Assignment:Applying what you have learned about in IDS 201, students will write and submit a 2-3 page preliminary research proposal on the interdisciplinary problem they want to investigate.Knowledge:

Effects of Covid-19 on Cruise Ship Industry: Role of Technology in Hospitality Industry and Importance of Sustainability in Hospitality Industry

Hospitality management and Business administration management are two disciplines that have a lot of nexus and often exhibit subtle differences. Both industries offer good and services for their target clients and the bottom line is that both disciplines are usually profit-oriented. Today these two disciplines are facing a myriad of challenges such as the declining world economy (Nain 1). Since these challenges are complex, the interdisciplinary approach needs to be employed in the quest of trying to find solutions for these multifaceted challenges. Therefore, this essay seeks to highlight three possible research topics that are relevant to both disciplines; they include the effects of COVID-19 on Cruise Ship Industry: Role of Technology in Business Industry and the Importance of Sustainability in the hospitality Industry. This writing will specifically explore why the above-mentioned topics require an interdisciplinary approach.

Effects of COVID-19 on Cruise Industry

World Health Organization (WHO) has indicated that Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic is one of the biggest health crises in modern history. This disease has brought the world’s economy to its knees and the hardest hit sectors are health, international trade, hospitality, and transport industries as well as the tourism industry among others. For instance, Momigliana (1) opines that Venice city that was often over plagued by over-tourism has now remained a ghost town and its economy on the verge of collapsing. She estimates that since the outbreak of this disease, the Venetian tourism industry has lost over 800 million Euros. Similarly, the cruise ship industry is one of the industries that have also been hardest hit by the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus. Ship technology (1) postulates that the world cruise ship that is approximately worth $ 150 billion has seen its share prices decline drastically as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak. Many businesses and economies relied heavily on the success of the cruise industry and its fall has been disastrous for the countries and people that depended on tourism to secure their livelihood.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a healthy issue but its effects have trickled down to the cruise industry. Therefore, this means that we can use a silo perspective in trying to solve the problems that are rocking the cruise industry but rather we need to adopt an integrative and creative means in our quest to trying to solve this complex problem. This issue is cutting across tourism, business, and hospitality as well as health industries; therefore any solution should be able to factor in all the insights from the above industries and/or disciplines. Repko et al. (1) point out that when solving complex problems, perspective-taking is very important. Perspective-taking theory “is being able to look at a problem from the perspective of each discipline involved”. Then assemble new sets of ideas and insights to develop a creative solution(s) to the problem in question.

The cruise industry is relevant to my areas of study in hospitality and business management. This is because as one of the service industries, it has contributed to boosting the economy of various countries and also provided jobs to many people. Cruise lines international association (CLIA), indicates that 2018, around 28.5 million passengers chose to go on the cruise and the cruise industry is the fastest-growing sector of the travel industry. The available scientific research has been focusing on how the COVID-19 virus in the Diamond princess cruise Ship spread and the symptoms that people experienced (Forster 1). The effects of the COVID-19 0n cruise ship especially the economic impact has not been evaluated yet. Scholars from the hospitality and business industries, I am certain will be doing this evaluation as soon as the COVID-19 pandemic is over. After all, most of the cruise markets have been abruptly suspended including the Asian cruise market.

The research will draw professionals from the travel industry, hospitality, business and, tourism industries. Some of the concepts in business such as market forces, supply and demand theories, could help when determining the economic impacts of the COVID-19 on the cruise industry. Some of the research questions that could be answered from the research include: How much money did the industry lose during the pandemic? What are the social impacts that the pandemic has caused in the industry? What strategies need to be put in place to cushion the industry against such pandemics?

Role of Technology in the Hospitality Industry

Over the years, technology has become an integral part of our daily lives. Similarly, in the hospitality industry technology has helped in many ways, for instance, it enhances operational efficiency, improved communication and also has contributed to improved services and customer experience (Heart et al., 1). For example, hotel guests often demand to be connected anywhere in the world. The Oracle Hotel 2025 survey found out that hotel guests are willing to engage companies that offer new technologies. Therefore, companies in the hospitality industry are in constant pressure to develop new technologies or keep with the new technological inventions (Nain 1). There is a need for the stakeholders between the hospitality and technology industries to collaboratively work together to develop solutions for the ever-increasing technological demands. This issue needs to be tackled from multiple viewpoints by establishing a process that integrates ideas for all the disciplines to come up with multi-dimensional solutions, hence a lot of creative and analytical intelligence needs to be employed. The aim is to go beyond the usual knowledge and to generate novel and innovative ideas (Gardner 1).

The role of technology in the hospitality industry is relevant to me because a student in hospitality management I recognize the fact this industry is one of the driving forces of the global economy and hence stakeholders in this industry should invest in areas such as technology that contributes to efficiency and improved services (Kansakar et al., 4). There are so many individuals and tech companies in the technology industry, for example, Amazon that developed Amazon echo which is a virtual assistant AI tech. We also have Bill gates the founder of Microsoft software among others. Since this is work needs collaborative efforts, we could engage professionals from tech discipline then work together to create the solutions we need in the hospitality industry. Some of the concepts that we could draw from as we do this research include “business intelligence and management science approaches to hospitality industry problems” (Nain1). Additionally, some of the questions that this research will seek to answer will include: What are the potential technological inventions that might efficiently serve the needs in this industry? What are the challenges and inefficiencies that have been depicted by the current inventions? Is the security and privacy of guaranteed with the new inventions? (Kansakar et al., 5).

Importance of Sustainability in the Hospitality Industry

Sustainability is very essential in the hospitality industry, in the past hospitality sector had a dramatic environmental impact through the generation of hazardous waste and energy and water wastage but over the years, there has been increasing awareness of hoteliers and investors about social and environmental impacts of hotel development (Jones et al., 2). The United Nations World Tourism Organization is committed to sustainable tourism. Therefore, this means that companies in the hospitality industry must constantly develop ways to ensure sustainability in their operations. For instance, hotels could adopt the use of technology to go green and reduce energy consumption (Nain 1). This, therefore, means that an interdisciplinary approach will need to be employed to develop that solution. For example stakeholder from technology, environmental conservation and hospitality discipline could put their heads together to develop solutions. As much as the situations will be contextualized to hospitality, integrative thinking will be needed to solve this cross-cutting issue.

Sustainability is important is relevant to hospitality because it the responsibility of everyone to reduce environmental impacts. Some researchers like Hsiao, Chuang and, Huang are already working on smart energy management in hotels, therefore it is possible to build on the already existing work and generate better technologies (Kansakar et al., 6). This research will need to draw from concepts such as hospitality management. The management here does not only imply the daily operation of the company but also includes management of other aspects that the company might have negative impacts on, for example, environmental and social impacts (Celine & Mohan 4). Additionally, stakeholders from the above-mentioned disciplines would be interested in the research if it answered the following questions; Are there any sustainable methods that the hospitality industries have adopted? What are the potential technological ideas for improving the efficiency of the current methods? How are the stakeholders ensuring buy-in from their guests in adopting sustainable methods?

All the above potential research topics present a good opportunity for collaboration with other disciplines. I strongly feel that the first topic about the effects of the COVID-19 in the cruise industry is what I relate with the most and also it suits my professional goals. Hence, I would be more inclined to further exploring it in the subsequent interdisciplinary classes. I am passionate about the hospitality industry hence I would love to research and get more experience about this industry.

Work Cited

Akshay Nain (2018). A Study on Major Challenges Faced by Hospitality Industry Globally.www.ijcrt.org, Volume 6, ISSN: 2320-2882

Anna Momigliano (2020). The Ghost Town of Venice. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/travel/coronavirus-venice-flooding.html

Celine Vadam and Sushil Mohan(n.d.) Sustainable Operations in Hotel Industry. https://www.pomsmeetings.org/confpapers/060/060-0269.pdf

CLIA (2018). Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) 2018

Howard Gardner (2009). Creativity: An Interdisciplinary Perspective. https://doi.org/10.1080/10400418809534284

Kansakar P., Arslan M., Neda S (2018). Technology in Hospitality Industry: Prospects and

Challenges. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1709.00105.pdf

Peter Jones, David Hillier and Daphne Comfort (2013). Sustainability in the Global Hotel Industry. https://www.greenhotelier.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Sus-in-Hotel.

Repko, A. F., Szostak, R. & Buchberger, M. P. (2014). Introduction to Interdisciplinary Studies. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Ship Technology (2020). The cruise industry will struggle to cope with the effects of Covid-19. https://www.ship-technology.com/comment/cruise-industry-effects-covid-19/

Tsipi H., Nava P., Edna S., & Arie R (2001) Information Technology in the Hospitality Industry: The Israeli Scene and Beyond. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233593407_Information_Technology_in_the_Hospitality_Industry_The_Israeli_Scene_and_Beyond

Victoria Forster (2020). What Have Scientists Learned About COVID-19 And Coronavirus By Using Cruise Ship Data? https://www.forbes.com/sites/victoriaforster/2020/03/22/what-have-scientists-learned-from-using-cruise-ship-data-to-learn-about-covid-19/#758f0f55406d

WHO (n.d.) Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) Pandemic. https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019