Technically Speaking
Assessing Social Digitalisation of Tourism and Leisure Industries
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Kornelia Hahn
The digitisation of the tourism and leisure industries is closely linked to the introduction of digital technologies, e.g. booking apps, online advertising or workplace management. However, a sole consideration of digitalisation in terms of material technologies does not allow for a comprehensive understanding of the overall impact of the digitalisation of the tourism and leisure industries. Ultimately, this also makes a sound assessment of the digital transformation more difficult. This is crucial when it comes to assessing, for example, whether digitalisation promotes or hinders the supply of sustainable and environmentally friendly products. In order to analyse digital transformation more holistically, I introduce a theory approach of social digitalisation. It focuses on the transformation of activities through the implementation of a digital logic. In this way, activities and processes are reorganised into both discrete units and non-contingent programmes. Even before the ‘digital age’, non-technical digital processing has profitably streamlined social spheres (production, economy, labour, etc.). The tourism and leisure industries are no exception, even though their products must be consumed predominantly in copresence, with an emphasis on bodily experiences and in specific locations. The tourism and leisure industries therefore do not seem as suitable for the digitalisation of production as other industries, e.g. the clothing industry. However, using the example of the hospitality industry, I show that digital organisation was established long before the advent of digital technology. Understanding the impact of this transformation helps to critically evaluate the tourism and leisure industries.
Featured Outrageous Fun!: A Brief History of Leisure and Morality
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Jamil Khazri
Which recreational pursuits do you enjoy? Perhaps you love reading? Or a drink and some dancing at your favourite nightspot? Maybe you’re a connoisseur of cinema? Or, do you have a penchant for pugilistic combat? Whatever tickles your fancy, you can bet it’s stoked the ire of one group or another over the years! From Ancient Rome to Puritan New England, we take a whistle-stop tour of the enduring entanglement between entertainment and disapproval. And, with rapidly evolving leisure landscapes centred around Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality technologies – and indeed emerging and novel forms of censorious behaviour – what might the past suggest about the potential futures of our vital pleasures and the (inevitable) outrage which follows them? Through a careful analysis and interpretation of the academic (and non-academic) sources – and with a Foucauldian inclination to examine power dynamics – this study offers vivid imagery, an amusing historical anecdote or two, and most important of all: intellectual nourishment and food for thought! Just don’t enjoy it too much, or somebody might try to ban it!
Online Accommodation Platform Quality Analysis
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Susita Carroll
Customer satisfaction is a measure of how well a company’s products, services, and overall customer experience meet customer satisfaction levels. It reflects your business’ health by showing how well your products or services resonate with buyers. As customer spending on lodging marketplace platform is growing at faster pace than major hotel chain, online lodging platform has become a threat to the hotel industry. In this paper, we explore the dimensions of service quality and customer satisfaction at Airbnb short-term lodging and compare the dimensions with service quality and customer satisfaction theoretical concept.
