IFITT@EyeForTravel, EVENT REPORT: Technology and social media enabled service management in hospitality and tourism”
The International Federation for IT in Travel and Tourism (IFITT), one of the world’s leading
tourism and technology organisations, hosted at the EyeForTravel Distribution Summit in London
on 10th May 2011 a workshop about “Technology and social media enabled service management
in hospitality and tourism”. Moderated by IFITT president Prof. Dimitrios Buhalis (Bournemouth
University), representatives from leading travel and tourism organisations (KLM, VisitBritain,
Google, TripAdvisor, British Airways, Tnooz.com, BrandKarma) and academia (John Kent Institute
in Tourism – Bournemouth University) discussed how recent developments in real-time
technologies, social media, context based services and augmented reality impact customer
service management and marketing in the tourism industry.
Nicolas Gregori (John Kent Institute in Tourism) set the stage with a discussion on how real-time enabled social media can be used for designing services “on the spot”, pro-active personalisation of service offerings, identification of service complaints and subsequent recovery service failures. The presentation was followed by Don Birch (VP Europe, BrandKarma), who provided insights into the challenges of monitoring real-time opinions of consumers during the consumption of tourism products, and its potentials for tourism businesses. Nate Bucholz (Industry Manager, Google) discussed the various implications of real-time and social media enabled information tools and applications during the travel cycle. In the following, Anna Ketting (Social Media Manager, KLM) showed how adapting social media has helped the company to engage better with their customer, enhance service operations, learn from their customers and increase customer loyalty.
Justin Read (Head of Digital and Social Media) and Adriana Conte (Social Media Programme Manager) from VisitBritain provided interesting insights into how the organisation embraced mobile technology, social media and real-time information, through developing a location based service for tourists in UK. Helena Egan (Head of Destination Marketing Sales, TripAdvisor.com) showed how TripAdvisor enables tourists to use reviews on the go through the newly developed augmented reality application. Finally Zornitza Yovcheva (John Kent Institute in Tourism) discussed the current state of real-time enabled augmented reality applications for smartphones and their potential implications for tourism and hospitality. Subsequently Chris Carmichael (BA) and Kevin May (Chief Editor, Tnooz.com) joined the speakers for a lively panel discussion.
Throughout the presentations and the panel discussion some major themes, trends and developments in the area of real-time enabled social media emerged:
1. “I experience, I report…” (Don Birch, BrandKarma)
Social media information is becoming more dynamic. This means it is shifting from user generated content in forums and blogs, towards sharing live opinions about real-world events through dynamic channels such as micro-blogging, location-based-services (LBS) and status-updates in social networks. The rise of mobile Internet devices allows tourists to report travel impressions and opinions through social media ‘on the go’. Therefore sharing live opinions is becoming progressively part of the tourist experiences. Social media monitoring provides a great tool for tourism and hospitality businesses to identify conversations about their brand in almost real-time. Especially LBS can help to link comments on social media to specific companies and services.
2. “The Service of Now” (Nicolas Gregori and Prof. Dimitrios Buhalis, John Kent Institute in Tourism)
The possibility to obtain opinions and feedback from consumers in near real-time offers vast opportunities for designing and delivering services that are flexible and agile towards the dynamically changing needs of today’s traveller. Retrieving immediate customer feedback through monitoring conversation by consumers about your brand at the point of consumption, opens up new opportunities for pro-active service recovery. Anna Ketting (KLM) stated that through monitoring Twitter and Facebook “we have lots of little feedback loops, on a daily basis.”
3. “The consumer leads the way” (Nate Bucholz, Google)
Companies engaged in real-time enabled social media for service management and tourism marketing have to ensure:
· support for a wide variety of social media channels and gadgets, as the consumer decides which channel is the most relevant to him/her
· flexibility and short-term planning in their social media strategies, as technology in this sector is developing at a fast pace
· relevancy of the disseminated content. Anna Ketting (KLM): “We ensure that every tweet and post is worth following us”
· alignment of social media engagement and service operations, as any gap between what is communicated to consumers and actual service delivery has negative impacts on tourists experiences.
4. “When we talk about social media and real-time, we talk about mobile” (Justin Reid and Adriana Conte, VisitBritain)
Social media in real-time takes place increasingly on mobile internet devices. Especially LBS and augmented reality applications bear great potential to enhance the consumption and experience of tourism products. As shown by Helena Egan (TripAdivsor) recommendations and reviews from social medial platforms become part of the real-time experience of tourists through applications such as the recently launched augmented reality enabled smartphone application by trip advisor. In this regard Zornitza Yovcheca (John Kent Institute in Tourism) explains that “Real-time information through augmented reality is not only provided when it is needed, but also exactlywhere it is needed, in fact in the immediate field of view of the user”.
Professor Buhalis said this seminar organised by IFITT with strong input from Bournemouth University demontrate cutting edge developments in eTourism which will shape the future of the industry through innovation.
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