Digital marketplace for tourism resilience in the pandemic age: voices from budget hotel customers

Abstract

Purpose This paper aims to examine the initiative of low-price hotels, budget hotels, in Malaysia, to restore the financial sustainability through empowering the digital marketplace strategy in the tourism resilience sector. Giving an open accessibility to customers for achieving their venue with a low price and have a friendly service comes from initiating the digital marketplace arrangement. Design/methodology/approach This study focuses on what is the importance of the digital marketplace strategy for tourism resilience in the pandemic age and how is it important. The data come from qualitative interview from one couple, husband and wife, regarding the budget hotel operation practice in the city of Sri Iskandar, the Perak state of Malaysia. Findings The findings revealed the importance of initiating the strategy of digital marketplace in enabling the customers’ personalised decision towards the tourism destination they prefer based on their needs of low-cost and proper service. There are three main points, namely the importance of digital marketplace for tourism market enhancement, readiness of digital marketplace for tourism market enhancement and continued capacity to strategize digital marketplace for tourism market enhancement. The initiative to commit with applying for the resilience for tourism sustainability in the pandemic age is important to ensure they can take a small advantage continually with the frequent customers’ sustainability. Originality/value This paper is supposed to contribute in developing the resilience practice through advancing the strategy of digital marketplace in raising the tourism sector, budget hotel operators. The main occupation aims to empower resilience for tourism sustainability in the pandemic age, in order to recover the market in online platform.