The Internet of Things in the Tourism Industry

What Is Internet Of Things?

In order to achieve the company's objectives, IoT technology uses smart devices. IoT is a network of physical devices and objects that are often related to both the Internet and each other (see Figure 1). This is a network that, as more devices come online, gets bigger and bigger every day. Thanks to sensors, they are linked, and they can gather and share information about how they are used and what is around them. IoT is expected to have a significant economic and social effect on a variety of different industries. Here, we discuss the effect of IoT on the industry and the travel market.

Figure 1.

IoT Architecture.

Source: Quora, 2019.

Many scholars have attempted over the years to describe the phenomena of IoT by extending the meanings of “Internet” and “things”, defining their features, ways of communicating and interacting. Debates take place and even suggestions are made against the use of the terms the “Internet”, and the “things” as a consequence of involving human factor's. Thus, the term ‘‘Internet of people” is proposed.

Rob van Kranenburg (2011) explores and systematizes the concept's various definitions. One of such concepts is offered by the Casagras EU project, which explains in detail that IoT is a global network infrastructure, linking physical infrastructure, linking physical networks through the exploitation of data collection and communication technologies and virtual objects. This technology involves current and emerging innovations in the Internet and network. It will include the ability to recognize unique objects, sensors, and links as the basis for the creation of autonomous cooperative services with their applications. These can be defined by a high degree of autonomy. McEwen (2014) gives the following equation a rather simple definition: physical object + controller, sensor and actuators + Internet = Internet of things where actuators are the outputs of “things” in the world.

All these concepts indicate that internet access like building decent internet infrastructure, inexpensive Internet, cheap internet access, are some of the fundamentals that create IoT somewhere in all areas of our lives. Thanks to IPv6, connecting and growing IP address space. This enables all the “things” on the world to be linked and addressed (TechTarget, n.d.). IoT has many benefits, like any other immersive technology, which gives new possibilities and generates a range of possibilities for the company and consumer applications. There are still several threads and questions that need to be discussed in order to be solved.

IoT is physical items’ network, computers, cars, structures, and other objects embedded in electronics, sensors, software, and network assets that enables information to be gathered and shared by these objects. The processing of large quantities of data can be enabled by IoT. However, any attempt to grasp all that information needs investment in the most appropriate and right technology and workforce to reach an actionable conclusion. Future IoT innovations can galvanize the tourism industry. IoT architecture varies from solution to solution, depending on the type of solution the users wish to create. In addition to visitors, IoT as a technology for the tourism industry consists of four key components over which architecture is framed. These are Sensors; Devices; Gateway, and Cloud.

IoT can make an enormous impact on businesses, the automation processes with no human-to-computer interaction or human-to-human interaction. Also, the ability to provide forward-thinking interconnection and collaboration between systems, devices, and services is focused on the sheer volume of adoption, IoT is expected to galvanize the tourism business.