Recent Trends in Tourism and Hotel Research

The study of tourism as an academic field is a recent phenomenon, over the last few decades; the field has experienced rapid changes in research focus and methodological sophistication. Tracking these changes provides insights into the growth and development of research in the field, as well as highlighting areas for further attention.

The most frequently researched areas were tourists and visitors studies primarily concerned with numbers as to how many tourists visited a particular place and how much income they brought to any place and so forth. But now as the whole research has become more sophisticated, the research areas too have become more exploratory delving deep into the ‘WHYs’ of anything such as what are the reasons that prompt tourists to visit that particular place time and again and so on.

1. A great deal of research is carried in the field of marketing which in itself is such a big domain. Marketing research in tourism is difficult because of the intangibility of the product and is not undertaken by small operators who form a big part of the industry.

Hodgson (1991) identified four broad areas of research in tourism marketing:

-          Measuring past and present: It includes tourists flow, brand share, sales data, advertising tracking, customer profiling, quality control, and image studies.

-          Predicting future: It covers the forecasting travel intentions and plans.

-          Creating future: It entails product improvement, modifications, and new product development.

-          Understanding market: It relates to market segmentation, gaining qualitative insights for understanding consumer rationale, etc.

2. Tourism brings a host to benefits to any destinations directly and indirectly in the form of jobs opportunities, wealth creation etc. but with it , tourism also accrues certain ill-effects to a place, destinations and society at large. Therefore, impact studies are quite common these days where the impacts of tourism at any place are examined. The impacts can be pertaining to any and every  field such as

-          Economic: How much is money is injected into the system and how much is seeped out as leakages due to tourism are a cause of concern for researchers.

-          Social- cultural: Tourism might not be conducive to the socio-cultural fabric of any place and it has been found that with time it starts impinging upon its ill-effects at the destinations.

-          Environmental: Tourists facilities and infrastructure creation takes a toll on the environment depending on the ecology of any place. Therefore researches are conducted to gauge as to how much tinkering with the environment should be allowed and till when it has to be continued. In the absence of proper and timely research operations a place may lose its sheen and get destroyed beyond irreparable damages.

3. The changing spending patterns and consumer needs have created an ever-changing and ever evolving environment where tracking customer’s needs and abiding by them is sure shot way to success and tourism and hospitality services being intangible in nature make it even more complex and dynamic. Thus, more and more researches are being carried on in improving the service quality and evaluation of tourists and guests’ attitudes, perceptions etc. thus, making it more behavior oriented.
4. Tourism is a complex phenomena and a new word is added to it on regular basis Needless to say, its nomenclature states every type of tourism is possible making it more consumer oriented such as wellness tourism. But of late more stress has been laid in conducting researches on how a place or tourist activity can be made sustainable so that it continue to garner the same results for the foreseeable future.

Soil erosion, coast erosion, river water pollution and contamination at mountain and the like are some of the ill-effects of the tourism in excess. Hence, researchers are concerned with environmental impact assessment be done before undertaking any major tourism activity.

5. Human wants and imagination power are endless and thus terms unheard before are practiced today without any hitch and terms like ‘Space tourism’ ‘Space hotels’ are a reality today. So, researches are carried out to assess its feasibility studies.
6. Tourism and hospitality researches is not just undertaken by academics at university and departmental levels but governmental and private organizations are also going in for it  knowing the various benefits it brings to the nations and their respective organizations. It is also good for the basic research scenario as reliable secondary data is available through these organizations such as ICPB, ITDC supporting and actively indulging in full-time researches.

Internet coupled with all its technological manifestations has become the main way the researches are conducted over. Not only internet has made travel and whole tourism easy and efficient but it had also greatly facilitated the research in this domain as it helps in providing real-time and reliable information. Tourism is a global phenomenon; hence it is not possible for any library in the world to keep track of all the published books, journals and research papers in this domain. But this hardship is greatly facilitated by the advent of internet where we can access all of them at any time, anywhere and at any place.