The purpose of this paper is to examine and provide insights into one of the most influential technologies impacting the tourism and hospitality industry over the next five years, i.e. big data and analytics. It reflects on both opportunities and risks that such technological advances create for both consumers and tourism organisations, highlighting the importance of data governance and processes for effective and ethical data management in both tourism and hospitality

This paper identifies and examines key opportunities and risks posed by the rising technological trend of big data and analytics in tourism and hospitality. While big data is generally regarded as beneficial to tourism and hospitality organisations, there are extensively held ethical, privacy and security concerns about it. Therefore, the paper is making the case for more research on data governance and data ethics in tourism and hospitality and posits that to successfully use data for competitive advantage, tourism and hospitality organisations need to solely expand compliance-based data governance frameworks to frameworks that include more effective privacy and ethics data solutions.

Technology (and its rapid development) is one of the key megatrends and driving forces that are seen to shape the future of tourism (Yeoman, 2012, 2018; Yeoman and McMahon-Beattie, 2018) via changes that will impact the way tourism and hospitality providers interact with travellers.

Digital marketing in tourism has always been an important factor, just like in hospitality, and is positioned in the epicenter of the user’s tourism experience. Both small and large companies in tourist destinations have to be aware of this and take advantage of the new opportunities that arise in the sector. Tourism and technology go hand-in-hand and we can’t understand one without the other.

Trends on social media set the path and companies are required to revise their marketing strategies so that they are present on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. The numbers don’t lie; there are 4.2 billion social media users around the world and they don’t use social media for just news, laughing at memes, or following celebrities. They are using social media to share opinions, choose travel destinations, and learn about brands. Social media tourism has an audience.

Social media allows us to connect with our audience on a much deeper level. You create not just brand awareness with your audience, but also an awareness and a real empathy between the user and the product: a strong bond that brings us loyal clients and creates new business opportunities thanks to mouth-to-mouth, which adds a great value.

Advances in IT have prompted the hospitality and tourism industries to move in a new direction, i.e. internet marketing or eMarketing (Leung et al., 2015)

On the other hand, from the customer perspective, tourism and hospitality are an information-intensive consumption experience because a customer might make considerable efforts to collect information and understand the image of a travel destination before making a purchase decision (Kim and Law, 2015). In this regard, search engines and social media are two of most fundamental information sources for making such decisions (Xiang and Gretzel, 2010). With their information-sharing capability, social media empower customers, granting them a “democratic consumption culture” by reducing information asymmetry and increasing their bargaining power (Leung et al., 2013). The pervasiveness and powerful computational capability of mobile technology make it possible for tourists to easily access information, book online services or even make impromptu purchases (Kim and Law, 2015). Apparently, the tourism and hospitality industries have been facing a revolution that has arisen largely because of IT turbulence (Piccoli, 2008).

Studies suggest that IT plays a prominent role in the tourism and hospitality industries, and it will be imperative, and indeed beneficial, for tourism and hospitality practitioners and scholars to keep abreast of all the advances in IT

Human knowledge, services and robotics applications were the most significant factors influencing automation and AI implementation. Practitioners and researchers in the hospitality and tourism industry could apply the proposed framework to develop sustainable strategies for implementing and managing automation and AI. The proposed framework may also be useful in future studies examining AI implementation in the hospitality and tourism industry.

Smart technologies like automation and artificial intelligence (AI) have become important elements of hospitality and tourism

Hospitality and tourism firms use smart technology to dynamically enhance consumer experience (Buhalis and Sinarta, 2019). Smart hospitality and tourism have provided opportunities for firms to enhance their operations and productivity, resulting in higher quality products and better processes for delivering services to customer

In today's visual and digital world, more and more restaurants are looking for ways to make their offering more attractive and respond to the changing expectations of their customers.

In Clock POS, you can see for which tables there are eMenus activated. If you are already using tablets as order-taking devices, you sure know that you can also offer your guests to sign their bill digitally on the tablet and have it transferred to their hotel room or company folio. To close the bill, the waiter can just take the tablet, sign in to the standard operation mode and proceed with any bill splits and payment transactions.

First of all, it is the way you present your menu

Each hour without an internet connection, a small or medium-sized business could lose between $8,580 to $74,000.

For most businesses, losing internet connection is like losing electricity

Businesses get internet redundancy by installing a secondary connection that runs on a different backbone than their primary connection

As service paradigm and customer expectations shift from conventional customized and personalized services towards a digitalized service environment, such customer orientation may favor using service robots at scales that could render service employees redundant.

Beyond digitalization, other service concepts, such as contactless services with highly reduced human interaction, are becoming more prioritized by hoteliers and consumers

The notable exception, Ivanov et al. (2018) denoted that employees might resist working with the service robot as they might see them as a threat, while Lu et al. (2019) believed that collaborating with a service robot can have adverse effects like frustration, discomfort, and confusion for service employees.