INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES AS THE DEVELOPMENTAL LEVERAGE OF CONTEMPORARY HOTEL MANAGEMENT

Information technologies have been changing the way people work and live, but simultaneously, they have also been changing the very structure and manner of business doing of contemporary enterprises. Those who do not adapt - no matter whether they are individuals or business entities - will call into question their own existence, as well as their successful functioning in the newly-created business and technological environment. Business doing based on information technologies helps hotel enterprises to cope with the challenges imposed by the new era. Technologies provide hotels with new tools, as well as with new challenges they should be coping with. More than in the majority of other activities, hotels rely on collecting, processing, analyzing and providing data so as to satisfy the buyer's needs. Given the significance of information in hotel management, it does not surprise that it is exactly hotels that are among the first buyers of automated data processing technology. It has enabled hotels to develop the cheaper and better techniques that enable a quick flow of information between the user and the provider of the tourism offer. That is supported by the fact that, today, more and more reservations are being made via the Internet and the GDS systems. The subject matter of the research conducted in this paper is information technologies, their changes and the role they play in the development of hotel management in contemporary conditions of business doing. The goal of the research is to indicate the size and the significance of the role of information technologies, i.e. the size, intensity and directions of the changes pertaining to hotel enterprises based on the application of information technologies.