Will blockchain shake the paradigm of tourism?

Understand the Blockchain

Traditionally, when referring to information and communication technology, we are familiar with the concepts of the Internet of Things (IoT), robotics, contactless technology, and social media since these technologies are highly implemented in our everyday life.

Conversely, when blockchain is addressed on the table, we tend to avoid this concept due to its complex nature. Like a ghost cat, the concept of blockchain gradually infiltrates and blends into our life at an unnoticeable pace.

So, what is blockchain after all? Blockchain is a list of transactions or a record that is kept up by a network of clients (Sharma et al., 2021). To understand the blockchain in a simple way, a block is an entity to store the information, and each block is connected to its initial block while can build up new connections with new blocks, which enables all the blocks linked together within the same data structural system (Sharma et al., 2021).

Also, what can we do with blockchain? Several applications such as smart contract, tokenization, inter-organizational data management, governmental digital system construct, healthcare system, and financial service have been proposed, implemented for revolutionizing our society (Sharma et al., 2021).

Understand the Paradigm of Tourism

It is without a doubt that new technologies are required to be implemented in tourism, could blockchain become the next tipping point in the tourism industry?

Before answering this question, it is necessary to review the current paradigm of the tourism industry from a broader perspective and investigate whether blockchain technology is an appropriate fit for certain stances.

What is a paradigm? This question bothers me as I had encountered this term quite often. From the explanation of the Oxford English Dictionary, ‘a typical example or pattern of something; a pattern or model’. In the book “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”, Thomas Kuhn (1962) introduced the phenomenon of a paradigm shift, which to me is a better way to understand the paradigm.

In my understanding, a paradigm shift occurs where new disciplines, conceptual models, and theoretical frameworks could not fit into the existing body that encompasses all knowledge and theories, which requires a shift to a new body. In another word, the paradigm is the body that includes all relevant knowledge and theories that fits into its system.

Now we understand the term “paradigm”, but what’s the paradigm of the tourism industry? To see the bigger picture, Tribe et al. (2015) raised three critical questions: “How is the tourism knowledge system constructed?”; “What are the dynamics of change in the tourism knowledge system”, and “Paradigms, global structure, and processes”.

By reflecting on his own article “The Indiscipline of Tourism” (Tribe, 1997), Tribe concluded that tourism exists in the emerging fields of traditional academy knowledge and knowledge that is yet set within a disciplinary framework. In a broad sense, tourism till today can be considered a field of study instead of a discipline, which answers the first question.

As we understand the position of tourism as a field of study, two approaches cover the field of business of tourism (Fletcher, Fyall, Gilbert, & Wanhill, 2017) including:

• Tourism Demand
• The Tourism Destination
• The Tourism Sector
• Marketing for Tourism

and social science (Hannam & Knox, 2010).

• Regulating Tourism
• Commodifying Tourism
• Embodying Tourism
• Performing Tourism
• Tourism and the Everyday
• Tourism and the Other
• Tourism and the Environment
• Tourism and the Past

Tribe et al. (2015) pinpointed that ideology and discourse aspects should be added as an addition to complement Kuhn’s explanation of “paradigm”, while from the perspective of neoliberalism, the core concepts address:

• Competitiveness
• Deregulation
• Efficiency
• Free Markets
• Profit
• Consumerism
• Capitalism
• Globalization
• Individualism
• Growth

However, neoliberalism cannot stand for the ultimate universal worldview. Hence, Tribe et al. (2015) addressed the other values:

• Inclusivity
• Equity
• Equality
• Beauty
• Sustainability

Furthermore, Tribe et al, (2015) reflected on the consequences that tourism is mainly driven by the forces of the neoliberal’s values and ideology, while tourism research in a sense amplifies and re-visits these core concepts, which deepen the imbalance of tourism development as “tourism paradoxes”.

Discussion of the Practicality of Blockchain in the Tourism Industry

Since we understand the paradigm of the tourism industry, its evolving development, and its deeper values, it is time to put our attention back to the blockchain once again.

Kizildag et al. (2015) argued that blockchain could result in a paradigm shift, though blockchain technology is still at the “early adopter” stage. Two theories are suggested to implement blockchain technology including the diffusion of the innovation theory, and the agency theory.

The diffusion of the innovation theory indicates that hospitality and tourism companies are distant from blockchain technology unless the concept of value co-creation is recognized by those companies as indicated.

The agency theory on the other hand emphasizes the forthcoming contradictions that can be caused by the distinctive interests of the principals and the agencies. As the agents and the principals have different interests (Jesnsen and Meckling, 1976), the inconsistency of the operation and management may result in miscommunication (Altin et al., 2016).

Studies of the agency theory implied that blockchain could resolve the pain points of institutionalized communication, such as information asymmetry, trust issues, transaction transparency, and security issue (Altin et al., 2016). Additionally, Kizildag et al. (2015) highlighted the decentralized feature and the transparent environment of blockchain technology.

Accordingly, three research propositions were presented to further the practicality of blockchain in the tourism industry (Önder & Treiblmaier, 2018):

• Research proposition 1: New forms of evaluations and review technologies will lead to trustworthy rating systems.

• Research proposition 2: The widespread adoption of cryptocurrencies will lead to new types of C2C markets.

• Research proposition 3: Blockchain technology will lead to increased disintermediation in the tourism industry.

Proposition 1 addressed that the user identities do not need to be revealed since all online reviews will go through an end-to-end private system so that nobody can duplicate their reviews to manipulate the rating system (Önder & Treiblmaier, 2018).

Proposition 2 discussed that business can be doable without the unnecessity of trustworthy intermediaries, while the adoption of cryptocurrencies can trigger the formation of new C2C business markets (Önder & Treiblmaier, 2018).

Proposition 3 implied that the increasing disintermediation effect caused by blockchain technology (Colombo & Baggio, 2017) has the potential to eliminate new intermediaries (Ford, Wang, & Vestal, 2012), which is good for the smaller business to remove the entry barriers (Önder & Treiblmaier, 2018).

Similarly, Tyan et al, (2021) emphasize the positive impacts of the application of blockchain in sustainable tourism based on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) of the UN. Other than the disintermediation, review system as we discussed, four more extensive applications were addressed as:
• Food supply chain management and food waste mitigation
• Service customization and tourists’ satisfaction
• Awareness rise
• Tourists’ sustainable behavior

In comparison to the previous research, identical implementations are revisited, and that is how I realize that the research of blockchain technology used in tourism has come to a saturated state. Looking back to the question: will blockchain shake the paradigm of tourism, here are the final wrap-ups and the takeaways of my thinking.

Will Blockchain Shake the Paradigm of Tourism?

To enable the paradigm shift, it requires the disruptive innovation of technology, while large amounts of research, hypothesis-building, and theory-construction are necessary. From a development perspective, we observe tourism being questioned as indiscipline to an extent, while we also notice that tourism extends its reach from business and social science to other disciplines.

It is very difficult to deconstruct the previous built and long-lasting theories and knowledge, meaning that the process of shaking the well-built paradigm is a long journey. But it is common when new things are introduced and threaten the existence of the current paradigm, which occurs in the case of blockchain technology as well.

In a sense, the inevitable appearance of blockchain indeed commences the process of research, but to what extent that blockchain reaches a state of having the absolute influential power to trigger further and deeper research is yet to be uncovered. Without a doubt, scholars and researchers had invested their efforts to investigate the positioning of blockchain in the tourism industry, while it appears that a bottleneck is reached as identical conclusions are drawn.

To recap this article, we are aware of blockchain technology, but seldom actually understand what it is and how to use it. It occurs to me that the increasing attention to blockchain technology has aroused many researchers, and that many of them have established the relevance of blockchain and tourism is solid proof that the blockchain is shaking the paradigm of tourism. However, to what extent that blockchain affects the development of the tourism paradigm requires a tremendous of cooperative work among researchers who share the similar field of studies.

1. Altin, M., Kizildag, M., & Ozdemir, O. (2016). Corporate Governance, Ownership Structure, and Credit Ratings of Hospitality Firms. The Journal of Hospitality Financial Management, 24(1), 5–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/10913211.2016.1166022
2. Colombo, E., & Baggio, R. (2017). Tourism Distribution Channels: Knowledge Requirements. In N. Scott, M. De Martino, & M. Van Niekerk (Eds.), Bridging Tourism Theory and Practice (Vol. 8, pp. 289–301). Emerald Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2042-144320170000008016
3. Fletcher, J., Fyall, A., Gilbert, D., & Wanhill, S. (2017). Tourism: Principles and Practice. Pearson UK.
4. Ford, R. C., Wang, Y., & Vestal, A. (2012). Power asymmetries in tourism distribution networks. Annals of Tourism Research, 39(2), 755–779. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2011.10.001
5. Giannopoulos, Antonios, Skourtis, George, Kalliga, Alexandra, Dontas-Chrysis, Dimitrios-Michail, & Paschalidis, Dimitrios. (2020). Co-creating high-value hospitality services in the tourism ecosystem: Towards a paradigm shift? https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.3822065
6. Hannam, K., & Knox, D. (2010). Understanding Tourism: A Critical Introduction. SAGE.
7. Jensen, M. C., & Meckling, W. H. (1976). Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure. Journal of Financial Economics, 3(4), 305–360. https://doi.org/10.1016/0304-405X(76)90026-X
8. Kizildag, M., Dogru, T., Zhang, T. (Christina), Mody, M. A., Altin, M., Ozturk, A. B., & Ozdemir, O. (2019). Blockchain: A paradigm shift in business practices. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 32(3), 953–975. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCHM-12-2018-0958
9. Kuhn, T. (2021). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. In Philosophy after Darwin: Classic and Contemporary Readings (pp. 176–177). Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400831296-024
10. Önder, I., & Treiblmaier, H. (2018). Blockchain and tourism: Three research propositions. Annals of Tourism Research, 72, 180–182. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2018.03.005
11. Sharma, N., Shamkuwar, M., Kumaresh, S., Singh, I., & Goje, A. (2021). Chapter 10—Introduction to blockchain and distributed systems—Fundamental theories and concepts. In S. Krishnan, V. E. Balas, E. G. Julie, Y. H. Robinson, & R. Kumar (Eds.), Blockchain for Smart Cities (pp. 183–210). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-824446-3.00002-8
12. Tribe, J., Dann, G., & Jamal, T. (2015). Paradigms in tourism research: A trialogue. Tourism Recreation Research, 40(1), 28–47. https://doi.org/10.1080/02508281.2015.1008856
13. Tyan, I., Yagüe, M. I., & Guevara-Plaza, A. (2021). Blockchain Technology’s Potential for Sustainable Tourism. In W. Wörndl, C. Koo, & J. L. Stienmetz (Eds.), Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2021 (pp. 17–29). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65785-7_2

How information technology can help in customer relationship

The customer comes first. Classy saying, right? Surely that guideline, or perhaps a cliché, creates some kind of thoughts in your head. Do you consider it important?

Customer relationship is also such a classic term in the business world. Well, that for sure is essential! However, which elements in customer relationship matter the most for DMO’s and tourism businesses, and how could information technology could help?

Master level business students in Information Technology in Tourism -course figured it out, via rather a successful brainstorming. Firstly, all the possible elements that belong to customer relationship were considered. Secondly, the most important ones of them were marked. So, let’s start digging deeper into the world of the customer relationship, and how to combine it with information technology.

Five key groups were created out of all: interaction, customer engagement, networks, feedback, and personality. Each of these included numerous of subgroups. There is reallyy no point introducing all the subjects that came across. Instead, let’s have a closer look to the top 5 topics that were marked the most important of all and consider how information technology could help in tourism business generally.

Trust

Simply put: manage your customers’ expectations and do what you promise. Take care of your customers, for example by protecting their data. Show your reviews and customer testimonials, be open and transparent.

Co-creation

Listen to your customers, and also ask them. After doing by their suggestions, measure how you’ve been doing things to basically see if you’ve got it right. There are numerous ways to measure your online success, make sure you use at least one of them.

Customer Relationship Management

Naturally, managing your customer relationships generally is important. Your ideal CRM should form in simplicity, price, and relevance best suitable for your business. There are many software and electronic systems to help you with that. Why not give them a try?

Personality

In every step of your customer relationship, make sure that the customers recognize it’s you they are working with. If you have a personal style to do things, keep it and embrace it! That is easy to do in the digital world, just create a unique look to suit your company and publish similar looking style in each content.

24/7 availability

It might need resources to have 24/7 availability but do your best. Being a fast answerer creates trust. It also allows you to do co-creation with your customers. What comes around goes around. If a customer is so interested in what you are offering that they are contacting you, use this opportunity well!

Therefore, next time you are considering how well customer relationships are taken care of in your tourism business, think about the topics discussed and how well they are being managed. And trust it, you’ve got it.

TMM developing tourism business at Etelä-Konnevesi region

Our International Master’s Degree Programme in Tourism Marketing and Management (TMM) has started a collaboration with municipalities of Konnevesi and Rautalampi and tourism stakeholders in the region. The concrete first step in this collaboration was a two-day workshop on developing nature tourism in the Etelä-Konnevesi region, organized in Konnevesi research station 14.-15.3.2018. Together with Anne Hyvärinen, project manager at a regional tourism development project, two days full of tourism business content were designed and tailored for the region.

Tourism insights and knowledge

The idea of the first day was to bring in all the actors to the same level when it comes to tourism marketing and management in a nature tourism destination. The day started with introductions and three short group work presentations by our students. As a preliminary assignment, our students had examined how the region is represented on the Internet from the perspective of potential tourists, both domestic and international. They also gave a quick overview of the recent development of the region in combination with development possibilities.

Making tourism better — Nature tourism workshop at Etelä-Konnevesi region

From the student presentations, it became obvious that the region has a vast tourism potential, but the problem is that very few know about this hidden gem. Most tourists that come to the region just visit the Southern-Konnevesi National Park, even though the region is full of interesting, high-quality and distinctive tourism businesses. Thus we were able to pinpoint the tourism development problem to marketing and sales, as well as networking between the actors in the region.

Besides our students, there was a wide range of presentations from local entrepreneurs and tourism personnel, Jyväskylä UAS and Visit Jyväskylä, and Johku. The tourism in the region and development possibilities were discussed from many different viewpoints, providing a great overview of the topic.

Networking and collaboration

At the end of the first day, we had the chance to visit a local rural tourism business Suopirtti Highland and meet their “hairy cows” (ie. highland cattle). It was indeed an experience for all of us. Afterward, we had a chance to taste delicious locally produced dishes at restaurant Mierontie. The restaurant also had a unique, wooden interior design made by local Jukola Industries. At the end of the second day, we had the chance to visit the National Park and experience KalajaRetkeily hospitality from Markku Utriainen. These visits only reinforced our view that there are many great and original tourism products and services in the region, but very few have ever heard of them.

Tourism services at Etelä-Konnevesi — Local tourism services

Professor Raija Komppula emphasized at the workshop how important collaboration and networking are for tourism businesses. Not that much can be achieved by doing things alone. Tourists seldom choose a destination based on one tourism business. Tourists are looking for an amalgam of experience that they can enjoy during their trip and only by working together a region can provide tourists what they want.

Tourism business development

Our students are now working with individual tourism businesses as their second assignment. Each student was assigned with a tourism business with their own development possibilities. The businesses gave our students practice-oriented tasks connected to topics such as marketing mix development, service packaging, experience design, technology adoption and new-service development. Our students will provide each involved business a short report that guides the businesses to take the next steps.

Students in a nature trail — TMM students and staff at the Etelä-Konnevesi National Park

Collaboration with TMM

We have built our programme so that this kind of destination and business collaborations are possible. Our students performed really well during the workshop and have clearly learned a lot during this past year they have been studying with us. We will continue our collaboration with Etelä-Konnevesi region and are also open to new possibilities to make tourism better. If you are interested in collaboration, please contact me at juho.pesonen[at]uef.fi.

From Marketing Strategy to Values Strategy

Having been processing the concept of marketing strategy during the ongoing autumn due to our course on destination marketing, the concept of strategy has been wandering in my mind. What does it actually mean and how important is it for a (tourism) company?

Applying the concept of strategy

In his book Valonöörin käsikirja (A lightneer’s guide) Frank Martela poses the questions What are our goals, what things are worth doing? and What can we do to reach our goals? as the central questions about the human life. He also points out that too often we do things that we didn’t actively choose to do. Too often we spend time on social media or Netflix though our goal is to do sports and be physically in a good condition. Or maybe we feel pressure to do certain things or maybe we just accept them because that’s how people always have done them. I think these questions and thoughts can be applied to business strategies as well.

During our course on marketing it was highlighted how important the mission, vision and values of the company are when creating a strategy. Another author and teacher Jim Collins reveals in his book Good to Great ways to develop a good company into a great one, based on a broad research. One of the core findings is to first find the right people around you, to keep them around you and then to “figure out the best path to greatness”. Also because with the right people you can more easily face changes in the changing world: “if people are on the bus because of who else is on the bus, then it’s much easier to change direction”. This can also be seen as a value-based approach: when there’s a group of people who share the same values and hopefully the same mission, it’s easier to set the direction.

Getting the right people on the bus (although the bus might need to be repaired along the way).

Don’t get stuck to the word: it’s about the content

Wikipedia, tells that the word ‘strategy’ derives from the Greek word stratēgia and the original meaning would be something like “art of troop leader, office of general, command, generalship” and that a strategy is a “high level plan to achieve one or more goals under conditions of uncertainty”. The other week I also had the chance to hear some thoughts about marketing from Timo Kiuru, who works as a creative director for different companies. In his opinion the term ‘strategy’ shouldn’t be used at all. He still stressed the importance of values and to on a weekly basis check if you have been acting according to your values.

It was a very inspiring speech and I also agree that we shouldn’t get too stuck to the word itself or think that if there’s some kind of a strategy, everything will fall into places. The importance of the content of the strategy, the goals and actions have to also be highlighted: a strategy is no use if it’s not concrete, applicable and if it’s not applied. For a company it’s quite essential to define some sort of a strategy. If there is a high level plan with at least some values or core thoughts that are important and/or motivating it can’t go very wrong. Also, possible changes in the plan don’t necessarily mean it was wrong in the first place.

Get a master’s degree in tourism business

Are you looking for an international tourism-focused master’s degree programme in business? Tourism Marketing and Management programme by University of Eastern Finland provides a unique learning experience for students who have finished their bachelor’s degree and are looking for new skills and knowledge in developing tourism industry in a sustainable way. Read more about the programme at www.uef.fi/tmm.

Management by wellbeing

Mindfulness, victorious corporate culture, growth rates that the board cannot accept, going to the gym with your bosses, hiring a personal business coach, fighting loneliness… does not sound like a traditional Finnish management style, does it? In one company it is.

Managing corporate culture and people at SMT

Our Tourism Marketing and Management Programme had the privilege to have CEO of travel and event agency SMT Kirsi Paakkari as a guest speaker to discuss with us about managing corporate culture and people in a way that enables a tourism business to grow.

tourism business management — Kirsi Paakkari discussing corporate culture in tourism

She has successfully merged two ill-performing businesses into a victorious one in a shrinking market, not an easy feat at all. It requires a lot from a manager to change the direction of a business and reach double-digit growth rates. Sometimes traditional Finnish management by perkele (traditional Finnish curse word) style might just not do it. Managers make many choices that define company performance.

Focus on employees management

Kirsi has clearly chosen to focus on the employees of the company. It was great to see how she monitors and leads the wellbeing of her people. She is also managing her company with metrics and data as much as possible while still listening to people. This might be the only way to reach her goal, which is to make SMT the best service company in Finland. This goal is also dependent on trust. Leadership requires trust in many forms. Employees have to trust their leaders and trust in the future of the company. In addition, the manager has to trust the employees, why hire people you cannot trust?

tourism marketing and management — Management education for students

Our student Lari Turunen appreciated how Kirsi decided to bring new people from outside the industry to create new ideas for the company. Lari also noted that when you are building a new culture for a company you have to invest in it. Mergers should not be only about saving money and making companies more efficient but they should also be seen as an opportunity to start anew.

Management by employee wellbeing is similar to human sigma management and has a sound basis in academic literature. There are many challenges ahead for SMT as they integrate with American Express Global Business and are more and more focusing on a growing event market. It will be interesting to see how the company manages these changes and how management by wellbeing works in the future. Could it be the direction of future leadership in Finland or even globally?

Get a master’s degree in tourism business

Welcome to Tourism Marketing and Management

Koli, tourism marketing and management — Picture by Karelia Expert

Welcome to the blog of International Master’s Degree Programme in Tourism Marketing and Management by University of Eastern Finland. This blog is an essential part of the programme and will bring forth the ideas and news from the programme. We aim to build a significant international platform for making tourism better with this programme and the blog.

The programme will start during Autumn 2017. The programme seeks to attract students from Europe and Asia in particular. The programme is also open to Finnish students interested in tourism studies and holding a relevant Bachelor’s degree. The international nature of the programme makes it possible to create new networks and showcase Finland’s strengths in tourism globally, as well as to obtain new information about tourists coming from abroad.

This kind of a programme in tourism marketing and management hasn’t existed in Finland before, and the programme’s strong focus on tourism marketing will bring new life to the Finnish tourism sector. The key themes of the two-year Master’s degree programme are built around the strengths and opportunities of tourism in eastern Finland: nature, well-being, sustainable tourism, and digitalisation. The launch of the new Master’s Degree Programme in Tourism Marketing and Management shows that the University of Eastern Finland is confident in the positive development of the Finnish tourism sector and wants to play a role in supporting that development. Already now, tourism is a major financial factor in North Karelia and elsewhere in Finland. Globally, the tourism sector is growing by several per cent every year.

The Master’s degree programme will collaborate closely with local, national and international tourism sector companies and other actors. This collaboration is based on close interaction, with the aim of jointly developing business activities and finding solutions for any possible challenges discovered. Graduates of the Master’s degree programme will understand the role of digitalisation, customer care, customer motivation, environmental aspects and nature for the business activities of tourism companies, and they will be able to translate their understanding of these aspects into practical activities. The programme’s graduates will have the skills needed to work in a variety of different roles, for example as entrepreneurs, marketing managers, experts, coordinators, community managers and other positions involving customer relations.

The application period to the Master’s Degree Programme in Tourism Marketing and Management will be open from 1 December 2016 to 13 January 2017. For further information, please see the programme website at www.uef.fi/tmm.

For further information, please contact:

Programme coordinator Juho Pesonen, tel. +358 40 184 2698, juho.pesonen(at)uef.fi