Aqua Vista Hotels: Utilizing Modern Technology for Tourism Development

Aqua Vista Hotels assistant director of sales Alexandros Dardoufas presented the results of his study during the IMIC 2017 international conference.

Aqua Vista Hotels participated in the IMIC 2017 international conference titled, “Tourism; Trends, Prospects and Implications for Enterprises and Destinations”, which took place on the island of Santorini recently.

Represented by Alexandros Dardoufas, the Group’s assistant director of sales and a PhD candidate at the University of the Aegean, Aqua Vista Hotels shared its know-how on the importance of utilizing modern technology for tourism development.

During his presentation, Dardoufas referred to the results of a quality and quantity study he carried out through questionnaires addressed to hotel owners, sales managers, general managers, marketing directors and e-commerce managers, regarding their units’ dependence on third parties and how much that has changed over time. He analyzed the way the interest of hotel decision makers has shifted from Tour Operators to Online Travel Agents (OTAs), such as Booking.com and Expedia. Furthermore, Daroufas explored future trends and the continuous need for the incorporation of new, innovative methods and tools in the field of bookings, such as virtual reality, augmented reality, chatbots, etc.

Aqua Vista Hotels assistant director of sales Alexandros Dardoufas; David Airey, emeritus professor, University of Surrey; Andreas Papatheodorou, professor, University of the Aegean and chairman of the IMIC 2017 Conference; Egon Smeral, professor, Modul University, Vienna.

According to the research, despite being aware of the importance of the digital advancement of unit reservation tools that will lead to significant independence from third party assistance, hotel heads and staff continue to opt for the ease of dependency on the latter.

“Tourism is an industry, which is evolving daily and there are many scientific innovations that can be applied in the hotel industry and constitute an important part of it, especially in the area of bookings,” Alaxandros Dardoufas said. “In Aqua Vista Hotels, we are constantly seeking ways to upgrade the services of our units. The introduction of new technology with the aim of strengthening hotels as enterprises is one of our main objectives,” he added.

The IMIC 2017 international conference was held October 19 – 21 with the scientific cooperation of the University of the Aegean, the Harokopio University, the Hellenic Open University and the Ball State University Management Department USA, with the support of the Greek Tourism Confederation (SETE) and the Municipality of Thera.

Exterior view of the “Dreams Luxury Suites”, member of Aqua Vista Hotels  on Santorini. Photo by Christos Drazos

It was part of the 5th International Conference of Tourism organized by the graduate program on “Tourism Planning, Management and Policy” and the Laboratory for Tourism Research and Studies of the University of the Aegean in collaboration with the IMIC Series, the annual events held since 2004 by Heliotopos Conferences.

The Greek Travel Pages (GTP) was a media sponsor of the IMIC 2017 international conference.