Challenges and Trends of Digital Innovation in the Tourism Sector: Contemporary Literature Review

The purpose of the paper is the examination and presentation of the various challenges and perspectives of the implementation of Digital Innovation in the Tourism Sector, following the global pandemic crisis of the COVID-19. A contemporary literature review of different research papers published the period 2019-2023 has been made, focusing on the particular topic in the tourism sector worldwide. The paper presents the core current and future trends of the Digital Innovation and provides discussion over the key problems/obstacles of the implementation of Digital Innovation tools in Hotels. In general, the new needs and requirements that have been created for the tourist product, have made it necessary to adopt and implement digital innovations, something that is considered to play a decisive role in further strengthening and development of the tourism sector. The literature review shows that there is a big gap between Large Hotels (above 4* stars) and Small Hotels (below 3* stars) towards the adoption of digital innovation. Factors such as high cost of the investment, seasonality of tourism product, lack of specialized staff, company culture, high taxation and the need for immediate results from businessmen greatly affect the desire to invest on the implementation of Digital Innovation tools/services. Nevertheless, companies operating in the Tourism sector should reconsider their strategy as the adoption of Digital Innovation can significantly improve their competitiveness, strengthen their corporate brand, provide now competitive offerings, attract more customers as well as foreign investment.