Influence of technology on tourism

Innovation distinguishes leaders from followers.

Today no one doubts that technology and tourism are a perfect combo. This combination also has a huge influence on the way we travel: from which destination we choose for our vacations, to what we do when we are there and even in the post-adventure stage. So much so that, according to a Google Travel study, 74% of leisure travelers plan their trips online, while only 13% already do so through travel agencies.

Technology nowadays makes people’s lives easier; and even within tourism it seems to facilitate the process for tourists to choose a flight, a hotel, a destination, among other options. For example, some hotels have implemented virtual reality so that before booking the tourist is able to visualize himself inside the place and decide in this way if it is the correct decision or if he will better opt for some other place.

In the same way for the purchase of flights, the Amadeus company Navitare has also proposed the virtual reality part, to carry out the entire process of booking a flight, so that the passenger is able to analyze all possible options to consider.

But outside of all that part of virtual reality, technology has been a strong support for tourism since it allows hotels to carry out the check in and check out process, it allows travel agencies to make reservations, airlines, to car rental and all from a distance mode, that is, it is not necessary to be face to face to do it.

Advantages

Within this area we can find a great variety of advantages; among them we can find what would be the facilitation of processes (mentioned above); it also allows more trips to be carried out thanks to the good organization, also allows to have a greater knowledge about the tourist destination since it is possible to consult everything previously on the internet, it lets tourists to know more destinations and feel attracted to travel; among an endless number of good things that could be said; technology help us to discover unimaginable things that have opened the doors to a world that we did not imagine.

Disadvantages

Although technology gives a strong boost to tourism, there are also a number of disadvantages that we have to consider; for example, one of them would be that it would lead to job cuts, because technology could be able to replace a large number of jobs within the sector; likewise, it is important to bear in mind that technology is not accessible to everyone and this would be causing the loss of a part of the population; In the same way, it must be taken into account that this lack of privacy begins to exist since all the information would be being shared online and within this part special care must be taken not to put ourselves at risk, we can also find other disadvantages such as fraud, extreme dependence on technology and therefore the lack of this personal contact .

By: Arlen Gómez