Technology has been regarded as one of the key factors that brought about globalisation since the nineteenth century, and perhaps even before. How is that so? Recall the distant past, where correspondences between nations had to be delivered personally via feet, horse or ships, which could easily take months. Over decades, the mode of transportation gradually undergo numerous technological advancement: Automobile, engine-driven ships, trains, airplanes. Correspondences between international boundaries become increasing convenient and fast.
At present times, technology has advanced to the point where it has surpassed the material limits. No longer do you need your letters delivered to your friend in Holland or Taiwan. All you need is the Internet, which enables instantaneous communication between people across the globe, provided one has access to the Internet.
According to statistics as of 2010, Internet users amounted to 28% of the world population. Subjected to technological infrastructure, the individual percentages are much higher in developed and developing countries. Given the prowess of info-communication technology such as the Internet to reach out to so many people around the world, it also opens up new avenues for prospecting businesses to reach out to the global market. One of the businesses that benefited greatly from it is the tourism sector. We'll be examining the impact of Infocomm. technologies on businesses in this sector.
Orbitz Worldwide, Inc is an Internet travel company headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. It carries numerous travel companies brands under it, to provide a comprehensive solution that better caters to potential customers who are looking to travel. The products ranges from booking of flights and hotel reservations, to even vehicle rentals and packaged tours. There is even a search engine that assist the customers in finding the best deals, based on their budgets and various requirements.
On first impression, the entire webpage is very systematic and easy to use. For example when attempting to make a hotel reservation, all that it requires is to enter the check-in, check-out dates, the number of rooms and guests, as well as entering the point of interest, and the system will automatically do a search that best match the demands of even the most picky customers. Once done, the website even made use of widgets such as Google's map, to show the locations of each hotel and the local amenities around, so as to familiarise customers to the areas they might be visiting. This is done in the comfort of their home, rather than having to travel down to the travel agencies personally, and listening to advices from staffs who might not provide comprehensive details. The outcome is that online travel agencies and hotels will be able to price their products more competitively, when internet-savvy customers are able to make better informed choices.
Another way the company keeps in touch with its customers is to keep them updated on the latest exclusive deals and offerings available via e-newsletters sent via email, should the customers signs up online as members. Orbitz also maximize the use of popular social medias, such as Twitter, Facebook and Blogs for sale alerts and exclusive promotions. To sweeten the deal, Orbitz also collaborated with CaptialOne (a credit card company in America), to allow customers to redeem flight tickets using reward points on card.
For the hotels themselves, they have also benefited greatly from appropriate utilisation of the Internet. Hotels such as The Ritz Hotel London allow guests to book their desired rooms or suites online from their very own website. There are also many others who collaborated with travel agencies to provide one-stop solution, such as with Orbitz as mentioned above.
Before the advent of the internet, conventional hotel room reservations are made possible only by fax and telephony services. This meant that travelers often rely on previous experience or recommendations to book their respective rooms, where trust was highly appreciated. In this current era, not only can travelers choose their desired suites or rooms online, they can also “explore” the room via panoramic virtual tour provided by websites, to evaluate based on their preference prior to making reservation. This gives the users close to perfect information on what sort of quality they will be paying for. The days of 2-dimensional media such as photographs of the rooms are slowly being replaced by flash/java presentations with background music and dynamic video to attract potential customers using multiple senses.
However, there are corresponding limitations to the use of such technologies.
As mention before, the public use of such infocomm. technologies is at present still very much dependent on the infrastructure level in each country, and how popularly is it adopted in the populace. What are the factors inhibiting the adoption of the technologies? Security could be one major issue. Just in America itself, monetary losses from *reported* cybernet crime amounted to $559.7m in 2009! In the light of our discussion in hotel reservation, consumers are taking a risk when they attempt to do online transactions. Also from the perspective of the businesses, there are practical concerns about privacy issues when they integrated their services with each other.
Also mentioned before is that the Internet-savvy consumers could triangulate the information by combing the Internet. But it is possible that at the end of the day, the information bombardment might be too much for consumers to make sound choices. Simply google "hotel reservation" and you'll end up with 7 million pages. This is not to mention that some pages might be outdated or inaccurate!
Finally, given that the Infocomm. technologies is capable of generating network externalities quickly, it is in itself a double-edge sword, as a single negative publicity is likely to ruin a company's painstakingly built reputation.
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