Essay Sample on Hospitality Industry Transforms to Meet Digital Age

Introducton

Across-the-board, transformation is disrupting the hospitality sector. The way clients buy and consume hospitality services is changing significantly, as the hotel industry transforms its offerings, infrastructure, and services to meet the needs of the digital age. While the most successful hotels like Accor, Starwood, Marriot, Hilton, and InterCon Hotels know how to nurture customers' dreams, the stakes have grown higher as digital convenience and options continue to evolve along with mainstream customer expectations.

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Since its establishment in 1967, Accor has been struggling with few challenges brought about by digital disruption (Dubois, Chae, Niessing, & Wee, 2016). For example, the disruptions have fostered the emergence of digital intermediaries like online travel agents such as Bookings.com and TripAdvisor that have encroached on its traditional territory, grabbing a significant percentage of the hotel and industry's revenue. In addition, the disruptions have led to the accumulation of content that increasingly influence customers' travel planning and purchasing behavior. Undeniably, the inspiration that will help AccorHotels convert views into purchases will encompass a mix of experiences that appeal to customers by blending technologies that enable hyper-personalization (Dubois et al., 2016).

Notably, success in responding to such digital disruptions lies in openness to change (Kansakar, Munir & Shabani, 2019). Therefore, as the Senior Executive at AccorHotels, I would recognize that one of the key changes for the hotels is consumer empowerment. According to Popescu, Nicolae and Pavel (2015), customers' access to information concerning prices, destination choices, sharing experience with the global audience, and the possibility of alternative styles of accommodation has become progressively fluid, blindsiding AccorHotels. Hence, to help AccorHotels digitalize the service platform to benefit the guests. In particular, I would introduce smart devices and IoT within the hotel to migrate customer interactions towards on-screen and online interfaces through guest-facing systems (Solis, Li, & Szymanski, 2014). I would ensure that these systems avail easy to use interfaces for customers to manage their travel experience. Notably, they would be integrated into all the phases of the guest cycle from dreaming to travel to a location, making a booking, experience the place, and post-stay activities. For instance, I would incorporate services such as keyless entry services, automatic check-in, and checkout services, control of in-room services, and location-based technology to offer on- and off-property customer services like digitally guided tours and recommendations for entertainment and dining options (Kansakar, Munir, & Shabani, 2019).

I would also develop and integrate digital technologies and digital intelligence to help the hotel identify the diverse forms of content that exist online. In addition, they would help AccorHotels understand the relevance of content and how each creates or destroy value at the different stages of the customer experience at the hotels. Such technologies would include integrating social media listening (SML) and adopting Information Technology (IT) applications that alert the company to relevant public conversations on social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook or Instagram (Buhalis et al., 2019). These would help AccorHotels become more customer-centric since it would have the ability to follow its clients along each step of their experience in the hotel.

Similarly, I would create a digital content manager's role within the hotel to manage and monitor content. This role would be integrated within the IT department and he or she would report to the IT Manager. In particular, the roles of the digital content manager would include collecting and sharing insights widely within the hotel's internal departments and to develop a system to integrate e-reputation into the motivation schemes to raise collaborators' accountability (Markham-Bagnera, 2016). In addition, the digital content manager would be in charge of Accor's online presence to ensure that the hotel places content at the heart of its strategies. Moreover, the online standing of an entity directly correlates to its revenue stream (Burleson, 2016).

According to Garcia, Alvarez Tabio, Bonnet, and Buvat (2018), the key response to digital disruption is to innovate business models continuously. Adapting AccorHotels to the digital era means adopting social media as a way of business and life. Jucan, Jucan, and Rotariu (2013) argue that companies have to make their way into the future by incorporating new means of working that social media represents deeply into the key functions of their business. Therefore, AccorHotels would need to remodel the cultural, operational and technological aspects of its organizational design to maximize the value created through digital and social media (Benea, 2014). In particular, various social business techniques it would need to incorporate include social media marketing, community-powered workforces, workforce engagement, social customer relationship management, and customer communities, social business ecosystems, and social business supporting capabilities.

For AccorHotels, I would recommend it to adopt a coordinated social organizational model (Benea, 2014). Under this model, various rules, policies, and practices to guide social activities are set and spread within the company. Although this model needs a lot of time to create, it manages to develop an umbrella of best practices and guidelines. Notwithstanding, I would incorporate a social media center to act as a governing body responsible for creating governance models, facilitating best practice sharing, training, and creating AccorHotels' brand strategy for social media. In summary, in the face of digital disruption, it is crucial for AccorHotels to change its organizational design to enable it to embrace the ability to create value and satisfaction for its new digital customers.

References

Benea, I. A. (2014). Influences of social media on the tourism and hospitality industry. Modul Vienna University, Vienna.

Buhalis, D., Harwood, T., Bogicevic, V., Viglia, G., Beldona, S., & Hofhacker, C. (2019). Technological disruptions in Services: lessons from Tourism and Hospitality.

Burleson, J. E. (2016). Organization-stakeholder interaction through social media: A tri-level investigation, categorization, and research agenda.

Dubois, D., Chae, I., Niessing, J., & Wee, J. (2016). AccorHotels and digital transformation: Enriching experiences through content strategies along the customer journey.

Garcia, C., Alvarez Tabio, F., Bonnet, D., & Buvat, J. (2018). Strategies for the age of digital disruption. Digital transformation review. Cap Gemini Consulting. https://www. capgemini. com/consulting/resources/digital-transformation-review-7-strategies-for-the-ageof-digital-disruption. Accessed, 26.

Jucan, M., Jucan, C., & Rotariu, I. (2013). "The Social Destination ": How Social Media Influences the Organizational Structure and Leadership of DMOs,". World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology, 78, 1426-1432.

Kansakar, P., Munir, A., & Shabani, N. (2019). Technology in the Hospitality Industry: Prospects and Challenges. IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine, 8(3), 60-65.

Markham-Bagnera, S. D. (2016). An examination of online ratings on hotel performance indicators: An analysis of the Boston hotel market.

Popescu, M. A., Nicolae, F. V., & Pavel, M. I. (2015). Tourism and hospitality industry in the digital era: General overview. In Proceedings of the INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENT CONFERENCE (Vol. 9, No. 1, pp. 163-168). Faculty of Management, Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania.

Solis, B., Li, C., & Szymanski, J. (2014). The 2014 state of digital transformation. Altimeter Group.