Creative Commons

Due to the exponential growth of the digital media and the strong relationship that tourism and technology have, we are going to explore the digital transformation of the tourism industry. Specifically, this thesis aims to present the technological trends and their impact on the tourism industry. It will demonstrate how the needs of the tourism sector have changed over the past few decades and the importance of the new technological trends for both the providers of tourism services and for the tourists. This thesis will analyze the advantages but also the disadvantages of e-tourism, in order to give a full picture to the reader. Moreover, it compares the e–tourism success with the traditional tourism. Special reference will be made to the role of social media for tourism promotion, due to their strong effect to the costumers’ satisfaction improvement. At this chapter, an overview of the most relevant platforms will be made and the added value to the tourism services will be demonstrated. It will confirm that social media support the huge growth travel industry experiences, but also it will highlight the challenges it may has. It will certainly emphasize the role of social media as a system that enables the market positioning creation, the personalized supply development and hence, the competitive advantage that is gained. Finally, the case of Thessaloniki and its online campaigns for tourism will be used as a case study. Thessaloniki is selected as it shows a strong online presence in the last years and recently has awarded for its digital campaigns at the Tourism Awards 2019. The fact that Thessaloniki Tourism Organization and other tourism operators have developed numerous promotion actions renders this city a very interesting case to analyze. At the end of the thesis we expect to hold a very helpful tool which is aimed to provide all tourism stakeholders data about the technological trends in the tourism sector in order to transform their business and upgrade the quality of their services.