Page 35 - Management 19 (2024), številka 1

Fabrizio Gritta | The Use of Social Big Data in Small Hospitality Businesses

were previously unavailable (Jingjing et al. 2018). an underutilisation of Social Big Data analysis
In addition to influencing marketing strategies, emerges.
the availability of digital data affects the creation
and adoption of new solutions in the sector. The- Methodology
se solutions are designed to optimise operations, The objective of the literature review was to con-
personalise experiences, and create new offers duct a comprehensive analysis of existing and
based on consumer needs (Sigala, Rahimi, and emerging literature, utilising published articles
Thelwall 2019). The utilisation of Big Data in the from national and international scientific jour-
tourism sector is on the rise (Belias et al. 2021), nals as the unit of analysis. In order to retrieve
with the objective of developing effective strate- relevant articles, primary titles and keywords
gies (Blanco-Moreno et al. 2023). A recent study such as ‘Web 2.0’, ‘small hotels’, ‘small accommo-
demonstrated how AI enables the hospitality in- dation’, ‘Big Data’, ‘AI’, ‘social media’, and ‘data
dustry to adapt efficiently to customer needs by analysis’ were considered.
analysing large data sets to identify trends and A series of research cycles were conducted
personalise experiences (Das, Talukder, and Pego using a list of keywords to iteratively adopt the
2024). relevant terms. Databases such as Google Scho-
The advent of online activities has signifi- lar, EBSCO, and Scopus were employed in this
cantly reduced the visibility gap between small process. Given the paucity of literature on the
hospitality businesses and large hotel chains, utilisation of Social Big Data by small enterpri-
which have greater resources for Web 2.0 and ses, the research strategy was revised to encom-
Social Big Data. Pencarelli, Cioppi, and Forlani pass a broader scope, incorporating additional
(2015) identified a correlation between entrepre- questions such as the capacity of small hotels to
neurs’ online efforts and commercial success. A utilise social media and the challenges they face
2018 study demonstrated that the utilisation of in technological advancement. This was condu-
social media platforms, including Facebook, In- cted through an analytical lens, examining the
stagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and TikTok, by small problem from multiple perspectives.
businesses is positively correlated with their The selection process for the studies started
marketing success, although this correlation is from the titles and abstracts, ensuring that their
limited to the commercial aspect (Panahande content contained elements relevant to our qu-
2021). Nevertheless, small businesses encounter estion.
obstacles, including the necessity for compre- The procedure for identifying articles to inclu-
hensive training and the expenses associated de in the review was based on a process of reading
with technological innovations (Dredge et al. previously selected contributions and screening
2018). While the analytics market expanded by out articles that, despite the title and/or abstra-
26 % in 2018, small businesses remained static, ct, were not relevant to the subject of investigati-
cognizant of the advantages of Big Data but con- on. In this phase, a synthesis of the contributions
strained by their size (Di Deo 2019). Overcoming was made, highlighting how different authors ad-
these limitations is crucial for the development dress the theme of Web 2.0 evolution in relation
of successful digital marketing strategies, whi- to market approach and the use of Big Data gene-
ch are supported by local government policies rated by the media.
(Gritta and Calabrese 2023). Technological inno- Thirdly, the literature was subjected to a cri-
vations such as Big Data, AI, and blockchain are tical analysis and commentary in order to ascer-
transforming the intersection between ICT and tain the extent of advancement in studies and
policy, facilitating dynamic resource integration research activity pertaining to the relationship
among actors (Troisi et al. 2019). between small businesses and the utilisation of
In conclusion, the analysis of the literature in- social media and user-generated data.
dicates that the combined use of Big Data and AI To enhance the discourse, interviews were
can greatly benefit tourism businesses through conducted with managers of small hotels in
the analysis of large amounts of data from social Rome, focusing exclusively on small enterprises
media. This can be used to improve their opera- due to their pivotal role in advanced economies
tions and customer experience. Regarding small (Mattiacci and Ceccotti 2005). In Europe, 99 %
hospitality businesses, significant use of social of businesses are Small and Medium Enterprises
media is noted, especially in the phase of co- (Corsi and Migliori 2016). In Italy, micro-enter-
-creating the journey with customers. However, prises with fewer than 10 employees represent

management 19 (2024) številka 1 35