A balancing act - developing a digital leadership strategy between digital and analogue worlds in the tourism and hotel industry

Achieving a position of Digital Leadership requires a strong strategic response and cultural posture. Although digitalisation and artificial intelligence is increasingly seen as an opportunity rather than a threat by the vast majority of players in tourism and hospitality industry, the digitalisation activities currently being observed by numerous players are more of a reactive, operational and/or isolated nature than part of a dedicated and integrated digitalisation strategy, with clearly defined goals and the aim of transforming a traditional tourism offering into a digitalisation-capable and therefore
sustainable business model. This paper aims to clarify how tourism and hospitality organisations strategically respond to the challenges imposed by digitalisation and artificial intelligence and to identify some tensions and challenges in the related strategic approach.