5. The Role of ICT Applied to Tourism and Marketing in Asia

The tourism activity is dependent on technology, which has contributed to revolutionize the area both in terms of how to operate and in terms of generating new concepts. Information and Communication Technology have played a leading role in creating new ideas, discovering trends, defining more disruptive strategies and, consequently, developing new practices. With the emergence of new technologies, the following stand out: the progress in the use of voice to search on Google, the increasing use of chatbot to interact with tourists, the growth in the use of video marketing to promote and publicize tourism products and services, and the combination of artificial intelligence with machine learning to help the customer when planning and deciding what they want to buy and / or experience in a travel. The combination of the technologies mentioned above with those associated with the concept of industry 4.0 will help to change the face of tourism and marketing, since it will increase connectivity between men and machines, through interaction and communication expressed on social networks using a smartphone, while potentiate the need to purchase goods and services, while support decision making about how, when and where to purchase, taking into account the importance of immediate achievements, which is one of the characteristics of future consumers who are digital natives. This chapter identifies the main potential of emerging technologies, taking into account the means of communication provided by the internet, and the connection-involvement between user-technology-experience for tourism and marketing combined as a tool to change the face of tourism in Asia.