Hot Topics in Travel Digital Transformation: A Swiss Perspective

Abstract

AbstractThe advance of technologies has profoundly changed customers’ expectation and behaviors, as well as companies’ business processes and business models. Given the critical importance of digital transformation, surprisingly, there is scarce research documenting and sharing the knowledge, experience, and insights from digital transformation practitioners, especially in the tourism domain. This research aims to understand the perspectives and actions of Swiss tourism stakeholders in pursuing the digital transformation process. The research data was collected through interviews with tourism stakeholders. The interviews were analyzed through both theme identification and human synthesis. The findings are tourism stakeholders conduct digital transformation for better customer experiences, operation efficiency and profitability, and data collection for better management. Digital transformation needs technology as the tool and data as input and output while keeping in mind that all decisions should be customer-centric. The challenges include data ownership, various data formats, data analysis, and data sharing. Yet, stakeholders are optimistic about the future of digital transformation and willing to collaborate. Both technology and the right digital mindset are required to succeed in digital transformation. Technology can be used to save employees from repetitive tasks and focus on human interactions to create customer-centric experiences. Nevertheless, technology should never replace the human aspect of hospitality.