ICT AS AN INSTRUMENT FOR MORE EFFICIENT ADMINISTRATIVE CONTROL 407 It is a technology that, as in other areas, can bring great benefits in the tourism sector, since it allows improving services and reducing corresponding costs. Thus, in the hotel subsector, increasing the power and flexibility of the management; in the catering sector, allowing to manage from the food supply to the occupation of the premises or the intermediation, with purchase of tickets online or virtual agencies, by put only some relevant examples27. 3.2.4. BLOCKCHAIN In the author’s opinion, the effects that this technology can have on the tourism sector have not been, for the moment, properly studied. It is an innovation that can mean a revolutionary change, not only in the economy but also in culture and the way of thinking28. One of the essential characteristics of the blockchain is the disappearance of intermediaries or trusted third parties, which dramatically reduces transaction costs and increases the transparency and integrity of the information29. This circumstance makes the developments that can occur in the economy, in general, and in tourism, in particular, very interesting. Thus, the use of “contracts or intelligent agents”, with “self-executing” capacity, without the need for intermediaries, the use of decentralised applications (Dapps) that use open codes, the possibility of taking advantage of the system as a platform to improve the management of smart cities and smart tourist destinations, to the extent that information becomes neutral, non-hierarchical, accessible and safe30 and, therefore, allows increasing the participation of citizens in management. Likewise, this technology can be very appropriate to improve the control that the competent public administrations must perform on the activity of companies and professionals that provide tourism services, guaranteeing quality and respect for the environment and the social environment, through, for example, the creation of records of tour operators in a given territory31. 27 GUASCH PORTAS, V., & SOLER FUENSANTA J. R., “Cloud computing, turismo y protección de datos”, Revista de Análisis Turístico, no. 17, 2014, pp. 63-64. 28 On this new technology, see TAPSCOTT, D., & TAPSCOTT, A., The blockchain revolution, Deusto, 2017; or CERVIGNI, L. S., The blockchain in practice, BIDIT, 2016. 29 GARCÍA GONZÁLEZ, L. C., POLO TOLÓN, M., & MOLERO MANGLANO, I., “Tecnologías Blockchain”, in PREUKSCHAT, A., (Coord.), Blockchain: La revolución industrial de internet, Gestión 2000, 2017, p. 236. 30 JUNESTRAND, S., “Smart Cities in the blockhain era”, in PREUKSCHAT, A., (Coord.), Blockchain: La revolución industrial de internet, op. cit., p. 107. 31 FERNÁNDEZ HERGUETA, R., “The public sector and the use of the blockchain” in PREUKSCHAT, A., (Coord.), Blockchain: La revolución industrial de internet, op. cit., p. 94.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTE4NzM5Nw==