Social media has changed how businesses interact with consumers and it has become almost essential for companies to use social media to remain competitive with other companies. There are advantages for this including "humanizing" companies and almost tricking the customer into perceiving the interaction as friendship rather than a company wanting to just sell you something. This is evident with certain companies like Wendy's or other fast food engaging in banter on twitter or sharing memes. Companies also use promotions on their social media and offer discounts and reward their customers by linking or tagging the businesses on their account. And as more people share their life, they are more likely to write free reviews on their accounts either to help their friends or because they feel an inflated sense of importance. Customer service can also sometimes be conducted on socials which provides a personal touch and it behooves them to "set it right" because it is public, garnering trust from current or prospective customers.

Hospitality's evolving technological and digital environments allow for a plethora of opportunities: AI, AR, robotics especially. This enables meeting increased and everchanging guest preferences and allow businesses to collect more data in a more meaningful way as technology advances. There is great need to introduce new technological platforms to have an edge and allow for better decision making and productivity.

Enables a business to fully customize services to meet their hotel's specific needs

Not only benefit to back-end operations, customers benefit from quicker turn around for requests and issues. eliminating the "middle man"

ex: allows scalable change in services for when one hotel is updated before another hotel under the same cloud/not having to update a service for all locations that don't need it

By 2021, 3.8 billion people will use a smart phone, 50% of them will use their smart phones to book and plan their travels, making users want changes in technology in hospitality and travel. Consumers want to be able to have accommodations that can match their own technology. As smart phones become more prevalent, reliance and trustworthiness is growing as evidenced by the increased tasks we use them for such as banking. Smart phones are reducing expenditure and enhancing experiences and saving time for travelers by allowing them better preparation for their trip. Smart phones also aide in safety and security, allowing the user to find their way around affectively with the GPS as well as booking rides. The tourism sector is embracing this and offering mobile check in's and mobile key's for electronic access. Some hotels even offer guests to control heating, lighting, room service and other in room technology via an app on their smart phone. We are also seeing increased interaction with customers via chat or text.