Information and communication technologies
ICT has become a significant role of technology in the modern economy. It helps to improve organization’s operations efficiently and effectively. Now, organizations are well connected to other parts of the world with advanced communication tools. They can easily exchange information quickly at anytime through the internet to companies located at anywhere. It saves organization a lot of time as it speed up their information process which enables them to produce more goods and services. Time, distance and places between business and people in other countries no longer a problem.
In the early days where internet has not been introduce, consumer and provider had a difficult time to make hotel reservation to the other part of the world. The traditional way of making hotel reservation is inconvenient, costly and time consuming to consumer and provider. Although the whole process is tedious, consumer gained more trust and assurance as there are little fraud cases.
In the consumer point of view, they have to go through a middleman to do hotel reservation. They need to fork out time to make a trip down to the travel agencies personally for enquiries, cash payments where they have to go around with hefty amount of money and make booking of hotel in their destination in advance. Once the reservation is confirmed, it will be troublesome for them to do last minute cancellation or last minute booking by themselves. If they want to contact overseas hotel, they have to make expensive long distance calls. They can only get their desire vacation country’s information through old technology such as TVs, newspaper or radio, etc... And then go through travel agencies to make hotel reservation. They will not be able to compare prices or enjoy promotions given by other travel agencies as there are limited sources of information they can get. It had caused consumer much inconvenience in the past as they are inaccessible to hotel information and only simple telecommunication such as telephone. Through the call, providers may misinterpret their words and caused misunderstandings to the consumer.
In the provider point of view, they have to spend large amount of money to produce pamphlets or publish on newspaper about their hotel information on promotions, room rating and services provided by their hotel to different advertising tools around the world. In the past, television only shows local channels where other countries’ hotels are unable to put up their commercial. Thus, they are unable to attract many potential consumers to increase their business sales. They need to hire many staffs to be at the customer service counter to attend the guest one by one and additional staffs for guest check in counter which required more expenses on human resources. All the transactions will be done manually through lengthy paper works, long distance calls or physically presence process.
With the introduction of ICT, it makes job easier for both the consumer and provider. Hotel can now provide detail information through the internet to any of the designated website for the consumer, allowing consumer to get information any time and at any place they wish to. This eventually led to many advantages for both the consumer and the provider.
In the provider point of view, firstly, they get to save on expenses spend as they could greatly cut down on the hotel’s manpower as they do not need to have the great number of operator to be on standby 24/7 for any reservations or enquires. Secondly, they could also cut down on the number of miscommunication problem between the consumer and their employee. It is also a form of advertising for the hotel, allowing people from all over the world to know about your hotel and therefore, attracting more customers leading to more profit made.
In the consumer point of view, firstly, they could be able to search online for any information about hotels, flight, package tours, cars, etc. They would get to obtain any information they need regarding the hotel for example the service they had before making any booking or confirmation they could check for the ratings and compare the pricing before they make a decision.
Secondly, consumers no longer have to waste time and money to call or head down to the hotel to make any reservations. In this case they would be able to save quite an amount and time as they can do it online. This make things much more simple for them as no matter where they are or in any cases of emergency where they had to book the room last min, they can just go online and book their tickets or make a hotels reservation through internet anytime and anywhere they want. With the present online payment method by (MasterCard, Visa, PayPal), after confirmation and payment made, a confirmation letter would then be send to the consumer and the room is guaranteed.
Thirdly, booking on line enables consumer to enjoy promotions prices for the reservation of the hotel room. Example: New Majestic Hotel has this “early bird special” which says that anyone who books a room 3 weeks in advance get to enjoy a 10% discount after confirmation is made. This also applies to many other hotels, promotions vary accordingly.
As stated that there are advantages with the new system launched, there bound to have disadvantages with this system as well.
In terms of the provider point of view, firstly, the hotel would have to spend quite a sum of money to maintain and update the website regularly so as to provide the consumer with the most updated information. Secondly, provider reputation maybe affected as consumer could freely comment on any of the related website e.g.: the complain board about the services or any related issues online with no restrictions.
In terms of the consumer point of view, firstly, they are afraid of the risk they are taking by making payments through credit card as it may pose a risk of being misuse by unauthorized people. Secondly, consumers will then not be able to make any special request or any arrangement needed for them as they do not get to interact with relevant people in the hotel to check if those request are approved and made possible.
To wrap up this entire argument, we can see how great ICT impact on individuals and organizations. ICT has indeed bought convenience to both the consumer and the provider. It makes our lives more efficient and effective, as it save time and money which are the most important factors in life. Isn’t it a win-win situation for everyone?
This not only applies to the hotel industry but in every part of the world, almost everything could be found online instantly.
With the high technology we have now, it also proves how developed our society is now.
