DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES IN TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY: EMERGING TRENDS AND INDUSTRY APPLICATIONS
Keywords:
digital transformation, tourism and hospitality, emerging technologies, Smart TourismAbstract
This article reviews the role of digital technologies in transforming tourism and hospitality, with particular attention to emerging technological trends, major industry applications, strategic benefits, and critical challenges. It seeks to provide an integrated understanding of how digital transformation is reshaping service systems, organisational practices, and destination management in the sector. The article adopts a review-based approach to synthesise key academic discussions on digital transformation in tourism and hospitality. The analysis is organised around conceptual foundations, emerging digital technologies, operational applications, strategic benefits, critical concerns, and future research directions. The review shows that technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data analytics, the Internet of Things, robotics, automation, virtual and augmented reality, blockchain, and smart platforms are increasingly embedded across tourism and hospitality operations. These technologies improve service quality, personalisation, convenience, operational efficiency, competitiveness, resilience, and sustainability. At the same time, digital transformation raises important concerns related to privacy, cybersecurity, data governance, ethics, workforce disruption, capability gaps, and implementation complexity. The findings suggest that digital transformation should be understood as a multidimensional and ecosystem-level process rather than a simple matter of technology adoption. The article contributes by offering an integrated review of digital transformation in tourism and hospitality, linking technologies, applications, opportunities, and risks within a single conceptual discussion. It also highlights future research directions for understanding the long-term implications of increasingly intelligent and interconnected tourism systems.
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