Importance of real-time

I have recently heard professor Dimitrios Bouhalis lecture about social media marketing at EIAT Conference in Belgrade, and here are some of notes/ideas:

The basic idea is that services in tourism and hospitality are becoming more and more real-time, and the old goal -profit-, have been changed with new one -personalization with your customers/friends-.

It is important to understand advantages of real-time communication and information, to embrace real-time action for preventing and recovering from service failures in the future. The hospitality and tourism Industry is changing fast and the pressure to compete for customers on a global scale is increasing constantly. At the same time consumers’ needs are changing quickly and their demands are getting more complex and sophisticated. Moreover, by embracing social media tools and real-time communication over the Internet consumers aremore empowered than ever before. Hence, companies don’t have the luxury responding and adapting over long periods of time any more. Valuable brands have to tackle this challenge. Success or failure of service offerings depends more and more on their agility, flexibility and the competitive speed at which they react to the dynamic needs of customers. This requires a real-time understanding and awareness of consumers’ preferences and needs.

KLM recently used social media channels such as Foursquare, Facebook, Twitter and Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqHWAE8GDEk) to provide customers an unforgettable service delight. Marriott is using Twitter to proactively solve customer complaints. These are only two of many examples how tourism and hospitality companies become more responsive, adaptive and dynamic towards their customers through real time communication and information.