Tourism and Hospitality: Digital at your service

This book presents three papers that seek to understand the importance and role that new technologies and social networks can play in tourists’ decisions. In an increasingly digital world, Tourism and Hospitality use social networks, websites and different communication platforms to provide a closer, faster and more useful service to the customer. Being online today means having the doors open to the world, where the rule is to be where the customer is. The infinity of offers just a click away means that both accommodations and destinations have to highlight their attributes in order to attract the customer. The first paper analyzes, through images and videos, the visual content of the website visitalgarve.pt and comes to the conclusion that the projected image of the Algarve is based on its natural attributes, the accommodation it provides to tourists and the diversity of tourist attractions. In the second paper, the analysis focuses on the consumer’s perception of the use of social networks to choose and book tourist accommodation. In this case, the analysis of information collected online about accommodation, user comments, as well as publications made by influencers, were identified as a decisive factor in choosing and booking a hotel. Finally, and following the role of social networks in the choice and reservation of tourist accommodation, the third paper reveals that today social networks are the main means of collecting and sharing information about tourist accommodation, but in relation to the reservation it is essentially made through online travel agencies and the establishment’s website.