CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

The evolution of computers is particularly attractive to depict since the current technology trend is effective and efficient through it. The hospitality outfits have widely adopted modern technology to reduce costs, enhance operational efficiency, and most importantly to improve service quality and customer experience. The link of computer to modern equipment that is used in hospitality outfits cannot be overemphasized. This is because the integration of computer to these equipment will help facilitate efficiency. Some of this equipment includes phones, emergency lighting, website, internet, automatic washing machine, microwave, drink dispensers, smart card doors, air conditions satellite etc. Singh and Kasavana (2005) predicted that future modern technology applications will probably rely on computer such as wireless infrastructure, and that online purchasing with cashless payments will become more commonplace. Providing services at the destination, now that mobile phones have become a necessity in this era of wireless communication (Langelund, 2007), cultural tourism has reacted by introducing multimedia museum guides that use mobile device screens to enhance the tourist experience (Stock, & Zancanaro, 2005). Mobile computers will allow the personalization of services according to preferences, language skills, and depth of information required. Hence, Buhalis and O’Connor (2005) further suggested that e-tourism in the future will be focused on consumer-centric technologies, and that organizations need to adopt modern technology to be able to offer this level of service and remain competitive and innovative.

A good recommender system should merge trust, exploratory browsing, and personal factors to suggest suitable solutions that will meet personal criteria and preferences. Semantic web technology could be used to create a tourism information system that allows tourists to extract the necessary data through query management facilities (Bergamaschi etal, 2005). Knowledge management of this type would enable the lodging industry to centralize their application system and would allow tourists to locate their required destination information in a convenient and easy way (Pyo, 2005).