The Namibia Economist

Technology changes face of tourism

The Tourism Industry is facing a paradigm shift globally. Namibia is by no means immune to this trend as information technology is one of the strongest drivers for competitiveness, innovation and change. Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) is changing our lives – the way we socialise, work, shop, search for information and communicate has changed entirely.
With this trend in mind Reservation Destination has emerged and re-invented the “Booking Office” concept and business model in Namibia and thus becomes a full service provider for the Namibian Tourism Industry. This dynamic and diligent team has been in the market since 2003, managing a capacity of some 180,000 bed nights for more than 20 independent owner managed lodges and guesthouses, in the process ensuring a 5% above average occupancy compared to the Ministry of Environment and Tourism statistics for their portfolio members.
Reservation Destination says ICT further empower consumers to identify, customise and purchase tourism products and at the same time supports the globalisation of the industry by providing tools for developing, managing and distributing Namibian tourism products worldwide. The company has become the only full service provider for the Namibian tourism industry as their services provide the necessary interlock and seamless integration between travel agents, tour operators and accommodation and activity providers.
Independent accommodation providers in Namibia such as lodges, guesthouses and guest farms are now able to outsource their front and back office to the strong umbrella-marketing brand of Reservation Destination.
ResDest.com provides a full range of services from sales & marketing; international representation; online & social media marketing; reputation management; reservations and administration management; to finance and payment management services. Thus it provides one-stop-shopping for accommodation and activity providers as well as for tour operators and travel agents.
The company says all stakeholders related to tourism and hospitality will gradually see their role being changed and new opportunities and challenges emerging. The future of e-tourism will be focused on consumer centric technologies to ensure that the new sophisticated and experienced consumers are served.
“Therefore, agile strategies are required at both strategic and tactical management levels to develop the structure and business models for tourism organisations to manage their internal functions; their relationships with partners and their interactions with all stakeholders including consumers.”
In addition, Reservation Destination says the competitiveness of SMEs is increasingly depending on their capacity to connect better and do business with larger enterprises, to integrate global value chains and thus become international business partners.
“Smart use of information technology such as the Reservation Destinations value proposition can help SMEs to achieve this. SMEs in particular risk elimination from global value chains, due to shortage of appropriate, affordable and interoperable ICT solutions to link them with large business partners.”
Reservation Destination employs the most modern IT platforms to enable the Namibia Tourism Industry to stay competitive and even stay ahead of other destinations.
In preparation of all the exciting changes and the new setup, the company increased its staff complement by five and moved into new premises recently.

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