goals (p. 213). Web sites must be easy to navigate and meet all the needs that a traveler will expect when doing their research. If the information isn’t easy to find about a venue, it is likely that another venue will grab their attention while they are attempting to research their initial subject. The competition is fierce and without good IT a business will feel the weight of redirected consumers. In 2002, Buhalis and Licata predicted that the use of eMediaries would dominate the industry through the use of platforms developed for IDTV, the telephone, and the internet. While the technologies are still being built for IDTV, that potential is still there with these technologies currently contributing to systems for check out and within the hotel room atmosphere. There was a suggestion that interactive kiosks and physical venues would rise in importance, but the accelerated use of the internet has rendered these types of eMediaries without a significant contribution (p. 218). A consumer will not travel to a kiosk when he or she can simply turn on their PC in order to access all of their information. By 2008, Buhalis and Law were discussing IT in a very different manner. Buhalis and Law (2008) stated that “the future of eTourism will be focused on consumer-centric technologies that will support organizations to interact with their customers dynamically” (p. 619). They acknowledge the power and sophistication with which the consumer now shops for tourist related venues and options. IT potential allows for a personalized interaction without the costly overhead of people doing the mediating between the venue and the consumer. The use of IT marketing strategies allows a venue to personally reach the consumer and give them whatever message that the venue intends to convey. The use of the internet dominates all of the available technologies, with apps on phones and personal interface components rising into prominence within that same type of communication. App have the power to interact in a moment to moment way for a consumer, creating an easier way in which to plan vacation days without lengthy and time consuming research ahead of the event of travel. Recommender systems create recommendations for a traveler in a location through a mobile phone device so that dining, attractions, and navigation can be done easily and quickly. STRS, Social-Net Tourism Recommendation System can be used to interact through the phone or PDA in order to access information that was before more difficult to access and was more often from a static location (Demazeau 2010, p. 35). Other Uses for IT There are several other uses for IT within the tourist industries that will facilitate higher levels of satisfaction for the consumer. One of those ways is through education. Education can be conducted either through university based instruction or through industry based instruction through IT resources in which standards can be quickly updated and the various methods of IT interaction can be kept up to date. Education can be formatted through the following institutions: academic institutions, corporate online training, destination management organization, and independent resources (Cantoni and Kalbaska 2009, p. 151). Through these venues continued and up to date information can be acquired, increasing the efficiency within which the relationship between the venue, the consumer, and management can be facilitated. IT solutions are also being thought of as ways to create sustainability within the industry. However, it is relevant to the stage of development in which the tourist destination has achieved as to how IT solutions will affect sustainability. According to Ali and Frew (n.d.), the early stages of development are most affected by IT solutions rather than the longer term sustainability. According to the study that was conducted, this may be due to the types of venues that were questioned. The early stages of development need to have quality information available to the public in order to draw them to the venue, but after enough visitors have reached a certain equilibrium, feedback will provide sustainability if the experience meets the expectation on a regular basis. In other words, while IT provides information, it does not meet the level of importance that the actual experience will provide. Therefore, what others bring to the communication about the venue will have a higher impact in sustaining a developing area than will the placement of state of the art IT. Tourism Behavior Theories One of the more common theories developed to explain tourist behavior is that of the expectancy-value theory. According to this theory, “the idea that motivation is a function of the extent to which the person believes that making a purchase is feasible (expectancy), the attractiveness of the outcome (valence) and the expectancy of achieving that outcome (instrumentality)” is expressed (Kozak and Decrop 2009, p. 17). When this is applied to an IT environment, the instrumentality will be the key to achieving the expectancy and the valence. The IT development must meet the expectancy that the consumer will have in being the instrument through which value can be achieved in balance with the expectancy of the outcome of that value. How the holiday ends up meeting expectations will be the result of how those expectations are built up through the communication that is developed within the IT environment and how the actual venue comes through with the promises that the marketing makes to the consumer. The concepts of prestige and status in relationship with motivation can be seen as a purpose from which event consumption takes place. Status occurs when enough prestige has been consumed to create a social position in relationship to phenomena. In travel, status can be attained on many levels through different types of consumption, including but not limited to the amount of travel that has been accomplished, the types of places that have been experienced, and the ways in which travel has occurred. IT solutions can affect this type of consumption through providing information about what others with status have experienced, as well as providing easy access to facilitating those experiences. Kozak and Decrop (2009) use the example of space travel as a prestige experience due to its extreme rarity (p. 19). Achieving this type of travel first requires the tourist to know who, where, how, and when the event can take place. Information from the internet can more than help a traveler to find information on how to achieve this type of travel. Motivation, however, and the expectancy theory will have value in deciding whether or not to pursue such a travel event. In spending the amount of money required for the event and in passing the physical fitness test that is required for such an event, the individual may not see the value as worth the effort. The rarity of the event is so rare that achieving that goal will not have near the effect on prestige as it will on proper motivation towards such a goal. The value of a destination is relevant to perceived value. Using the example of Disney World again, the perceived value is balanced against a variety of factors. Most often, the perceived value is weighted by the enjoyment that one’s children will have from the experience. Absent of children, sentimentality is the most often purpose for enjoying the Disney experience. To someone who assigns no value to the sentimentality of Walt Disney products, the likelihood of their being a perceived value to the travel event is greatly decreased. Therefore, the IT experience that a consumer will have on the Walt Disney Company website will have no value if there is not already a perceived value. Discussion The concept that the tourist industry has changed overreaches when discussing the importance of IT solutions. The ways in which marketing is conducted has changed formats, but the information remains the same. The information that a venue wishes to convey is still the same as it was before personal computers were available. The venue is processing the motivations of a consumer through enticements to visit their property and spend their consumer finances within their establishment or for their service. The difference in the marketing sector of the tourist industry is in the way in which information is conveyed and the ease with which the consumer can access that information. This means that marketing resources have changed dramatically, but that the tourist industry still offers the same type of experience. The tourist industry itself has not changed because of IT, but their marketing strategy in the form of how information is conveyed has had to change. The main purpose for leisure travel within a tourism format still remains the same. The motivations that tourists have for seeking out experiences are still the same as they were before IT came into the picture. The value of IT is not in that it changed the nature of travel, but that it made it easier to attain. If one wishes to plan a vacation at 2am in their pajamas, that can be done, but the venue to which the vacation will end is most likely the same as it could have been. It is a fallacy to believe that in changing and facilitating certain aspects of an industry is to change the industry. The upgrades at a car factory make the cars that are produced better built and quite possibly with advances that had not been previously available, but the basic function of the vehicle is still the same - to get from point A to point B. The excitement with which Buhalis and Law state their commentary on the importance of IT is valuable because of the advances that have occurred that have revolutionized the way that a venue can interactively communicate with the consumer. However, it is a fallacy to suggest that the nature of tourism has changed, that the industry has been fundamentally shifted because of new forms of communication. Increasing communications does not change the idea that a person wants to have an experience and is motivated to find a way to get to that experience. Disney World can once again be used as an example of proof that the world has not changed quite so much. In the 1970’s after Disney World was opened, it became one of the top destinations within America in a short time. Within a few years, more than 70% of all Americans had been to Disney World. This was done without IT solutions and while they have some of the highest levels of interactivity between guests and the venue, this is not the driving force behind visiting the venue. IT plays an important part in the travel industry and has created increases that are the result of lowered costs and ease of accessibility. However, being a tourist and having the phenomena relationship of tourism has remained the same. The experience is the ultimate goal, motivated by a series of purposes which might be prestige and status, family bonding, or escape from the pressures of every day life. A holiday still serves the same purpose, no matter how marketing strategies help to communicate the potential to a consumer. Travel is done for the experience, to live in the moment of discovery, and to then leave and go back home satisfied. References Ali, Alisha and Andrew J. Frew. n.d, ICT and its role in sustainable tourism development. Sheffield Business School. Accessed at http://qmu.academia.edu/AndrewFrew/Papers/11 5822/ICT_and_its_ROle_in_Sustainable_Tourism_Development Buhalis, D. and M. C. Licata. 2002. The future of e-tourism intermediaries. Tourism Management. Vol. 23, 207-220. Buhalis, D. and R. Law. 2008. Progress in information technology and tourism management: 20 years on and 10 years after the internet - The state of eTourism research. Tourism Management. Vol. 29, 609-623. Cantoni, Lorenzo and Nadzeya Kalbaska. 2009. E-learning in tourism and hospitality: A map. Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport, and Education. Vol. 8, no. 2, Demazeau, Yves. 2010. Advances in practical applications of agents and multiagent systems. Berlin: Springer. Egger, Roman, and Dimitrios Buhalis. 2008. eTourism case studies: management and marketing issues. Amsterdam: Butterworth-Heinemann. Expedia. 2010. Expedia. Accessed at http://www.expedia.co.uk/ Kozak, Metin and Alain Decrop. 2009. Handbook of tourist behavior; theory and practice. East Sussex: Taylor and Francis, Inc. Middleton, Victor T.C., Alan Fyall, and Michael Morgan. 2009. Marketing in travel and tourism. Amsterdam: Elsevier ; Butterworth Heineman. Mills, Juline E. and Rob Law. 2005. Handbook of consumer behavior, tourism, and the internet. Binghamton, NY: The Haworth Hospitality Press. Reisinger, Yvette, and Lindsay W. Turner. 2003. Cross cultural behaviour in tourism: concepts and analysis. Oxford [u.a.]: Butterworth Heinemann. The Walt Disney Company. 2010. Disney Parks. Accessed at http://disneyparks.disn ey.go.com/disneyparks/en_US/index?name=HomePage Tyrell, Brian and Robert Woods. 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