Digital Transformation and Innovation in Tourism Events

Azizul Hassan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781032220970
• eBook ISBN: 9781000596618
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

The pandemic has accelerated the digital transformation in tourism and there has been a surge in new, innovative digital initiatives to help tourism businesses. This book provides a comprehensive treatment of the nature of tourism, events and practices in the digital context.

The book looks at how technology has transformed tourism in destination branding, marketing, content marketing, sustainable tourism development and tourism events. It examines the impact of digital transformation on emotions, experiences, information technology tools and marketing techniques.

The book will be a useful reference to those researching on tourism, culture, hospitality and marketing and as well as destination planners, managers of tourism destination marketing organizations, regulators, standards and certification bodies, local tourism board authorities and policy makers.

Part IConceptual Discussions

1 Digital Innovation in Tourism EventsTheoretical Underpinnings and Conceptual Discussions

Mohammed Shahedul Quader and H.M. Kamrul Hassan

DOI: 10.4324/9781003271147-3

Introduction

Event tourism industry is flourishing all around the globe, and its nature, scope and purpose differ from other types of regular tourism activities (Higgins-Desbiolles, 2018). Events are at the central point of swift socio-cultural and technological change. The World Wide Web has brought a dramatic revolution in the form of integrated information systems that escalated digital mobile-based tourism to help create, communicate and deliver service in time effectively (McCabe et al., 2012). The advent and convergence of smart technology are penetrating and reshaping the event tourism sector through an array of well-established technologies. With the development of sophisticated technological progress, the event industry is moving forward towards an innovative economic avenue by connecting technologies with market needs (Mitchell et al., 2016). Faster Internet facilities and information technology have ushered in a spectacular transformation that will continue to foster networks across many stakeholders and organizations, ultimately leading to digital innovation. Digital innovation is becoming increasingly important across all industries and functional units, and consequently, a growing number of strategic stakeholders employ digital technology to foster innovation (Grossman, 2016). As the world becomes increasingly digital, cultural institutions are paying greater attention to the opportunities afforded by digital innovation, especially in the ever-complex and demanding tourism sector (del Vecchio et al., 2018). Digital innovation may help spur the development of new business models in the tourism industry since it provides tourists with a better experience (Li, 2020).

In the minds of tour participants, an event is a reflection of the arrangement, settings, physical efforts, socialization, fulfilments and psychological engagements of the event. As an area of study, event tourism is described as how festivals and events may bring prospective tourists to a community or geographic area, which helps a destination grow economically and regionally. Event tourism is rooted in the concept that events and festivals are a form of tourism, which aims to bring out responsible tourism activities while also expanding tourism diversity since it significantly impacts both tourists and communities (Gursoy et al., 2020; Raj and Musgrave, 2009). Globally, tourists nowadays seek a comprehensive, integrated tourism package that aids them in comprehending the essential amenities and support systems offered at event as well as festival location.

Digital innovation is all about the development and implementation of innovative goods and services that challenge, substitute, or supplement current terms of the system within organizations and industries (Hinings et al., 2018). New products, procedures, services, applications and even business models are all part of digital innovation when they are carefully orchestrated within a specific environment (Nambisan et al., 2017). Since digital innovation management promises a rich and highly gratifying study topic for academicians and researchers, innovative conceptualization on the topic is urgently required (Nambisan et al., 2017). Therefore, unconventional thinking on digital innovation management that more appropriately deals with the continually evolving nature of innovation systems in a digital ecosystem is important. Event tourism is experiencing new technological advancements, which necessitates exploring digital innovation to find solutions to previously unaddressed issues. Through digital innovation, event tourism has the potential to reshape the association with different hotel chains, logistics and supply chain firms, online and telecommunication companies, travel agencies and other stakeholders directly engaged with the event tourism sector, which may ultimately have a big influence on tourism development in different communities all over the world.

An integrated service package involves a regular awareness and synthesis of diverse visitor behaviour patterns and expectations, as well as digital technological advancements facilities, reengineering management systems and coordinated stakeholder engagement (McCabe et al., 2012). Therefore, modern tourist business integrates technology with a wide range of events, festivals and restorations of historic sites that encourage visitors through active engagement with the attractions as well as enthusiastic participation in tourism fairs, events and exhibitions. However, there have been relatively few studies conducted in order to evaluate the theoretical underpinnings and conceptual debate on the effects of digital technology on tourist events and festivals, which has prompted the consideration of this study. This qualitative study evaluates the theoretical foundations and conceptual discussion of digital technology on tourist events and festivals, as well as addressing the competitive advantage and digital innovation in tourism events and festivals. This research will highlight events and festivals that fall under the broad term “tourism events”. The findings will help to provide a conceptual overview of theories of tourist events and festivals while also laying the basis for future studies. Tourism event and festival organizers can comprehend how digital technology may create a strong influence on tourism events and festivals, which may shape the future tourism economy.

This study used a qualitative method to achieve well-defined research goals and to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the theoretical underpinnings and conceptual discussion of digital technology in tourism events and festivals. This is a desk-based research analysis by definition, with a focus on the interpretivism method of research philosophy (Goldkuhl, 2012).

Digital Innovation Driven Events Tourism

Sophisticated innovative technologies (e.g., Internet, ICT and digital technology) are driving the dominant economic wheel of the event tourism industry in the virtual environment (Breukel and Go, 2009; Li et al., 2018; Murphy et al., 2016; Willis et al., 2017) and reshaping the travel and tourism management style to organize and control the tourism resources in order to deliver value-generating service with economies of scale (Cimbaljević et al., 2021; Xu et al., 2019). Garbelli et al. (2017) postulated that ICT could be applied to offer complete and effective virtual communication and inform tourists about multiple implications of value-generating programs of destinations. While digital technology has traditionally interlinked enterprise to enterprise and industry to industry, Internet technologies and particularly social media create innovative opportunities for both business and stakeholders in the form of prompt service, value delivery and better relationship (Leung et al., 2013; Sigala et al., 2016; Wozniak et al., 2017). This trend will continue to change in a positive direction and have strategic business management implications within the tourism Industry atmosphere (Berne et al., 2012). It has been evident that Internet technology accommodates and deliver a huge amount of required tourism information which may foster digital innovation among tourists and various actors within the industry environment. The study of digital innovation brought drastic changes in strategic business framework and event tourism market structure in developed and emerging countries. With the introduction of digital innovation in the technology era, the systematic strategic analysis and interplay with gigantic information create remarkable market opportunities for the event tourism industry. Digital innovation is characterized by a shift from one range of legitimated, current institutional structures to another set of legitimated, updated institutional frameworks while maintaining a focus on legitimacy (Hinings et al., 2018). Digital technologies create a broad scope for event tourism enterprises’ activities, and it is prudently expected that future success and long-term survival of event programs can depend on digital stability and transformation (George and Paul, 2019) which promotes digital innovation.

Diversely updated technologies support tourists at various levels and enhance comfort zones for them, comprising an easy information search, prompt decision ma...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Contributors
• Introduction
• Part I Conceptual Discussions
• Part II Cases from Asia
• Part III Technology Application in Tourism Events: Case of Australia
• Part IV Cases from Europe
• Part V Cases from North America
• Part VI Cases from South America
• Part VII Future Research Directions
• Conclusion
• Index