HOSPITALITY DIGITAL MARKETING AND TECHNOLOGY TRANSFORMATION CHALLENGES

The subject of the paper is the importance of investment in the implementation of new technologies in the digital transformation of hotels within the marketing and business development objectives. For this paper, empirical research was conducted in over 30% of the total number of 4 and 5-star hotels in Serbia (41 hotels) in 2021 on the use of modern technologies in the digitalization of hotel business, related to the hotel characteristics. The implementation of cloud technology, energy management, automation, and technologies of sophisticated machine learning was considered. The difference in statistical significance was shown in the revenue level and investments of the hotels in the last three years in the technologies of sophisticated machine learning, which also affected the achieved level of digitalization of the aforementioned hospitality operations. Undoubtedly, it is a positive finding that hotels with a high and medium level of digitalization together make up over 80% of the surveyed hotels, which indicates a high level of awareness of hoteliers about the importance of digital technologies for customer relationship marketing and business development objectives, as well as broader sustainable development goals.