Strategic responses to digital disruption – an exploratory study of digital transformation in hospitality

The hospitality and tourism industry has gone through major changes struggling with DDI. This study examines how two international hotel chains are responding to DDI and how their strategic responses have evolved over time. Case 1 was studied over seven years and Case 2 over four years. In total, 112 interviews have been conducted along with 90 hours of workplace observations. The key observations show how new market actors, new customer behaviors and new technologies disrupt the hotels’ ways of working, communicating and their entire business strategy. To combat these challenges, essential strategic responses including (1) expanding the digital ecosystem, (2) Linking traditional business strategies with digital strategies, (3) building and retaining guest relationships. Furthermore, the study reveals a fusion of the traditional business strategy and the IT strategy. This study contributes to the existing literature on responses to digital disruptions leading to organizational digital transformations. Keywords: digital transformation, digital practices, disruptive digital innovations, IT-enabled change, organizational change, hospitality industr