PERCEPTION OF THE NECESSITY OF DIGITAL INNOVATIONS APPLICATION AS AN ELEMENT OF HEALTH PROTECTION AND SUSTAINABLE HOSPITALITY SECTOR FUTURE

ABSTRACT

Hospitality, which suffered a huge blow during the Covid-19 period and had to adapt its operation to pandemic measures, heads for its recovery. Innovation is one of the ways to get out of an unfavourable situation having in mind that health risks can represent a significant factor affecting participation in tourism. The paper specifies the perception of the necessity of digital innovations application as health protection factor and sustainable mean of hospitality sector development. It shows how of tourism participant in domestic condition of Slovak republic perceive the need of their application to hospitality services. Through the questionnaire method it examined opinion of domestic visitors in hospitality and its direction towards the digitization of services in this sphere, and subsequently tested by Mann-Whitney and Kruskall-Wallis tests. The results show that Slovak tourists treat digital innovation in hospitality services as the ones, that are a necessary part of tourism services portfolio. Their specifics can also be defined in terms of health protection. They can act as an element of health protection by eliminating contact among individual tourism participants. At the same time, they also perceive them as a means that tends to keep the hospitality industry alive even in the post-pandemic period.