Bevil Wood­ing

A tec­ton­ic shift is tak­ing place in the glob­al tourism sec­tor. It is be­ing trig­gered by ad­vances in in­for­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tions tech­nol­o­gy that are chang­ing con­sumer ex­pec­ta­tions, in­dus­try op­er­a­tions, man­age­ment, prod­ucts and pro­mo­tion. For tourism de­pen­dent re­gions like the Caribbean, tech­nol­o­gy is open­ing ac­cess to new mar­kets and cre­at­ing ex­cit­ing new op­por­tu­ni­ties. How­ev­er, for mar­kets un­able or un­will­ing to adapt, the chang­ing land­scape may sig­nal their demise.

High Stakes, High Re­wards

Tourism is big busi­ness glob­al­ly. Ac­cord­ing to the UN World Tourism Or­ga­ni­za­tion (UNWTO), "in­ter­na­tion­al tourism ac­count­ed for 9 per­cent of glob­al GDP (di­rect, in­di­rect and in­duced im­pact), one in every 12 jobs, and six per­cent of world trade."

Tourism is the largest con­trib­u­tor to eco­nom­ic growth in the Caribbean con­tribut­ing an av­er­age of 14.7 per­cent to all of the Caribbean GDP in 2011. How­ev­er, in Caribbean coun­tries that are tourism de­pen­dent this fig­ure ris­es to as much as 74.2 per­cent of GDP. To put these fig­ures in con­text, Caribbean Tourism Or­ga­ni­za­tion (CTO) de­scribes the Caribbean as the most tourism de­pen­dent re­gion in the world.

Rise of the Con­nect­ed Tourist

Tech­nol­o­gy is be­ing in­creas­ing­ly used in the tourism sec­tor to dis­tin­guish play­ers in an in­creas­ing­ly crowd­ed glob­al mar­ket. The De­cem­ber 2012 ITB World Trav­el Trends Re­port pre­dicts, "con­sumers will de­mand more in­di­vid­ual and au­then­tic trav­el ex­pe­ri­ences in fu­ture and will re­ly more than ever on tech­nol­o­gy to plan and en­joy their trips."

This rad­i­cal changes tak­ing place in the glob­al tourism sec­tor has a di­rect bear­ing on Caribbean economies. A new, con­nect­ed tourist is emerg­ing, pack­ing a pletho­ra of gad­gets, blur­ring tra­di­tion­al lines be­tween busi­ness and leisure trav­el. Trav­el­ers are in­creas­ing­ly ex­pect­ing to find at their des­ti­na­tion at least the same tech­nol­o­gy-en­abled con­ve­niences they have at home.

From on­line book­ing to in-room con­ve­niences, busi­ness and leisure tourists alike are de­mand­ing more for their trav­el dol­lars. Ser­vice providers, from trav­el agents to tour op­er­a­tors and hote­liers, are in­creas­ing their fo­cus on how tech­nol­o­gy can best be used to cater to trav­el­ers' needs. Des­ti­na­tions, big-brand ho­tel chains and bou­tique prop­er­ties alike have to adapt to cater to this new re­al­i­ty.

In­vest­ment Re­quired

Ef­fec­tive tech­nol­o­gy-en­abled tourism re­quires in­vest­ment in plant, sys­tems, re-en­gi­neered process­es and, of course, in peo­ple. Much greater ef­fort and in­vest­ment al­so has to be di­rect­ed to da­ta gath­er­ing, re­search and da­ta shar­ing. Prim­i­tive meth­ods of pa­per-based sur­vey­ing and re­port­ing have to be sup­ple­ment­ed with more mod­ern In­ter­net-en­abled dig­i­tal ap­proach­es.

In a world where the trav­el­ers' needs and source mar­kets are con­stant­ly chang­ing, in­vest­ing in re­search is vi­tal. Time­ly ac­cess to up-to-date in­for­ma­tion al­lows in­vestors, pol­i­cy­mak­ers to track trends and make more in­formed de­ci­sions about ser­vices, prod­uct de­vel­op­ment and mar­ket­ing.

But up­grad­ing an in­dus­try to match pace with the tech­nol­o­gy de­vel­op­ments is no easy propo­si­tion. Up­grad­ing im­mi­gra­tion pro­cess­ing sys­tems, ren­o­vat­ing prop­er­ties, procur­ing soft­ware and train­ing staff does not come cheap­ly. How­ev­er, the cost of not do­ing so may be even steep­er.

In a world with many op­tions for sun, sea and sand tourism, the Caribbean's slow­ness to up­grade in­fra­struc­ture and build a ro­bust na­tion­al and re­gion­al tech­nol­o­gy ecosys­tem, com­pro­mis­es its ca­pac­i­ty to evolve its tourism prod­uct. These, by ex­ten­sion, can all have a dis­as­trous spill-over ef­fect on economies through­out the re­gion.

The time is ripe to de­sign, de­vel­op, dis­trib­ute and sup­port Caribbean tourism tech­nol­o­gy prod­ucts and ser­vices that meet both lo­cal and glob­al needs. The sheer size of the glob­al mar­ket means there is room to de­vel­op new, more ef­fec­tive tech­nol­o­gy to em­pow­er con­sumers to lo­cate, cus­tomize and pur­chase tourism prod­ucts.

In small frag­ile mar­kets like the Caribbean, work­ing to­geth­er pro­vides the best op­por­tu­ni­ty for suc­cess. In­di­vid­ual coun­tries can at­tempt go it alone or to im­port so­lu­tions. Al­ter­na­tive­ly, the re­gion can seize the op­por­tu­ni­ty to demon­strate to the world that our nat­ur­al tal­ent and cre­ativ­i­ty can be chan­neled in­to cre­at­ing so­lu­tions most rel­e­vant to our con­text.

Op­por­tu­ni­ties abound. Col­lab­o­ra­tive ap­proach­es be­tween the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors to in­vest­ing in the re­gion­al tal­ent pool to build tech­nol­o­gy plat­forms tai­lored to lo­cal mar­kets and economies of scale. Done right, build­ing in­dige­nous tech­ni­cal ca­pac­i­ty to sup­port the re­gion's tourism sec­tor, can si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly sup­port de­vel­op­ment of re­gion's tech­nol­o­gy sec­tor.

The glob­al tourism in­dus­try will on­ly con­tin­ue to be shaped by tech­nol­o­gy in­no­va­tions. A tech-hun­gry-guest to­day, will sim­ply be a guest in the fu­ture. For tourist de­pen­dent re­gions like the Caribbean the choice is sim­ple - adopt new ap­proach­es or fade in­to ir­rel­e­vance. The trend lines are clear; we must pre­pare for that fu­ture now.

Bevil Wood­ing is the Chief Knowl­edge Of­fi­cer at Con­gress WBN and an In­ter­net Strate­gist with Pack­et Clear­ing House. Fol­low on Twit­ter: @bevil­wood­ing or: face­book.com/bevil­wood­ing or con­tact via email at­tech­nol­o­gy­mat­ters@bright­path­foun­da­tion.org