Conclusion

8.1 Conclusion

As we saw through the data compilation, Nicaragua lags behind in technology and many technologies that are very common in other countries take months or years to be adopted in Nicaragua, for example, Uber has been in the market providing transportation services around the world for more than five years, but up to date Uber hasn’t entered to the Nicaragua’s market. For the implementation of such technologies, it is necessary provide basic infrastructure, as national Internet bandwidth, increase domestic Internet hosts, training of highly qualified personnel for the use of new technologies. Through the data compilation I have realized that Nicaragua actually doesn’t have the resources to implement Internet plus in tourism industry on a large scale, but as time goes by and the world becomes more globalized and more connected, the use of information and communication technologies in Nicaragua will become more proliferated.

Through this analysis I have been able to observe that despite of the very rich tourism potential of Nicaragua, and that in the last 15 years tourism has been located as one of the main industries in the country, it has also become one of the products that generate greater foreign exchange overtaking coffee, seafood and meat, in addition the total contribution of Travel & Tourism to employment (including jobs indirectly) was 8.4% of total employment (212,000 jobs) in Nicaragua in 2014, but the country has not yet exploited to the full the potential of its resources. Comparing to Singapore a country with 5.6 million inhabitants, a total area of only 719.1 km² and lack of natural resources got nearly 12 million of international tourist arrivals and US$19.2 billion in tourism income in 2014, while Nicaragua a country with 6.3 million inhabitants, a total area of 130,375 km² and rich in resources and natural attractions only got 1.30 million of international tourist arrivals and US$445 million in income. Tourism in Nicaragua has many weaknesses in comparison with its neighboring countries, one of those weaknesses are the lack of knowledge that tourist products’

suppliers have about tourist’s preferences, as well as supply diversification. Another problem is the low impact of the “Country brand” among international tourists, which means that Nicaragua’s brand image needs to be strengthened to attract not only more tourists from current markets but also from markets that haven’t been targeted (UNCTAD, 2013).

In order to achieve these goals, it is indispensable to use new technologies to increase the level of tourism competitiveness, but because Nicaragua is one of the poorest countries in Latin America, this has prevented the country from adopting the use of new technologies such as the Internet to achieve such progress. In the last ten years, mobile technologies have transformed tourists’ behavior, becoming an indispensable part of our lives. Tourists use mobile technologies to book airplane tickets, search for accommodation, search for new destinations to visit, search for restaurants, use GPS to find places in unknown destinations. Therefore, mobile technologies can have a big impact

on tourists’ decision making, because they provide relevant and personalized information anytime and anyplace, the Internet proliferation helped by the use of mobile devices has propelled the development of platforms of technology applications for tourism purposes, these technologies have improved tourists’ travel experiences and social engagement, allowing them to be more creative (Lamsfus, Wang, Alzua-Sorzabal, & Xiang, 2015).

The Government of China has implemented the Internet Plus plan to increase the economic growth of the country, the Internet is forecasted will add 0.3 to 1.0 percentage points to China’s GDP growth, this new strategic plan has given rise to many new startups that are providing any kind of new services such as applications that allow consumers to call a chef coming to their door to cook high quality dishes and applications that enables users to purchase medicines online and then the user only needs to wait for the delivery person to come to their home.

While in Nicaragua, the use of these technologies is not as widespread as in other countries of the region, Nicaragua has the smallest number of people connected to the Internet and the lowest affordability in Latin America, this has caused the failure of some foreign technology companies as the case of the Colombian company Efytaxi, a company that provided a service similar to that of Uber, in the beginning Efytaxi provided two months of free internet, the taxis cooperatives also provided smart phones at economic prices to the taxi drivers, but after two months of free Internet, the taxi drivers did not want to pay for data plans for their smartphones, they saw this little investment too expensive, which prevented them from providing the service online, although there was a demand, the offer was too small, so users decided not to continue using the application. Poor telecommunication infrastructure, high prices set by a duopoly that controls the tariffs for mobile network, low adoption rate of smartphones (around 33%) due to high mobile services and consumer taxes, a population with low education level and limited skills to create mobile applications, low access to electricity in rural population (54%) where more tourist destinations are located, constraints in securing financing for new technologies in firms, all of the mentioned above are among the factors affecting Internet technology adoption in Nicaragua.

Tourism service providers have adopted the Internet to better distribution of their products and greater interactivity with customer. We are living in a high technology age, where Information and communications technologies (ICTs) have given rise of so-called “Collaborative Commons”, which motivates everyone on consuming less and sharing more, consumers become producers, known as prosumers, this phenomenon is expected to reduce hyper-consumption, production costs, increase efficiency, and allow money flows to poor communities (Rifkin, 2014). For example, Airbnb’s business model has enabled middle-class households earn extra income by sharing the home in which they live, the supplemental money earned by U.S. hosts essentially represents a 14 percent annual raise for middle class families. Travelers has had the opportunity to visit local communities and small businesses that haven’t benefitted from tourism in the past (Airbnb, 2015).

INTUR has been trying to adopt mobile technologies for the convenience of international tourists, in May 2016 INTUR launched a smartphone application with the name of “Nicaragua”

available in IOS and Android, this application aims to strengthen the promotion of Nicaragua’s tourist attractions in international markets, the application’s structure is divided in three parts: the first part, provides a list of tourist attractions in Nicaragua, the second with a directory of tourist establishments, such as hotels, restaurants, bars and others, and also an option with GPS service to facilitate the tourist the location of the place where they want to go. However, after seven months of its launched has been downloaded only one thousand times and have any comments by the users.

The application interface is not attractive and it is complicated to use, the application only provides information and brief description of the tourist destinations with some pictures that can also be found on Google, it doesn’t provide information about how to get to the place, which main of transportation to use, prices or other travelers’ comments and the application only provide Spanish version, so I have my doubts about whether such low quality application will achieve the goals proposed by the INTUR.

Nicaragua’s low level of quality labor manifested by its low level of education has prevented the country from providing the tourists with higher value offerings. For example, in Nicaragua there are two public universities that provide entrance examination as a requirement to select students for admission, this examination assess the level of mathematical and Spanish language knowledge of students, in 2015, 2,513 students took the examination and only 126 (5.01%) passed it, this figure increased to 10.14% in 2016, but in spite of this increase, not even half of those who took the exam could pass it. Therefore one of the main priorities of the Government of Nicaragua is to increase the expenditure on Human Development, such as increasing the level and quality of education which will bring more skilled workers. Croes (2012) claimed that increasing tourism receipts will lead to better HD performance and better HD performance will also lead to increasing tourism receipts.

In the Global Entrepreneurship Index by GEDI, Nicaragua ranks 110 out of the 132 countries that are evaluated in the report. The report highlights that product innovation, opportunity perception and competition are the most outstanding pillars, while pillars as technology absorption, networking and human capital obtained the worst score (Acs, Szerb, & Autio, 2016). If Nicaragua wants to increase its presence as a tourist destination, it has to make use of the new technologies to strengthen its marketing strategy on social media. With the help of the World Bank, Nicaragua will increase its access to broadband networks, the government should carry out a campaign aimed at increasing literacy for the proper use of digital technologies, so that the population can have better knowledge of information technologies and communications and take advantage of it for the education and productivity of the country, as well as encouraging small and medium-sized enterprises to adopt Internet technologies for the diversification of their products so that more people can reach them.

With the improvement of basic telecommunication infrastructure will boost internet access and

not only will bring benefits to the tourism industry but also to the other sectors of the economy such as education, healthcare and agriculture. The implementation of the Internet on healthcare has the potential to improve healthcare delivery by providing a more convenient and efficient medical solution for the poor and improving efficiency and saving the public resources. Other two barriers that have been identified to Internet adoption in Nicaragua are lack of relevant content and lack of digital literacy and skills. Although Nicaragua now is improving its infrastructure that allows its inhabitants for better Internet access, implementing free Internet connection in parks, libraries, hospitals and schools, but most of the population that has access to the Internet uses it for entertainment purposes, and only 7 percent use it for educational purposes, which is reflected on the low level of knowledge that the users have about the benefits of the Internet and the lack of digital literacy can lead the user to see the Internet as a luxury and not as a necessity. Lack of digital skills has hampered the creation of relevant content in local languages by consumers that could interest other users. The Government should develop a national strategic plan aiming to promote ICT usage in every industry and learning in schools, as well as promoting tech innovations and start-ups.