| |August 201819CIOReviewINSTANT GRATIFICATION: THE TOMORROW IS HERE TODAYBy Satyendra K. Dwivedi, Chief Technology Officer, Mahindra Holidays & Resorts Ltd.he internet is the single most powerful tool at the disposal of customers today that defines their experience, expecta-tion, and expression (I wasn't aiming for the words to rhyme but it's nice when things work out). The World Wide Web became accessible in India in Aug 1995, barely twenty-three years ago. It was one of the biggest breakthroughs in technology of the twenty-first century. An unimagi-nable amount of information suddenly found its way at people's fingertips. For the tourism and hospitality industry, in particu-lar, this revolution was both a bane and a boon. Service providers, such as hotel chains, travel agents and airlines could no longer hide poor services behind fancy bro-chures with photoshopped images. At the same time, they could now reach out to a much larger audience with a very little marketing cost. But what has truly transformed the way we travel is smartphones ­ internet on the go. Can you even re-member what it was like to plan a family holiday back in the 90s? Destination suggestions came from friends or family, airline and hotel bookings were made by travel agents, cash was the preferred mode of payment, and so on. Sounds tedious, doesn't it? No wonder then that Generation X holidayed far less than their millennial counterparts do today. In 2016, Neilson had conducted a survey on Travel App usage and found that `travel' was among the fastest growing app usage categories with nearly 137 million hits per month . With the flood of smartphone apps and social media in the past decade, information is available within seconds. Where to holiday, when to go, how to travel, or where to stay, are no longer daunting deci-sions. `Live' and `now' are the buzzwords, and the phrase `customer is king' is now more pertinent than ever.However, unlike the banking industry that has al-most entirely moved towards the digital platform with a much-reduced workforce, the hospitality sector wouldn't function without sufficient human intervention. We still need excellent F&B staff, housekeeping, relationship managers, and more. What's interesting though is how technology is aiding better client servicing and therefore customer experience. Here's a look at the some of the trends that have emerged from the technology boom.T CXO INSIGHTS
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