Facebook, Youtube and Google are the world’s three most popular websites in the world and what do they have in common? You are not able to access them in China. How is that possible? China has an army of government workers who block and filter the Internet in the worlds biggest censorship operation. It’s nickname: The Great Firewall of China.

Here is the situation: China has 731 million Internet users and those users have severely limited online access. Strict censorship is nothing new in China but the online restrictions have been tightened by President Xi Jinping. These online restrictions are the tightest around political sensitive events like for example the death of Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo in July. During the Communist Party congress in October, China extended the online restrictions by the blocking of the American messaging system Whatsapp and clamping down on virtual private networks, VPN’s, which are commonly used to get around the great firewall of China. At one stage even Winnie the Pooh was banned after bloggers used the cartoon character to depict the Chinese president Xi Jinping. Another example of the excessive restrictions of the Chinese government is the ban on the word Toad on social media. The word Toad and searches like ‘big yellow duck’ were forbidden after a giant inflatable yellow toad in Bejing was compared to former president Jiang Zemin. At least 50.000 people in China are employed as to filter out keywords and to block websites that the Chinese government disapproves of. Also, there is an army of social media influencers who by estimate post 480 million pro-government comments a year. Crucially, the Chinese government gets tech and telecom companies to enforce the Chinese rules or, if they don’t, to face punishment. The result? China is, followed by Syria, Cuba and Saudi Arabia, the world’s worst abuser of Internet freedom according to the Freedom House (a United States based NGO). Iceland and Estonia come out best in Freedom House’s ranking. One aim of the censorship is to keep the Chinese web free of its foreign influence. President Xi Jinping calls this cyber sovereignty. The argument is this: most countries regulate the internet to some extend, like banning websites that promote hate, but with more than half of its 1.4 billion population online, China argues that it wants to protect social order and national security. Just regulation the Internet to some extend is, according to president Xi Jinping, not enough. This strict censorship has, of course, a lot of critics. These Chinese critics argue that the great firewall reflects the states paranoid fear of opposition to the government and limits free speech, obstructs innovation and prevents the spread of important ideas. For example, students and academics are not able to access Google Scholar. If other countries, for example Russia and other like minded countries, follow China’s example and successfully set restrictions, the vision behind the founding of the internet as an unrestricted global exchange of information could be seriously scaled back.

The hospitality industry & The sharing economy

Nowadays, in many industries the traditional way of doing business is disrupted by technological advances. The internet, for example, creates transparency in a market and gives consumers more bargaining power. The same applies for the hospitality industry. Since the industry contains many players, competition is fierce.
Traditionally, consumers would go to a travel agency in order to book their flight or hotel, nowadays they can easily go online and see the many options with corresponding prices, which increases competition. Another important factor that causes changes in the industry is the trend of people always seeking for the best experience. Customer loyalty is a thing of the past due to travellers who are always in need of a unique, tailored experience (UK Essays, 2013).

To satisfy this need in the market, digital platforms such as Airbnb emerged. These platforms are part of the so called sharing economy; the economic activity where users are given temporary access to a service provider’s otherwise underutilized asset, service, or skill (DHL, 2017). The online, user-friendly platform of Airbnb enables individuals to share spare space such as rooms of flats with one another. It appeals to a wide variety of travellers with different kinds of budgets and offers the unique, local experience that they are looking for. Sharing platforms, such as Airbnb, offer a new way of traveling that have disrupted the traditional hospitality market (Lehr, 2015).

Before the emerge of sharing economy platforms, the hospitality industry was considered to be a vulnerable market; the industry offers opportunities to make a lot of money which makes it attractive to attack. Moreover, the market is easy to enter due to digitalization in the market, which reduces costs of entering. These low entry barriers made it easy for substitutes like Airbnb to make their entrance. Existing players find it difficult to defend their market, since their not acquainted with the new phenomenon of the sharing economy (Granados, Kauffman and King, 2008).

Nevertheless, there are also a numerous downsides to sharing economy platforms such as Airbnb. A weakness for example, is the lack of operational control of the organisations and illegal listings which can cause bad publicity or tight governmental regulations which narrow the opportunities in the market (Lehr, 2015).

For the future we expect existing players in the hospitality industry to bring everything into play to deliver a unique, tailored experience for their customers and really exceed their expectations. Big players in the hospitality economy will shift more towards the experience economy. The small payers, however, will keep struggling with the fierce competition of sharing economy platforms. We recommend existing players to implement a digital strategy (e.g. Big Data insights) to keep up with their competitors.
As for the sharing economy platforms, we expect them to grow as well and might even combine their forces in order to create an even better, personalized experience for customers. Yet, we expect regulations to be even more tight and recommend sharing platforms to also engage in other ways of doing business such as big data sharing.

• UK Essays. November 2013. The Tourism Leisure And Hospitality Industry Tourism Essay. [online]. Available from: https://www.ukessays.com/essays/tourism/the-tourism-leisure-and-hospitality-industry-tourism-essay.php?cref=1 [Accessed 22 September 2017].

• Granados, N., Kauffman, R.J., and King, B. 2008. How Has Electronic Travel Distribution Been Transformed? A Test of the Theory of Newly-Vulnerable Markets. Journal of Management Information Systems 25(2) 73-96.

• Lehr, D. D. An Analysis of the Changing Competitive Landscape in the Hotel Industry Regarding Airbnb. Master’s Theses and Capstone Projects (2015). From: http://scholar.dominican.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1189&context=masters-theses