Description
Purpose: The tourism business is one of the sectors for adoption of digital technologies. The digital innovation continues to transform the tourism business virtually every aspect of its operations by emerging new digital technologies. According to the World Economic Forum’s Digital Transformation Initiative, the digitisation processes in the travel, tourism and aviation sectors is worth up to $305 billion between 2016 and 2025 (Zuzanna Pajorska, 2022). The digitalised tourism business is worth of $700 billion to customers and society. As an advanced digital technologies, artificial intelligence (AI) is inducing and adding exceeding capabilities over the traditional search engines. The tourism entrepreneurs have already begun to use elements of AI, which help to analyze large volumes of data and learn from their own and other people's experience for enhancing efficiency of tourism business. As a result the tourism business is undergoing a digital transformation with the support of AI and it has emerged as a key driver of change (Ivanov & Webster, 2019b). While researchers have acknowledged the potential of AI, the literature on the specific relationship between AI tools in tourism business and application of AI tools by tourism entrepreneurs remains dispersed (Obschonka & Audretsch, 2019). Despite numerous explorations of AI in tourism business, congruent knowledge on its awareness and adoption by tourism entrepreneurs remains limited in the context of Indian tourism business. This study aims to explore the awareness and future intentions of AI among tourism entrepreneurs and also to understand the adoption of AI tools in tourism business in India.
Methodology: The qualitative research was carried out using in-depth empirical survey from tourism entrepreneurs to explore the awareness and future intentions of AI among tourism entrepreneurs and also to understand the adoption of AI tools in tourism business in India. In the quantitative study, a structure Likert scale questionnaire was administered among 110 tourism entrepreneurs in India. The questionnaire was sent to the tourism entrepreneurs who are from the major cities across India – New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore and Chennai. The data were analysed using the SPSS software to find out the results over three research questions of the study.
Key Findings: The qualitative results reveal that the awareness of AI among tourism entrepreneurs is substantially high and agreed upon the advantages of AI tools in tourism business. The respondents also accepted the potential applications of AI tools in future. Furthermore, the findings indicate a positive outlook towards AI adoption, suggesting willingness to continue or initiate integration in the future.
Contribution: This study contributes to the existing literature by providing empirical evidences on AI adoption within the tourism entrepreneurial landscape. The findings highlight the importance of AI awareness and preparedness for future industry trends, and offer valuable insights for stakeholders seeking to facilitate AI integration among tourism businesses.
Key Words – Artificial Intelligence, Tourism, Tourism Entrepreneurs, Awareness, Adoption
References:
Ivanov, S. and Webster, C. (2019b), “Economic fundamentals of the use of robots, artificial intelligence, and service automation in travel, tourism, and hospitality”, Robots, Artificial Intelligence and Service Automation in Travel, Tourism and Hospitality, Emerald Publishing, Bingley, pp. 39-55.
Obschonka, M. and Audretsch, D.B. (2020), “Artificial intelligence and big data in entrepreneurship: a new era has begun”, Small Business Economics, Vol. 55 No. 3, pp. 529- 539.
Zuzanna Pajorska (2022) Digital Transformation in the Travel and Tourism Industry, Published 3rd October, Available at https://stratoflow.com/digital-transformation-travel- industry/ [Accessed 30 December, 2023].
