TAGBILARAN CITY COLLEGE

College of Business and Industry

Tagbilaran City, Bohol

Course Code TPC5 Instructor Mary Grace P. Miel

Course Title Applied Business Tools E-mail mgmiel.tcc@gmail.com
and Technologies Address
Course Credits 3 units Contact 09507714963
Number
Course Tourism Professional Consultation
Classification Core Hours
Pre-requisite(s) TPC2 Consultation
Venue
Days Class
Schedule

LEARNING MODULE

Learning Module 4 : General Applications of Information Technology in the

Tourism and Hospitality Industry
Duration of Delivery :
Due Date of Deliverables :

MODULE 4
General Applications of Information Technology in the
Tourism and Hospitality Industry

Intended Learning Outcomes:

• Illustrate how IT plays a vital role in the tourism and hospitality business;
• Identify B2B and B2C transactions in the tourism and hospitality industry; and
• Compare and contrast how booking websites provide information to their customers.

Readings:

Introduction

We cannot deny the fact that information technology (IT) is the lifeblood of the tourism and
hospitality industry. As the lifeblood, this means it plays a very important role in the provision
of services to the end-users or clients. IT connects the customers, travel industry, hospitality
industry, and other suppliers. It became essential for the efficient and timely processing of
services offered to the customers.

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General Service Requirements

In today’s tourism and hospitality industry, it is important to note that service provision
drastically changes, and is continually evolving as years go by. Historically, information
technology is not a necessity in the tourism and hospitality industry. Today, IT plays a vital
role for the services to be delivered to the customers efficiently. In fact, adoption of the
information technology is rapidly increasing every year. It has transformed the tourism and
hospitality world into a global sector that can be navigated at the click of a mouse or the tap
of a finger. It provides potential tourists or customers with easy and immediate access to a
textual and visual representation of destinations wherever they are in the world. In just a few
seconds, potnetial customers can already see the place or attraction they wanted to visit.

The following figure illustrates the typical transactions or activities of tourism and hospitality
establishments where the need for IT is integral.

Restaurants Hotels Airlines Events

Table Reservation Room Sales Seat Sale Booking Management

Food Order Room Assignment Seat Assignment Supplier Management

Takeout/Dine-in Room Housekeeping Flight Management Budget Management

Cashiering/Billing Cashiering/Billing Ticket Issuance Sponsorship Management

Discount Processing Discount Processing Crew Scheduling Staff Management

Stocks Inventory Room Inventory Fare Quote Billing Management

Management Management

Accounting Accounting Accounting Accounting

Figure 1 Industry Activities Representation

The figure may not perfectly show what happens in an establishment but this represents how
complex the activities they do in their daily operations. As you can see, airlines for instance,
if there is no IT component in the way they do their transactions with the travelers, it would
be difficult for them to finalize all bookings from inquiry to ticket issuance. IT plays an
important role in making sure that the customer and the service provider are connected
efficiently so that the transaction is fast, reliable, and error-free. In the same manner, when
a restaurant has a lot of customers every day, they cannot afford to manually do the
transactions from the order taker to the kitchen and back to the service personnel to
communicate that an order has been taken and that these orders are now ready for serving.
IT solutions and technologies help in effective and efficient service provision to clients.

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Product and Service Marketing

Traditional marketing strategies may not be effective when targeting a large market share. As
the tourism and hospitality industry is generally composed of products and services not just
offered to the local people where these are situated, marketing them in a way that more
people can see and learn from what the destinations and establishments are offering is the
best thing to do. Company websites play a vital role in communicating the services a tourism
attraction offers. For instance, a traveler from Manila would find it convenient for him to
check on what Davao can offer through a website where the destinations, restaurants, and
other activities are marketed. With the use of mobile technologies such as cellular phones
and iPad, browsing websites ha become easier for travelers.

The competition also affects the way a product or service is marketed online. Therefore,
customers tend to check which establishments offer the best products and services at
reasonable prices.

With this, we can say that information technology plays a vital role in marketing tourism and
hospitality products and services.

Behavior and Performance Analysis

With the use of information technology, the behavior of potential produt buyers is observed
in the way they browse websites. For instance, when a customer is looking for hotel facilities
in Cebu, he will be given several links or ads leading to hospitality establishments in said city.
The potential customer then may be triggered to view the website and book a room. This
means that the interconnectivity of the industry suppliers with its customers is affected by
the use of information technology.

The establishment’s performance can also be checked against the competitors through the
use of information technology. The number of available rooms for instance can be identified
as booking websites will tell you that the hotel you are looking for is already fully booked or
not. Websites can count their daily visitors and can calculate the number of current viewers.

Regulatory Process

The use of IT applications is also observed in business regulatory compliances. Systems such
as the acconting software as accredited and approved by the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR)
are used in the business so that compliance to tax reporting is easy, fast, and efficient. Tools
used by a company to access other government-mandated compliances such as Social
Security System (SSS) employee contributions and PhilHealth are also necessary when
operating tourism or hosspitality-related business.

Business-to-Business/Business-to-Consumer Transactions

Business-to-business or B2B is a form of a business transaction involving either a

manufacturer and wholesaler or a wholesaler and a retailer. It is technically a transaction
done by establishments instead of between a company and a consumer. In other words, it is
the sale of products or services from one business to another. An example of B2B in the
tourism and hospitality setup is outsourcing hotel staff from a human resource company or
agency. Another example is the wholesale food purchasing for a restaurant to operate daily.

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This type of business transaction is important in the hopitality industry and usually involves
contracts and legal counsel in negotiating terms or prices.

Business-to-consumer or B2C is another transaction that pertains to a deal between a

business and a customer. It is the sale of products or services by a company to the target
individual customers or guests for a profit. In other words, the usual service and product
availment in the tourism and hospitality industry fall under this type of transaction.

Information technology has also become an integral tool in these kinds of business
transactions. With IT, the distribution of products and networking of business partners
becomes easy, efficient, fast, and hassle-free. IT allows an immediate means of accessing
knowledge on all kinds of travel, tourism, and hospitality-related information.

Other Uses of IT in Tourism and Hospitality

There are various uses of IT in the tourism and hospitality industry. Owners of establishments
should never overlook investing in IT tools to be able to compete with the rest. Technologies,
applications, tools, whatever they may call such, their importance is something that business
owners should implement in their business strategies.

The following are some other uses of IT in the tourism and hospitality industry:

• Managing destination resources

• Inventory of tourism and hospitality resources
• Managing sites and attraction
• Identifying suitable locations for tourist
• Managing tourist statistics
• Managing inventory
• Managing consumer behavior
• Managing establishment’s performance
• Marketing of products and services

Reference:

Rodolfa, B. Applied Business Tools and Technologies in Tourism and Hospitality. First Edition.
2022. Unlimited Books Library Services & Publishing Inc.