What is ICT?
It can be difficult to find a universally accepted definition of ICT, because the applications and technology involved constantly change. But ICT is essentially concerned with the storage, retrieval, manipulation, transmission or receipt of digital data. Importantly, it is also concerned with the way these different uses can work with each other.
It can be difficult to find a universally accepted definition of ICT, because the applications and technology involved constantly change. But ICT is essentially concerned with the storage, retrieval, manipulation, transmission or receipt of digital data. Importantly, it is also concerned with the way these different uses can work with each other.
The use of ICT has grown rapidly in the last decade, and ICT has become an integral part of many people’s lives. It changes individual’s lifestyle and also the way business operates. Smart phones, internet work spaces and video conferencing made work and living much easier and efficient. ICT has become a very important platform for the businesses in the service industry in improving their understanding and communication with customers. One such example is the hotel industry whereby it plays an important role in the way hotel industry operates and communicates with its customers.
In the past
Before ICT came into our lives, booking of travelling services and hotel room has to be made through travelling agencies. Individuals have to be physically present at the travelling agency or the hotel in order to make reservations for rooms. Alternatively, room reservations can be made by calling a toll-free number of the hotel. This is applicable provided that the number of the hotel is available to customers. In addition, the management of the hotel has to arrange for service staff to handle the booking made by phone. In other words, more manpower is required.
Promotions and marketing efforts of a particular hotel is also less efficient. This is done either through travel agencies or by advertising in overseas country. This however, may incur high advertising cost and is restricted to audiences with the geographical area. Advertising in one country may limit the effect of advertisement within only that country.
As hotels provide many standard services, all of these which have to be documented by paper. All activities have to be pen down. From reservations, check-in, ordering to check-out and payments. Searching for customer’s relevant information from this large capacity of records may be time consuming.
In present times
With ICT, consumers nowadays can make hotel room reservation in the comfort of their own homes, offices, or even on-the-go as long as they have access to the internet. This can be done either via an online travel portal or directly via the hotel’s website.
An online travel portal offers consumers a wider selection of accommodation and more information of hotels than through a traditional travel agency. It also enables them to compare prices and facilities of different hotels with ease.
A typical online travel portal enables users to input specific data such as country, duration of stay, no. of persons and rooms then hotels which meets the specificity will be displayed with their general information, the results can even be sorted based on pricing, rating, best sellers etc. Users can then select and view more in depth information on the hotels. For example, hotels.com not only provides description of hotel accommodations but also images of the hotel rooms, map of the hotel and reviews and rating of guests. This enables consumers to book specific rooms according to his/her aspirations. In addition, reservations can be made anytime 24/7 and customers have ease in making changes to bookings (e.g. change of check-in and check-out dates, additional rooms requests etc.)
Making hotel room reservation via an online travel portal is also cheaper than via a travel agency as it bypasses some of the unnecessary points along the distribution channels. And also due to the volume that online travel portal generate, they are able to obtain close to "wholesaler rates" for majority of the properties in their database. These savings are passed onto customers who use their services.
Less paperwork are also required when consumers book hotel rooms online, with associated reductions in tasks such as filing and photocopying as processes are now mostly automated and information are stored in a database system. This reduces the amount of manpower required and so saves operating cost that can be transferred to other usage. It also increases the speed of processing information and thus directly increases the customers’ satisfaction with the hotel’s service.
Making hotel reservations online enables customers to get instant confirmation for their booking requirements, by "plugging" into a real-time property engine which in turns plug into the global hotel rooms distribution system, which shows them instantly what room types are available at what price for the dates they have chosen.
ICT has also enable hotels to get closer and better understand the needs and expectations of their customers. It is important that they get access to customers’ feedback in order to improve their service standard. Customers can now easily provide feedbacks or comments on online travel portals to express their experiences, whether good or bad, in reserving a room of a particular hotel. They can also e-mail directly to the hotel management to give suggestions to improve room reservation processes or other services. At the same time, hotel management is able to quickly respond to the customers and thus drawing the relationship between management and customer closer. As the name info-communication technology suggests, communication has been made more efficient as compared to the past.
Problems arising from ICT
Other than the mentioned advantages, ICT also brings about certain problems that both customers and business have to look into. The most obvious and serious problem is the issue of security. While making payments or reservations of hotel services, individuals have to provide their personal particulars or other private data in which the business should kept private from unauthorized personnel. This post a challenge to business to ensure their security system is strong enough such that publics are unable to tap on these information.
As technology advances, working becomes more efficient. On the other hand, it may also cause some social problems such as inflicting more stress to employees of the hotel industry. With smart phones and internet excess almost everywhere, employees may have to be on call 24/7. Derek McCann, director of rooms at Gaylord Opryland Hotel & Convention Center admitted that he is suffering from the problem of constantly e-mailing, texting, calling and surfing the Web on his wireless communication device as he has to be constantly updated about happenings in his workplace.
Also, there is a need for expertise to implement and maintain the systems in the hotel to ensure smooth operations. This may therefore incur cost. However, ICT brings so much convenience and efficiency to the hotel operations that the benefits outweigh the cost. Thus, ICT is widely used not only in the hotel industry but other industries as well.
Conclusion
ICT bring about opportunities for automating customer transactions, internal business processes, as well as business collaborations with associate companies or alliance members for both B2C and B2B e-commerce activities. Time, distance, places between businesses & people in different countries are no more major problems. There is greater flexibility in making room reservation or cancelling one.
In general, ICT have brought so much convenience to both consumers and business that both party has now become truly dependent on it. As ICT enable hotel businesses to achieve long term competitive advantages and efficiency gains, members of the hotel industry should develop strategies on how they will embrace technology in the near future to re-engineer their business to an advantageous position.
References
http://www.hotels.com
