Conceptualizing blockchain in tourism consumer experience: implications for tourism marketing

Abstract

Purpose

Digitalization, financial technologies and the internet have rapidly advanced the business ecosystem posing a disruptive threat to how operations are fundamentally performed. Global hospitality and tourism companies face this challenge and have been early adopters in this field. This study aims to examine the role of blockchain technology in strengthening the marketing mix (product, price, place and promotion) and the its related impacts on the tourism industry.

Design/methodology/approach

This research adopts a systematic literature review approach to synthesize and assess the literature published on blockchain in tourism and tends to build a conceptual framework that depicts the relationships between different constructs.

Findings

The results show a lot of interest in using blockchain technology due to numerous advantages to tourism industry. This innovative technology can change this sector radically; assist small economies in strengthening and transitioning to the level of developed economies; and assist tourism companies in eliminating corruption, establishing a secure network and promoting equality between small and large entities.

Originality/value

Through industry examples demonstrating real-life use cases such as startups operating on the application of blockchain in tourism, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is a first attempt to draw the impact of blockchain technology on product, price, place, promotion (4Ps) in tourism sector. The proposed nine relationships can facilitate the future researchers in advancing the state-of-art on how blockchain-based technologies can shape the customers experience through promoting confidentiality, co-creation and effective destination planning.

Citation

Kathuria, S.,  , S. and Tandon, U. (2023), "Conceptualizing blockchain in tourism consumer experience: implications for tourism marketing", Global Knowledge, Memory and Communication, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/GKMC-01-2023-0012