Technology has been advanced by connecting with computers around the world and communicates them to seek information. It is what we call “Info-communication technologies (ICT)” revolution.
ICT has been changing the framework for the new society where society activities have moved from “spaces of places” to “spaces of flows”. The space is the expression of society and the flow is the expression of processes. The society keeps on changing itself and moving to more advanced style of living by constructing flows: flow of information, flow of capital, flow of technology etc.
The rapid development and commercialization of Info-communication technologies for the travel and tourism industry has prompted hotels and other enterprises in this sector to increasingly adopt these technologies which would lead to an improvement in their operating efficiencies and customer service levels. It helps hotel industry to enhance the operating efficiency, improve the service experience as well as provide a means to access markets on a global basis.
ICT has changed the hotel room reservation processes
The hotels and motels we know today evolved from small, one-room, private dwellings that served merchants as early as 500 B.C. From this modest beginning, the hotel industry has come to play a vital role in the development of trade, commerce, and travel throughout the world. Due to its vital role in business, reservation service of hotel rooms has also been very important for merchants, traders and other kinds of guests.
In the past, we used to going personally to the hotel reception desk or making a call to the hotel or travel agency to make reservation. It is considered more time-consuming and costly. Sometimes, the receptionists may fail to pick up the phone or make mistakes while recording the details of customer’s reservation. The customers will end up lose confidence in the hotel. Moreover, making long distance call leads to additional costs for both parties.
Today, the room reservation system is changed and we can simply book the room as long as we are able to connect to the Internet regardless of the location and the hotel’s operation hours. We can just go to the hotel website and click on the hotel, date, and the rooms needed according to our personal preference. It just takes a few minutes to make reservation. Customers also can review options from available hotels, rooms and rates. Besides, it creates convenience for the customers to cancel the reservation. However, this may cause losses from the hotel’s point of view.
Advantages
Info-communication technologies were used in the hotel industry from the late seventies in the form of Computerized Reservation systems and Global Distribution systems. Reserving hotel rooms online is more effective and efficient than it used to be in the past time. The new technologies allow us to connect to all over the world. It is more convenient for every kind of guests who live in different places of the world. We can reserve the hotel room of any country at anytime and anywhere. For example, zuji.com provides 63000 hotels around the world such as Australia, Korea, Hong Kong, India etc.
The internet allowed hotels to develop their own websites and to display straight and clear information and photos of amenities and locations, as well as to facilitate online bookings. Further with greater adoption of e-commerce, the hotels are increasingly becoming independent of the conventional channels of distribution like travel wholesalers and tour operators. For example, in hotels.com, we will see many advertisements, top destination lists of seasonal period and last minute offers on the home page. It allows the information about hotels to be made available to a global audience and also allows us to get the information of the hotel efficiently before making reservation. In zuji.com it has posted the top selling hotel and the price for each hotel room. The customers can quickly compare the prices and facilities of different hotels and select their desired hotel and then just click on it to make reservation.
The official site also provides function of easy e-newsletter sign up. Whenever the information is updated, customers can get the information immediately through e-mail. It helps hotels to manage relationships with their most important customers.
Besides, ICT has made the payment easier. Customers can simply make the payment by using their credit card. Customers are just required to enter the type, number and the expiry date of the credit card. After that, the system will record the data and complete the transaction process. With this, the customers don’t have to carry wads of cash to the hotel especially in those high crime rate countries which is not very safe to carry cash.
The online hotel reservation system allows customer to give some feedback. The customers can comment on the page, rate the page, and make some recommendation to the page. Then the suggestions will be collected and then some improvements will be made to make the pages more attractive.
Conclusion
Although information systems have provided enormous benefits and efficiencies, they have also created new ethical and social problems and challenges, such as threats to individual privacy and intellectual property rights, computer-related health problems, computer crimes, and elimination of jobs. As Information systems are so essential to business, government, and daily life, organizations must take special steps to ensure their security, accuracy and reliability.
The companies have to ensure that they do indeed obtain meaningful returns on the money they spend on ICT. The cost of setting up an internet based business is a major limitation that new companies will have to face and overcome if they do decide to adopt this approach. One of the main set up costs is the installation of hardware components for accessing the internet and also encryption software set-up, which is vital for security to protect online transactions. However, it is important to invest in information systems as it can produce value for organization by meeting new business and technology challenges.
There is no denying that Info-communication technologies (ICT) have brought about improvements and benefits in the day to day operation of business and have become the essential part of our daily operations in most areas such as sending emails to our friends, ordering and buying products online, booking an air-ticket etc. As ICT plays in the main role of today’s societies, the world has become a networked society by influencing of millions of e-enterprises.
