Every traveller has a journey, and the journey of a traveller can be divided into five stages encompassing the journey of a traveller, dreaming, planning, booking and finally visiting the destination and sharing,” said Vinay Deshpande, Senior VP & Head of Digital & IT, Indian Hotels Company while speaking at the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Western Region’s session on Boosting Tourism Sector with Technology that was organised on the sidelines of CII Western Region Annual Meeting 2023.
Further, he mentioned that Indian Hotels Company ensured that digital interventions like IoT, hyper-personalisation, Robotics and AI are introduced at every stage for enhancing the experience of customers. He emphasised on the role of social media and marketing initiatives in transforming hidden locations into busy tourism destinations.
Vishal Kamat, Chief Executive Officer, Kamat Hotels India while speaking about various categories of tourism, such as medical tourism, CSR tourism and business tourism stressed on the need to digitize pilgrimage tourism. He also recommended that private enterprises and government must support the creation of a conducive ecosystem creation for boosting pilgrimage tourism.
Ujjwal Mathur, Co-Chairman, CII WR Subcommittee on Innovation, Technology and Digitalization 2022-23 & Senior Vice President & Country Head, Tata Consultancy Services Ltd emphasised on the importance of western India in tourism and the role of disruptive technologies in attracting more domestic and international tourists.