The tourism industry is very dynamic, and tourism businesses have witnessed drastic change in their operations since the inception and growth of technology. Mobile technology is one of the emerging segments that is facilitating tourism businesses on a large scale. It saves time, effort, money, and also provides ease, convenience, and comfort. Mobile technology has enhanced tourism business operations and helps the tourism businesses in guided tours, navigation, reservation, payment, information search, content creation, product development, getting feedback, digital marketing, etc. Mobile technology has also facilitated tourists for different purposes. It has made travelling convenient, easy, and safe for tourists. Adoption of mobile technology is bound to grow in the future for tourism businesses as well as for more tourists. The present study investigates the role of mobile technology for tourists and for various tourism-related business organizations. With the help of review of literature, the study aims to highlight its importance.
TopIntroduction
The advent and large-scale use of the internet has made the world globalized in real sense. And the smartphones with internet have brought revolution in all the area, be it education, business, personal use or for anything else as well. According to some recent studies, approximately half of the world population has access to internet and smart phones. India is one of the top users of smart phones with every part of the country has now good internet connectivity and affordability of its usage. With the efforts of government, competition among service providers & mobile manufacturers the mobile user base has drastically increased in recent times across all geographical and economic groups (Tenhunen, 2008). Mobile technology has three main elements which are software, hardware & internet.
As the current era is led by the technology, it has penetrated in all areas of human involvement and participation. Within the domain of technology, mobile technology has seen tremendous growth because of applicability, affordability, mobility & connectivity. The technology also gets transformed implying the potential changes based on how users interact with the technology and use it (Tussyadiah, 2015). Mobile technology has changed our sensing of individuality, our interactions with all other people & organizations, mobility, and participation in business and other areas (Cowley, 2010). Smartphones or mobiles are playing very important role in our day-to-day life and has become a part of it. We perform many operations with the help of these mobile phones, and they have made our lives much more easier and simpler.
Adoption and applicability of mobile technology has become one of the most widely undertaken subjects for many researchers (Law, Chan & Wang, 2018). As a result of these widely undertaken research, mobile technology has achieved tremendous growth and development. Different forms of business organizations including tourism have adopted mobile technology to accrue its multifarious benefits. The use of mobile devices in travel context is significantly correlated with the use of mobile technology in in daily lives (Wang, Park & Fesenmaier, 2016). As tourists are by nature mobile, they need mobile technology in order do away with time and space constraints (Nunes & Mayer, 2014). Mobile technology has immense potential in tourism because of mobile nature of the tourists and the need of the tourists related to stay connected virtually, seeking travel information, entertainment, and other fulfilment of their needs (Dickinson, Hibbert & Filimonau, 2016).
For tourism activities, tourists require many kinds of information for various purposes. Mobile technology gives tourists the access to real time information anytime and anywhere according to their convenience and helps in their learning (Martin & Ertzberger, 2013). The tourism information system characteristics include – internal search, mobile search, advanced collaboration, search via editorial communications etc. (Ho, Lin, Yuan & Chen, 2016).
Lee and Mills (2010) have highlighted the important role of mobile technology in tourism as -
“By perfectly meeting customers’ information needs about products and services prior to purchase, the tourism industry is benefiting from mobile technology in satisfying customer expectations, in improving convenience, and in decreasing costs” (p.94).