Critical Essay on Emerging, Transformative, and Disruptive Companies Influencing Consumer Behaviour

Abstract

This chapter focuses on a set of innovative technologies applicable to the tourism sector, which influence customer behavior when booking or consuming. Hi-tec digital tools reveal great opportunities for tourism companies to create creative and entrepreneurial solutions capable of simplifying procedures, streamlining working methods, and presenting greater levels of competitiveness and innovation for sustainable growth. At the same time, they make it possible to generate conditions for driving new and improved consumer experiences, raising their satisfaction levels. This critical essay focuses on a grounded reflection on transformative technologies map-heating and geo-fencing, beacons, teleporters, robotic telepresence, facial recognition, gadgets and wearables, travelbots and chatbots, big and small data, business intelligence, analytics and predictive intelligence, hyper-tourism, visiconomy, and mobile tourism, without the purpose of exhausting the topic.