Keywords

1 Introduction

We are living in a smart world characterized by ubiquitous interconnection, intelligence, and computing, making our lives convenient, comfortable, and informed [1]. Smartness is the result of increased connectivity and data capabilities by technological advances [2]. It works to reengineer processes and data to support business information exchange and decision-making and to produce innovative services, products, and procedures ensuring stakeholder value maximization [3].

In the past decade, the rapid development of technology has also reshaped the tourism and hospitality industry [3, 4]. Technological innovations are a catalyst for developments and competitiveness in tourism and hospitality [3]. These firms need to embrace innovation and adopt the latest technologies to satisfy their customers and differentiate their products from competitors. After all, consumers want to interact in real time and experience more personalized and contextualized services. Therefore, tourism destinations and service providers have already adopted various technologies to enhance the tourism experience [4]. Additionally, technologies are used by tourism and hospitality companies, affecting service advantage, value co-creation, employee job satisfaction, employees’ perception of service cannibalization, and competitiveness [5].

The development of technologies and data within the tourism and hospitality industry has led to the development of Smart Hospitality Concepts (SHCs). SHCs are concepts, consisting of technology and/or data, that create added value for stakeholders within a tourism and hospitality ecosystem.

Both industry and educational institutions need to respond to the changing needs and wishes of organizations and consumers as well as technological developments. Ness [6] underscored the importance of cultivating students’ creative and innovative skills during their studies to better prepare them for their future jobs, as they will need to deal with contemporary demands and disruptions in the world of tourism and hospitality.

This paper introduces the Smart Hospitality Wheel (SHW), a theory-based tool that enables education and practice to design SHCs to innovate in tourism and hospitality.

2 Smart Hospitality Wheel in Theory

The SHW is a tool to create innovative ideas for SHCs. The development of the SHW is based on theory on hospitality, customer journey, and business innovation, and has been tested in a number of practical settings in education and industry. The design of the wheel and the unique combination of theory linked to smartness and hospitality create a novel tool to use in the creativity process to design innovative SHCs. The novelty is the application, in combination with established approaches.

SHW consists of aspects visualized in ‘rings’ that can rotate independently. To create a concept, each ring is discussed within the team to see what aspect is included in the SHC. This paper introduces a basic set of rings. However, depending on the context, rings can be added or removed.

Hospitality Experience. The inner circle, the core, of a SHC is to enhance the hospitality experienced by its users. Based on Pijls et al. [7], the experience of hospitality consists of three different factors: inviting, care, and comfort.

Servicescape. A SHC can take place in the physical or virtual world. Hospitality is shifting to a hybrid service co-creation between tech and touch [8]. Customers can for example use an app using augmented reality in the physical environment of a location.

Effect. A SHC adds value. Based on Sigala [2], three types of value creators are distinguished: surprise, facilitate, and connect. SHCs are aimed at balancing the experience from the guest's point of view (surprise), creating an efficient and effective concept for the organization or user (facilitate), and promoting interconnectedness between stakeholders (connect).

Customer Journey. A visit in a service environment is a journey, consisting of a series of successive moments, the so-called ‘touchpoints’. In the customer journey the phases of pre-arrival, arrival, stay, and departure can be discerned [9]. A SHC can be developed for a particular phase or combinations of phases within the customer journey.

Business case. A SHC may start from a particular business perspective. Van Wulfen [10] introduces four routes to a successful new business case. The chosen route depends on the starting point of the innovation: adopt a certain technology, solve an issue for customers, solve an economic issue in the organization, or adopt an idea like an opportunity found in the market.

Fig. 1.
figure 1

The Smart Hospitality Wheel

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3 Smart Hospitality Wheel in Practice

3.1 Procedure, Design and Settings

The SHW can be used both in practice and education. In practice, the wheel has been used in 12 workshops with about 140 participants in 2022 and 2023: a women's business network, a lustrum of the study Tourism Management (2×), an event of hotel schools (2×), a business event in tourism and hospitality in National Park Weerribben-Wieden (2×), a business event in tourism and hospitality in Zwolle (2×), a EuroCHRIE conference and an educational event (2×). The participants varied in professional background: 20 professionals in the tourism and hospitality business, 60 SME entrepreneurs in tourism and hospitality, and 60 educators in hospitality and tourism. In education, about 200 bachelor students used the wheel within various courses: Smart Tourism (n = 100), Minor Smart Events (n = 30), Hackathon Digital Workshop (n = 30), and Smart Solutions Semester (n = 40).

Two workshop leaders guided the design process. One was responsible for guiding the workshop, and the other observed the design process and took notes. Participants worked in groups of five to eight people. The input was either a current case created by the workshop leaders (i.e. staff shortage in restaurants, queues at security at airports) or a case suggested by the participants. After an introduction of the wheel and case, participants used a paper version of the wheel to take notes and guide ring by ring both the design process. At the end of the workshop, all groups presented their idea for a SHC and explained how the rings of the wheel were used to create the concept. Next, all participants evaluated the SHW by providing written feedback on the paper version of the wheel, and verbal feedback written down by workshop leaders and recorded in one workshop. In some workshops, the online feedback tool mentimeter or padlet was used to gather feedback. Feedback consisted of the usefulness and added value of the wheel.

3.2 Results

In both practice and education, the SHW appeared as a kickstarter in the process of designing innovative solutions. Practitioners indicated that the various rings offered support in making decisions and in getting the added value of hospitality concepts clear for both customers and the organization. The rings helped create new SHCs, for instance, a digital onboarding concept for staff in hospitality, an interactive table in restaurants, and a renewed body scan system for airports. As participants at EuroCHRIE illustrated: “The wheel was a great tool to bring an idea to life by outlining the key focus areas”, and “the wheel has facilitated my ability to bring together all different perspectives and viewpoints”. Entrepreneurs said: “Helpful to start looking from a certain angle” and “it encourages thinking about problems and solutions”. Educators commented: “Very nice when you think about the effects, consequences, implementation. For things like that, it's very nice to keep going back to the wheel” and “It gives you a lot of grip and sense of purpose in the beginning. After that, it's nice for inspiration and check”.

Furthermore, innovation and creativity in departments of large organizations were stimulated by using the SHW in brainstorming. Particularly SME business representatives tend to have a solution for their issue quite easily, so the use of the wheel helped them particularly in confirming the choices made. In addition, a logical order in the use of the rings appeared to depend on the case and personal preferences. A prescribed order does not seem to be useful. Finally, it was suggested to add other rings, such as a ring concerning stakeholders or sustainability. The workshop with business representatives additionally showed that the maximum number of rings should be five.

In education, the SHW helps students kick-start their creativity, make choices in this process by means of the rings, and finally come up with an innovative SHC. Students working with the SHW indicated that discussing each ring helped them in making choices and keeping their focus on the design of their SHC.

To illustrate, during the EuroCHRIE workshop, a group used the SHW to create a SHC to reduce long queues at airports. By using the rings (see Fig. 1) one by one they came up with ideas to solve this customer issue (ring 5 ‘business case’) using technology. They proposed an app to reserve a particular timeslot and a smart corridor scanner. When travelers walk through the corridor, face recognition (passport control), and body and suitcase scan (security) automatically take place. This facilitates the organization and customer (rings 3 ‘effect’ and 5 ‘business case’) at arrival and departure at the airport (rings 2 ‘customer journey’ and 4 servicescape’) by reducing queues. Thereby it increases comfort for travelers (ring 1 ‘hospitality’).

4 Conclusion and Future Directions

The SHW is of added value for the design process of creating smart hospitality concepts to boost innovation within the tourism and hospitality business and education. Business representatives primarily use the SHW to define the aim of innovation and justify design choices for a SHC. In education, the SHW appeared particularly useful for students to come up with innovative ideas for SHCs.

Up until now, the focus of the SHW was on the process of designing SHCs, less on the quality of the outcome itself. For future validation of the SHW, it is recommended to create a valid and reliable research design to thoroughly test the quality of the designed SHC; the product, and the role the SHW plays in the design process.

Although in this study the SHW was used in education and industry of tourism and hospitality, its effectiveness can also be used and further tested in other industries.