Contents

Task 01:......................................................................................................................................................2
Tourism industry in Sri Lanka.................................................................................................................2
Covid-19 impacts.....................................................................................................................................4
Task 02:......................................................................................................................................................5
Need for Digital/E-Tourism in the post COVID era.................................................................................5
Task 03:......................................................................................................................................................8
Online Travel Agencies and meta-search engines on the rebuilding of the tourism and hospitality
industry...................................................................................................................................................8
Meta search engines...............................................................................................................................9
Task 04:....................................................................................................................................................10
E-tourism strategies that can be implemented to rebuild tourism.....................................................10
Task 05:....................................................................................................................................................12
Importance of social media in marketing.............................................................................................12
Task 06:....................................................................................................................................................15
Role of data protection in achieving the goal of rebuilding tourism in the post COVID era though
digital media strategies........................................................................................................................15
References................................................................................................................................................19

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 Introduction

COVID- The vulnerable tourist and hospitality industries are currently facing unprecedented
challenges due to the 19 epidemics. The highly contagious new Covid-19 virus continues to
hinder the industry and raises important concerns about its current and future viability. This
study has concentrated on the reforms in Sri Lanka's tourism industry following corona
pandemic

Task 01:
Tourism industry in Sri Lanka
It is clear that the tourism sector is a dynamic, multidimensional sector that helps Sri Lanka's
socioeconomic growth. The tourism industry has the potential to act as an economic stimulant
that improves income-generating sources, employment prospects, and foreign exchange profits,
among other things, if various segments of individuals connected to the sector are effectively
guided and encouraged. The sum of all these elements has a favorable spillover impact on
economic development, and tourism can help to alleviate poverty, reduce unemployment, and
promote upward social mobility.

Due to its tropical location in the Indian Ocean and abundance of natural beauty, Sri Lanka has a
long history and a well-established reputation as a popular tourist destination. Sri Lanka,
historically known as Ceylon, is a tiny island (65,610 square miles) in the Indian Ocean, 880
kilometers north of the equator, off the southeast coast of India. This tropical island's natural and
cultural resources have long captivated visitors due to its strategic location on historic maritime
routes. With temperatures varying from 7 to 33 °C from the hills to the plains, and periodic rains
from the southwest and northeast, respectively, from May to July and from December to January,
the country experiences a wide range of climates and meteorological conditions across the year
(Arsarathnam, 2004).

As a tourism destination, Sri Lanka can compete successfully with other destinations partly
because of its pivotal geographical position. Its strategic location in the Indian Ocean on the
major air and sea routes between Europe and the Far East is an advantage to the country's

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Positioning as a global logistics hub (Sri Lanka Info, 2011). In addition to its location, Sri Lanka
offers a plethora of options for tourists among them beach destinations, favorable climate, rich
cultural heritage, national parks and wildlife (Lai, 2002).

Sri Lanka is regarded as one of the well-liked tourist destinations in the area due to its distinctive
combination of golden beaches, a rich cultural past, varied landscapes, and a sizeable amount of
wildlife (Lai, 2002). Lonely Planet ranked Sri Lanka the greatest country in the world to visit in
2019 in 2018. Sri Lanka is a popular tourist destination due to its endowment of the three "S"s,
as highlighted by Kiriella(2011p. 2) (Sun, Sea and Sand).

In the 1960s, Sri Lanka began to compete in the global tourism market. Since, the main driver of
Sri Lanka's tourist growth has been the engagement of the government. In order to guide and
drive this promising area of the expanding economy, the Ceylon Tourist Board (CTB) was
founded in 1966. The nation is renowned for its cultural history and good health. The more
alluring aspects include warm hospitality, tropical woods, beautiful and fascinating beaches,
archeological monuments, and a tropical temperature. These elements contribute to Sri Lanka's
popularity as a travel destination. Sri Lanka's tourism industry has grown tremendously over
time. The sixth Foreign Exchange Earner (FEE) in the Sri Lankan economy currently is tourism.

There have been numerous booms and busts in the tourism sector as a result of conflict and
terrorist activity. 30 years of civil strife in Sri Lanka were finally put to an end in 2009. When
the tourist industry started to flourish, it quickly rose to become one of the top travel destinations
in the world. The country's governing agencies have helped the tourism industry flourish
gradually. Because of the nature of the industry, this has caused the tourist sector to diversify and
draw in more people. The general public participates in the development of adventure tourism,
nature tourism, community-based tourism, culture tourism, agritourism and ecotourism. The
National Tourism Development Strategy strengthened these areas. Due to the Easter Sunday
Attack by Islamic extremists, the tourism sector has marginally declined in 2019. The COVID 19
pandemic entered the picture and completely upended people's lives all across the world, leaving
little room for the industry to redevelop. As a result, Sri Lanka has suffered a severe effect and
its tourism industry has experienced a sharp downturn. The COVID 19 pandemic entered the
picture and completely upended people's lives all across the world, leaving little room for the

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industry to redevelop. As a result, Sri Lanka has suffered a severe effect and its tourism industry
has experienced a sharp downturn.

Covid-19 impacts
Nearly every country's economic development has been significantly impacted by the COVID-19
epidemic. The largest economic downturn in recorded history was brought on by it. The spread
of COVID-19 is also causing economies in more developed nations like the United States, the
United Kingdom, Japan, and Europe to slow down. Trade activity is expected to decline by 32%
in 2020, according to the World Trade Organization. Weak demand, supply chain disruptions,
travel bans, and the lockdown strategy are caused for the economy's poor performance.
Researchers have determined the impact of prior epidemics on the economy and the travel and
tourism industry. Previous research has demonstrated that these pandemics had comparatively
less impact than the COVID-19 epidemic in 2020. (Korinth and Ranasinghe, 2020). The tourist
sector is likely to recover more slowly than other economic sectors, according to the WTTC
(2020), as previous pandemics took longer than 19 months to recover from.

Starting in March, the Asian Development Bank predicted that Sri Lanka's tourism revenues
might decline from US$107 million to US$319 million (PWC, 2020), with real revenue drops
likely to be substantially higher than anticipated due to the situation's ongoing escalation. In
2018, the tourist industry employed 169,003 direct employees and 219,484 indirect employees,
correspondingly, as per SLTDA statistics (SLTDA, 2019). The bulk of these employees are
currently temporarily jobless as a result of the closure of hotels, restaurants, airlines, travel
agency, tourist stores, and other businesses. Families that were entirely reliant on tourism have
been greatly impacted by this. However, tourism investors are in financial trouble since they are
unable to maintain a sufficient cash flow to pay debts, pay employees, and perform other
necessary property maintenance (Samarathunga, 2020).

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As a nation with minimal recent experience with global health epidemics, Sri Lanka lacked a
crisis response strategy for a widespread, multi-sector global pandemic like COVID-19. Despite
this short experience, Sri Lanka reported being the second nation after China to implement
COVID-19 reduction and control measures (Ranasinghe et al., 2020). According to
Samarathunga (2020), there are three key variables that affect how many tourists arrive at a
particular location: the destination area variables, the generating area variables, and the transition
area variables. COVID-19 has had a big impact across all three of these variables. The virus and
measures taken to stop its spread reduced the number of foreign visitors arriving to the lowest
point in the sector's history.

Task 02:
Need for Digital/E-Tourism in the post COVID era

The Covid-19 pandemic crisis has had a significant impact on all global players in the travel and
hospitality value chain (UNWTO World Tourism Barometer and Statistical Annex, October
2020, 2020). According to Tourism and Its Impact on Economic Development, 2022 and
Mohanty and Chandran (2018), tourism is one of the sectors of the economy with the greatest
rate of growth and is a key factor in employment, economic expansion, and development.
Moreover, the movement, gathering, and sociability of people are the foundation of the tourist
sector. Therefore, this expansion has been slowed down by the COVID-19 situation.

As a result of the spread of digital technologies like the Internet of Things , additive
manufacturing, artificial intelligence, big data, augmented and virtual reality, and cloud
computing and the process of digital transformation is described as a method that fundamentally
alters the structure of the industries (Vial, 2019; Maki et al., 2022). Those technologies were
widely employed to address some significant difficulties in life during the pandemic's rise, and
for the tourism industry, they have been a key enabler to increase resilience (Mohanty and
Chandran,2018; Sharma, Thomas and Paul, 2021). Digital technologies, particularly virtual
reality, make it easy for travelers to discover new places even at home, improving travel
experiences (Akhtar et al., 2021).

The rate of technical development, digital transformation, and automation in the tourism industry
has increased as a result of the COVID-19 issue. In order to safely reestablish service during the

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epidemic, digital tools have been deployed. In addition to other customer-facing businesses
switching to contactless payment options, bars and restaurants have used fast response codes and
online purchases to assist preserve physical distance and offer contactless service. State
immunization and testing regulations have been complied with by establishing new digital
registration procedures. Although personalized customer service is valued in the tourism sector,
many digital and online service initiatives are anticipated to last past the pandemic. While the
majority of the service modifications in the industry rely on well-established technology, there is
significant interest in applying new and emerging technologies, like virtual tourism, which uses
VR and AR devices. The use of technology, which has the potential to encourage higher
production and profitability, will be essential to the industry's recovery. Big data and AI can
assist in managing tourist flows, as well as monitoring and protecting local populations and
resources as they recover and expand sustainably. The ability of tourism businesses and
destinations to harness the potential of technology to help them react to tastes and trends with
greater flexibility, create experiences that are highly personalized, use online platforms to expand
their reach to consumers, and implement health guidelines as they evolve over time will
determine how well they recover. In recovery plans, there is a chance to put a specific emphasis
on technology, especially in terms of promoting the digitization of MSMEs.

Whereas the digitalization of tourism can boost output and efficiency and enhance service
delivery, it is also changing how work is organized in workplaces and organizations, opening up
new employment opportunities and posing new technical obstacles. This creates gaps in the
supply and demand for skills, especially where low- and medium-skilled employment are
required to integrate existing skill sets with technology literacy and other complimentary
capabilities. While a variety of new vocations and professions are emerging, the usage of
information and communications technology and technology skills necessitates the need for
highly qualified workers who can operate these systems. The need for social distance has raised
the demand for web-based devices and automated systems, as well as potential for job
automation and robotization in the sector. The COVID-19 global epidemic and automation have
both had a significant negative impact on the tourism sector according to research by the
European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (CEDEFOP), which also found
that many duties within these jobs have the potential to be automated, and that the pandemic is
likely to hasten this process. Despite this, research indicates that the automation of many

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processes will lead to employment transformation, necessitating new skills instead of job losses,
and that the digitalization of the sector would result in the creation of employment opportunities.

Addressing the discrepancies between the supply and demand of digital skills is crucial because
the digitization of employment and occupations. The recovery from the COVID-19 crisis must
be inclusive, robust, and sustainable, which calls for an emphasis on skills and lifelong learning
for workers. Skills gaps and shortages are anticipated to cause labor market snags for workers
and to put pressure on businesses that lack the skilled personnel required for a digital
transformation. A broad and all-encompassing strategy involving workers, employers, and
governments is needed to close the skill gap. All sizes of tourism businesses, but especially
MSMEs, may find it difficult to recruit or educate qualified people to guarantee the sector has
the right balance of talents for the future. In light of the COVID-19 crisis's disproportionate
negative effects on the sector's MSMEs' operations and financial performance, this effect is
especially obvious. To ensure that almost all businesses can benefit from digitalization and to
support the creation of decent jobs, increased productivity, and sustainable development in the
tourism industry, policies that specifically target MSMEs are also necessary. These policies go
beyond the development of skills and education in the sector and include training in digital and
complementary skills.

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Task 03:
Online Travel Agencies and meta-search engines on the rebuilding of the tourism
and hospitality industry
An important part of that recovery process is being played by online travel agencies (OTAs).
OTAs will carry on promoting destinations, matching potential customers with goods and
experiences, and encouraging bookings. Additionally, destination operators will be able to
handle the shifting dynamics of customer preferences and use real-time analytics to better
resonate with customer appeals because to OTAs' ability to evaluate "big-data."

Any assessment of the future prognosis for travel destinations is necessarily framed by the
COVID-19 issue due to its rapid escalation and destructive repercussions on all facets of the
global tourist sector (airlines, hospitality, Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs),
attractions, and more).

It's up to them and their traveling companions to decide what the role should be. The short
answer is that their marketing skills and big data expertise will help Destination identify
recovering target markets and market the brand appropriately to local audiences. Furthermore,
OTAs have important data at their disposal. As well as monitoring the crisis and developing a
trend line plan for recovery.

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In a crisis situation, OTAs' quick response times to shifting circumstances enable businesses and
customers to make last-minute modifications. Given their relationships with SMEs, OTAs may
potentially play a proactive role in business interruption recovery.

The growth of online travel agencies (OTAs) over the past 25 years, together with consumer
review websites like TripAdvisor, has unquestionably changed the game for the tourist sector.
With 34 operational countries, over 260 million monthly unique users, and over 125 million
reviews and opinions for more than 3.1 million hotels, restaurants, and activities, TripAdvisor
alone boasts impressive numbers.

Agoda provides access to more than 2.5 million properties worldwide on both desktop and
mobile devices. Agoda added flights and package items in 2019 to further simplify travel in
addition to offering a variety of lodging options to fit every traveler's needs and budget.
Customers can search among 196 booking sites with the help of companies like Trivago to
discover the best deal. Like every successful business strategy, OTAs were created to meet a
particular issue: how to distribute travel products to a worldwide consumer that is becoming
more demanding while also having greater access to digital platforms. Through the use of
technology, OTAs have transformed into digital marketplaces that match client demand with the
availability of travel-related goods. (Goodvin, 2014)

Meta search engines

Hotels have a rare opportunity to examine their marketing plans and reevaluate how they
position their establishments to prospective guests as the tourism sector starts to recover from the
consequences of COVID-19. Metasearch is one tactic that has emerged as a powerful force in the
promotion of a direct connection with hotel customers

In contrast to other types of advertising, metasearch adverts only show up on metasearch

websites when customers have made a decision regarding which hotels to book and are actively
looking at prices and availability. Each portal has its own rating and bidding logic, and since they
all demand access to a pricing and availability feed, setting up and administering these
campaigns can become more challenging.

As discussed in COVID-19 Recovery Toolkit - Outreach and Marketing Strategy (Part 2),
metasearch is essential for guaranteeing that any increase in search demand brought on by these

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initiatives results in a hotel reservation. Metasearch will be one of the most efficient methods to
convert individuals who are already thinking about dates, destinations, and named hotels when
travel picks up and demand increases.

When looking for a hotel, about 72% of tourists routinely utilize metasearch engines, and a
successful metasearch campaign can raise the direct reservation share by up to 13%.

In reaction to COVID-19, some of the bigger OTA platforms have temporarily drastically cut
back on their spending, which historically accounted for a sizable percentage of their master
budget for metasearch. While demand increases once more, hotels have a chance to alter
consumer behavior and entice more customers to make direct reservations.

In response to the extraordinary issues hotels face as a result of COVID-19, Google, which
operates the biggest metasearch network known as Google Hotel Ads (or "GHA"), has sped up
the deployment of new features to boost GHA acceptance and functionality. Only hotels that
participate in metasearch are eligible to use these services.

Task 04:
E-tourism strategies that can be implemented to rebuild tourism
Promotional Campaigns
The campaign is crucial in helping to promote a tourist destination since it entails branding
tourist attractions to improve their appeal to potential visitors. This can be accomplished using a
variety of media to increase brand recognition and boost the destination's reputation
internationally. It is advised to place online advertisements on well-known websites that contain
connections to the e-tourism webpages they want to create. The number of visits on the
developed site may rise when this draws visitors to a tourism website. In order for the website to
rank among the top results for search terms on the internet, search engine optimization (SEO)
will benefit from an increase in hits. Since this search engine ranking system ranks the most
often referred websites alongside the most pertinent keywords, users' search results will be
enhanced.
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Community Building

Blogs, social media, e-CBT, forums, or social travel websites can all be used to foster
community. By posting a comment on these websites with various supplementary details or other
items that can improve the perception of a vacation region, you can maintain these pages.
Regular e-newsletter publication might offer more details about a tourism destination. Verbal
advertising through social media platforms, vlogs, blogs and podcasts will spread more favorable
information, boosting the allure of tourist destinations. Local cultural events, like festival
activities, that have become ingrained in local communities can also be developed through the
development of e-CBT.

Social Media Marketing

Using user engagement and user social capital, social media and commodity companies engage
in a new kind of marketing activity known as "social media marketing" online (Wei, 2019). The
partnership between commodity businesses and their customers is strengthened through regular
communication on social media platforms. Social networking use can also help businesses build
a positive reputation and pro-people image, enhance customer confidence in their products, and
boost their overall sales. Opposite, the social media tourist marketing strategy is a marketing plan
produced through collaboration between social media platforms and tourism businesses or
departments, based upon the market conditions, the destination itself, and consumer
characteristics.

When promoting tourism, the features of social media allow for the employment of a number of
marketing tactics. In light of the national circumstances that the flow of individuals across the
country has decreased dramatically, tourism businesses or locations utilized a variety of social
media marketing tactics during the pandemic, including word-of-mouth marketing, precision
marketing, celebrity effects, etc.

Informative Content

Information on travel destinations is interactive and educational. With the help of educational
content, travelers may quickly decide which locations they wish to visit. Additionally, anyone
can modify the content of the online encyclopedia so that anyone seeking information about all

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these keywords can benefit from its explanations. The present content on the website is further
improved through frequent updates. They can also include e-Community Base Tourism (e-CBT)
here. Throughout this tourism website, local customs, local knowledge, local products produced
by the neighborhood, and handicrafts produced by small and medium-sized businesses owned by
the neighborhood can all be promoted. The potential that might be the main factor in boosting
local tourism is raised in this existing information in great detail. Virtual reality, augmented
reality, and 360-degree video technology can all be used interactively to enhance the content of
travel advertisements. The health protocol should continue to be followed after all of these topics
have been covered, in the form of educational movies and infographics.

Competitiveness

Knowing and understanding the market through the application of various techniques achieved
through intensive benchmarking with other travel websites or with yearly reports from different
tourist spots in other nations is essential for competitiveness. Annual reports from the United
Nations World Tourist Organization (UNWTO) website or the official websites of other
organizations can also be used to determine the state of the tourist industry, particularly e-
tourism. By benchmarking, information can be gathered to improve the quality and
competitiveness of regional tourism goods. This competitiveness may also be improved via
business partnerships with academic institutions that create or develop tourism-related products
through collaborative research. The findings of this analysis will be used as information by
decision-makers, particularly when promoting tourism items online to increase their
competitiveness.

Task 05:
Importance of social media in marketing

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Travel bans have been gradually removed in many locations since the second half of 2020 as
China's pandemic situation has decelerated. As a result, the tourism sector has entered a stage of
recovery and development. The epidemic's shock triggered a reorganization in the travel and
tourist sector, and tiny travel businesses with fragile economic viability were compelled to leave
the market. The entire industry has steadily moved from an offline to that of an online sales and
profit strategy. Utilizing social media as a marketing tool is one of the most effective ways to
promote travel destinations, create a "cloud tourism" industry, increase users' willingness to
travel immediately, overcome barriers to the growth of the real economy, and generate online
revenue for the travel and tourism sector.

Due to the various research focuses, social media is currently defined in a variety of ways as a
dynamic information channel. The term "social media" was first used in a foreign country to
describe a platform that may facilitate online user group engagement in content creation and
opinion sharing. Since then, the operations and forms of social media have been enhanced and
the sectional title types have increased in number, as a result of the growth of network
information technology and changes in users' social behaviors. As a result, the concept of social
media has been evolving and cannot be clearly defined. The research perspective of this article
describes social media as an online network platform or application based on web 2.0
information technology that can perform real-time content production, data interchange, and
two-way communication in a variety of methods.

Marketing strategies based on social media are starting to become more significant as social
applications and concepts become more widespread. The percentage of people utilizing social
media to document their lives, communicate news, and make purchases has dramatically
increased when compared to the past. Although social media's inherent qualities make it play an
increasingly significant role in tourism marketing, the social media marketing of tourism
businesses has a relatively wide mass base. because of the epidemic Social media, also referred
to as internet marketing, is playing a bigger role in the tourism industry. Through social media
platforms, people can communicate with a variety of tourism-related sectors. The coronavirus
forced people to stay in their homes and immediate neighborhoods throughout the world (Carey,
Breanna, 2021).

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Our digital world has never expanded so swiftly and so dramatically as it has during this
epidemic catastrophe. More than half of the world's population today exclusively uses social
media for daily tasks. Social media platforms are under pressure to swiftly adapt to user needs.
During this epidemic, several companies permitted their employees to work from home, and
social media significantly influenced this. Due to the outbreak, all academic institutions are
currently closed; therefore, classes and discussions are being held using different online
applications like Google Docs, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and WhatsApp (Pokhrel & Chhetri,
2021). Social media allowed many people to have uninterrupted conversations. Multiple social
media platforms allowed users to receive real-time updates on the infection and other issues.

Social media during the pandemic let people to communicate with those who were far away. A
large number of people used the internet to amuse themselves during the shutdown. In recent
years, social media has become even more significant in the travel sector. It is important in many
aspects of tourism and travel, including leisure travel and corporate travel (Nakaishi, 2021).
People utilize social media to gather knowledge and decide wisely on their travel plans, which
saves them time and money. Additionally, it enables users to communicate about their shared
travel-related experiences. They may discuss either a good or bad experience they had with a
hotel, airline, restaurant, or some other business. Given that social media operates similarly to a
customer service channel, it is difficult to ignore (Kang & A.Schuett, 2013). Individuals use
social media while traveling to communicate their personal experiences with others, whether
they are good or bad, before, during, or after their journey. Sharing such private encounters with
others has also gained popularity. Social media is used by people to publish their images for
public viewing, share photos with others, and change their location status. It is now an essential
component of our daily life.

The promotion of tourism makes substantial use of social media. Social media helps the tourism
industry since it enables them to get customer feedback. Social media usage can help with the
advertising of travel-related goods. With the help of social media, numerous travel communities
are formed, and members share their local knowledge. Social media also brings together a
considerable number of travelers. The domestic landmarks, formerly known only to those who
lived in those areas, suddenly came to the attention of a vast number of people. Nowadays, most

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tourists rely their trip destinations on evaluations and experiences posted on social media
platforms (Tas, 2021)

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Task 06:
Role of data protection in achieving the goal of rebuilding tourism in the post
COVID era though digital media strategies

The COVID-19 disease outbreak earlier this year caused a large portion of the world to move
online, accelerating a long-term digital transformation. Companies in various sectors of the
economy deal with data security and privacy violations in today's digital age. In the context of
the tourism sector, maintaining the privacy and security of personal and financial information
becomes much more difficult. The importance of committing to the secure handling of this
sensitive data is greater than ever as businesses in this sector widen the methods by which they
gather data from their clients.

Although the phrases data privacy and data protection are identical and frequently overlap, they
aren't always the same thing. Protecting data from loss and corruption is the activity or process of
doing so. Data privacy relates to processing policies and procedures used by organizations and
prohibits controllers and processors from utilizing data improperly.

To put it simply, data protection is the act of protecting data from illegal access, whereas data
privacy is the conduct of those who have been granted access. Data protection is typically
focused on safeguarding information and may involve encryption, secure communications
methods, and quantifiable security standards. It may be better to think of data privacy as a legal
concern that concentrates on how personal information is gathered, kept, and used. Data privacy,
on the other hand, is more concerned with how the information is governed and utilized, whereas
data protection is more concerned with security.

Even though it is possible to safeguard privacy when digital data are not secured by technology,
it is very challenging to do so in a digital business context because data protection doesn't always
equate to data privacy. As data is created and stored at previously unheard-of rates, the
significance of data protection grows. Additionally, there is limited tolerance for downtime that
can prevent access to crucial information.

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As a result, a key component of a data protection plan is making sure that data can be swiftly
restored after any loss or damage. Other crucial aspects of data protection include guaranteeing
data privacy and safeguarding data against compromise.

The fines for breaches may be severe if a company fails to protect sensitive data, but those aren't
the only factors that businesses need to think about. Due to the possibility of their data being lost
due to a security breach, travelers may be less likely to use the company's services in the future
as a result of a security breach.

The number of data breaches in the travel or tourist sector is among the highest. Whether it's
making hotel reservations, booking a trip or a trek, purchasing travel tickets, or providing your
financial, personal, and government-issued national identity numbers for verification purposes,
the tourism sector stores and processes enormous amounts of responsive customer data every
day, such as names, addresses, national identity numbers, and financial information. As a result,
fraudsters intending to perpetrate money fraud and identity theft crimes find the tourism business
to be the ideal target. Therefore, it is crucial that businesses in the tourism sector take the
necessary precautions to guarantee the security of the data they manage. To assist travelers in
safeguarding sensitive personal, professional, and financial information, several businesses are
working hard. But tourism has always been a challenging undertaking. Those challenges are as
follows,

Complicated ownership structure

Hotels, travel agencies, and restaurants are examples of businesses in the tourist sector that
frequently have a complex ownership structure that includes a management firm that runs the
business, a distinct owner or group of owners, and a franchisor. To ensure efficient business
operation, these many entities act as a team that collaborates and assumes various duties.
Important data may be kept by these many entities in various computer systems and may be
transferred all the time. Data breaches could be caused by ownership structures that are so
complex.

Use of electronic payment methods

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Online payment options are very important to the tourism sector. For the comfort of both
consumers and employees, some businesses demand credit card data to make reservations, and
final payments are frequently done using the same card that is already on file. Additionally, there
is a significant risk that the entire network of connected devices could be compromised once a
single file within a system is compromised.

Cybercriminals can easily steal money and sensitive information by targeting online payment
methods. Customers are required to give personal information online, including credit card and
payment account information. The travel and hospitality sector need to implement a number of
security measures, such as two-factor authentication mechanisms, to guarantee the security of all
devices used to store client financial information. Even if thieves have successfully acquired
passwords and other sensitive financial information in this instance, they might not have an
additional authentication component.

Employee Awareness

Businesses must make sure that workers adopt personal security measures to protect themselves
from cybercrimes, such as using incognito mode on their private devices, creating complex
passwords, using PINs, employing lock alarms, etc. This will aid in preventing theft and ensuring
individual compliance.

Seasonal Jobs and Employee Turnover

Employee training is essential to assuring the secure gathering and preservation of customer and
business data. But given that it primarily entails seasonal employment, the tourism sector faces
relatively significant concerns. Employees frequently quit their jobs after a few months or are
moved to alternative areas. This makes it difficult to reinforce groups of personnel who are well
taught. One inexperienced worker might give thieves simple access points to critical consumer
data.

Regular Maintenance of the devices and Back-Up

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It is important to constantly maintain the devices and update the applications because using older
devices and out-of-date software makes it simple for cybercriminals to steal data or compromise
the system. Data backup is typically a simple and affordable job to ensure data security. It is
crucial to develop a backup routine in order to lower the chance of data loss or irreparable
damage. This will include financial documents, corporate strategies, client information, private
data, etc.

Data sovereignty and Data Disposal

Data sovereignty refers to the geographically based rights to the storage of business and
customer data. It is governed by a number of regulations that protect data and uphold people's
privacy from external dangers. Any company has the freedom to reveal or withhold any
information that is kept private by their cyber defense system thanks to the data sovereignty
principle. The majority of tourism and hospitality businesses lack data storage and disposal rules
for sensitive client information, which raises the risk of data breaches.

References
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