Introduction
Tourism is an economic activity that contributes to the growth and gross domestic product (GDP) of a given region or country. Different investments and businesses operating in the hospitality industry form an integral part of this source of revenue. Within the past three decades, tourist value has emerged as a critical aspect for dictating future performance and attraction of more potential clients. Analysts apply the concept to refer to the overall experience of the individual for the time he or she utilizes a specified service. Many organizations and hotels have been focusing on this element to transform their practices and ensure that they deliver the best support to their tourists. A detailed understanding of tourist value can guide scholars and professionals to predict its future applicability in the industry. This discussion presents a summary of literature in this field and how the emerging ideas can guide more investors in the hospitality industry of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to achieve their objectives.
Literature Review: The Future of Tourist Value in the UAE Hospitality Industry
The identified concept has continued to influence the decisions and goals different organizations involved in the tourism sector make. Using the Tourism Encounter Mediated Experience Value (TEMEV) tool, Barnes et al. (2019) managed to describe how experiential value played critical roles in different companies in Denmark’s tourism industry. Such a value emerged as a strong mediator between the intentions of the visitors to recommend the experiences and the established tourist-employee encounters. The study revealed that diverse relationships existed in hotels and the wider hospitality sector since many individuals focused on the emotional, personal, and flexible constructs of the emerging encounters (Barnes et al., 2019). The findings went further to indicate that experiential or tourist value lacked a mediating role between recommendation intention and knowledge in future encounters (Barnes et al., 2019). These observations mean that the stakeholders and players in the UAE’s hospitality industry would need to consider additional strategies to maximize the interactions and satisfaction levels for foreign visitors.
The business model of a given hotel or business within the hospitality sector is capable of dictating its present and future gains. Different researchers have tried to analyze how different clients would be willing to evaluate the available services and make appropriate recommendations. For instance, Kim et al. (2019) conducted a study aimed at developing a powerful measurement scale that could be adopted to analyze tourists’ evaluative processes for the dining and accommodation services offered. The completed observations indicated that the majority of the clients considered these five key dimensions: emotional experience value, utility value, social, value, service quality value, and authentic experience value (Kim et al., 2019). The completed research managed to offer additional attributes for players within the hospitality industry to consider when focusing on the concept of tourist value. The UAE sector could go further to introduce and make such dimensions integral attributes for maximizing tourist value and ensuring that more potential tourists use such services.
Dark tourism has emerged as a new area of interest that different stakeholders continue to take seriously. Many foreigners and travelers are presently willing to visit places associated with past human suffering, genocides, or death (Sharma & Nayak, 2019). The consideration of tourists’ values remains critical since they will have both indirect and direct impacts on the level of satisfaction. The emotional value stood out since it dictated whether one would recommend the same experience to another visitor (Sharma & Nayak, 2019). In the UAE, the emotional aspect can become a strong guideline for encouraging more investors to consider how they can deliver it and eventually attract more clients. Such a trend can become a new opportunity for maximizing profitability and revenues.
The changes recorded in different parts of the world have presented new concepts for maximizing the tourist value in various areas. Cranmer et al. (2020) proposes the introduction of emerging technologies to streamline operations and eventually enhance the experiences of different tourists. Such a strategy can reduce errors and ensure that companies do not miss new opportunities to meet the needs of the tourists (Cranmer et al., 2020). Other key dimensions that investors can consider include the nature of the existing organizational structure, the performance of the industry, and the marketing processes put in place (Cranmer et al., 2020). The concept of augmented reality (AR) is also essential since it can result in superior practices and initiatives to leave more tourists satisfied and willing to recommend or use the available services again.
The idea of brand awareness is essential in any business field or process since it dictates the number of potential customers identified and attracted to use a specific service. Xu et al. (2020) indicate that the engagement of tourists in all marketing activities can improve equity and result in value co-creation. Organizations in the tourism sector that pursue the concepts of brand equity, awareness, and the image would be in a better position to engage the targeted clients and maximize the level of trust (Xu et al., 2020). Businesses in the hospitality industry can encourage more tourists to be involved in value co-creation initiatives as a way of improving performance and making the venture more sustainable.
The idea of tourist co-creation remains essential in different sectors that support or promote the effectiveness of this sector. Using the case of China, Wei et al. (2020) observed that such measures were capable of encouraging more visitors to be part of the process and engage in other initiatives that can maximize their experiences. The expansion of guest-host interactions can make it possible for more individuals to become contented and event consider encouraging other visitors to use the same services (Wei et al., 2020). This would also maximize experiential value and deliver additional benefits to the venture or investment. The companies and players within the wider UAE’s hospitality industry can focus on the benefits of social and emotional experiential value to improve service delivery and eventually record positive outcomes.
The ultimate objective of any investment is to maximize sales and record additional profits within a stipulated duration. In the tourism sector, the notions of loyalty and satisfaction have become essential and worth pursuing. The variance recorded in the level of client satisfaction within the tourism industry was mainly due to the introduced strategies for perceived value and motivation (Huang & Choi, 2019). For ventures that want to attract and retain more visitors in the future, they have to pursue such attributes and ensure that most of the customers are contented with the available services (Wei et al., 2020). The idea of motivation could be improved by empowering more employees and encouraging them to consider evidence-based approaches to add value to the identified tourists and make it easier for them to be involved in future business endeavors.
The idea of customer engagement (CE) has become a powerful tool for understanding the experiences different people record when doing business with a given firm. Applying the same concept, Huang and Choi (2019) decided to develop a new model known as a Tourist Engagement Scale (TES) that could incorporate different stakeholders in the industry. They utilized the framework to understand tourist co-creation and how it could predict visitors’ behavioral experiences and intentions (Huang & Choi, 2019). For companies that wanted to record positive results, it was necessary to consider a number of aspects, such as positive employee-tourist interactions, engagement, and social interaction (Huang & Choi, 2019). When more investors in this sector consider such an approach, they will be in a position to develop new initiatives to meet the needs of more clients and eventually improve the level of business performance or profitability.
Conclusion
Tourist value has become an integral concept that all businesses or firms in the tourism sector need to pursue or promote diligently. When different organizations in the UAE hospitality sector consider the above ideas and approaches, chances are high that they will attract and meet the demands of more tourists. The major stakeholders will get a new opportunity to retain the increasing number of visitors and eventually record improved profits. The concept can also become powerful for influencing service delivery, motivation, and employee empowerment practices in the sector. The consideration of such attributes will make restaurants and hotels in the UAE hospitality industry more sustainable and successful.
References
- Barnes, S. J., Mattsson, J., Sørensen, F., & Jensen, J. F. (2019). The mediating effect of experiential value on tourist outcomes from encounter-based experiences. Journal of Travel Research, 59(2), 367-380. Web.
- Cranmer, E. E., tom Dieck, M. C., & Fountoulaki, P. (2020). Exploring the value of augmented reality for tourism. Tourism Management Perspectives, 35. Web.
- Huang, S., & Choi, H. (2019). Developing and validating a multidimensional tourist engagement scale (TES). The Service Industries Journal, 39(7-8), 469-497. Web.
- Kim, O. Y., Seo, S. & Nurhidayati, V. A. (2019). Scale to measure tourist value of destination restaurant service.International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 31(7), 2827-2844. Web.
- Sharma, P., & Nayak, J. K. (2019). Dark tourism: Tourist value and loyalty intentions.Tourism Review, 74(4), 915-929. Web.
- Wei, M., Bai, C., Li, C., & Wang, H. (2020). The effect of host–guest interaction in tourist co-creation in public services: Evidence from Hangzhou. Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research, 25(4), 457-472. Web.
- Xu, F., Bai, Y., & Li, S. (2020). Examining the antecedents of brand engagement of tourists based on the theory of value co-creation. Sustainability, 12(5), 1958-1978. Web.