TITLE:
Challenges and Trends of Digital Innovation in the Tourism Sector: Contemporary Literature Review
AUTHORS:
Gkilias Thomas
KEYWORDS:
Digital Innovation, Tourism Sector, Literature Review
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Business and Management,
Vol.12 No.1,
January
19,
2024
ABSTRACT: The purpose of the paper is the examination and
presentation of the various challenges and perspectives of the implementation
of Digital Innovation in the Tourism Sector, following the global pandemic
crisis of the COVID-19. A contemporary literature review of different research
papers published the period 2019-2023 has been made, focusing on the particular
topic in the tourism sector worldwide. The
paper presents the core current and future trends of the Digital Innovation and provides discussion over
the key problems/obstacles of the implementation of Digital Innovation tools in
Hotels. In general, the new needs and requirements that have been created for
the tourist product, have made it necessary to adopt and implement
digital innovations, something that is considered to play a decisive role in
further strengthening and development of the tourism sector. The literature
review shows that there is a big gap between Large Hotels (above 4* stars) and
Small Hotels (below 3* stars) towards the adoption
of digital innovation. Factors such as high cost of the investment, seasonality
of tourism product, lack of specialized staff, company culture, high taxation and the need for immediate results from businessmen
greatly affect the desire to invest on the implementation of Digital Innovation tools/services. Nevertheless,
companies operating in the Tourism sector should reconsider their strategy as
the adoption of Digital Innovation can significantly improve their
competitiveness, strengthen their corporate brand, provide now competitive
offerings, attract more customers as well as foreign investment.