The tourism industry is uniquely and very clearly dependent on the “really bad day” – in all caps.
The industry is vulnerable to all issues related to operational logistics, IT failures, staff turnover or labor relations, like most other businesses.
However, most other industries have not been left out. clients there is literally nowhere to go if transportation or housing is cut off as a result of an incident.
Vice President, EMEA at PagerDuty.
What could go wrong?
The consequences of technical failure in aviation are exacerbated by its dependence on tightly integrated systems. A few seconds of downtime can result in hours of disruption.
The UK air traffic control incident in July this year is a case in point: a 20-minute glitch grounded flights across the country, with spillover effects leading to cancellations and delays that stretched into the next day.
It doesn't take long before a minor system glitch turns into a crisis that leaves passengers stranded, terminals clogged and newspaper headlines dominated.
The malfunction lasted only 20 minutes, but was enough to ground planes at several airports. It led to the cancellation and delay of 150 flights and calls for the resignation of the air traffic control chief.
Airlines, airports and tourism operators of all modes of transport, as well as their various partners, are under enormous pressure to improve resilience at every level of their IT operations, or ITOps.
The challenge is that these organizations not only manage flight schedules and ticketing platforms, but also supply chain systems, baggage handling, partner integrations, and customer service channels, all supported by a complex technology stack of APIs and services provided by first-party and third-party organizations.
If a reservation system fails, it affects more than just one website. It applies to hotel bookings, car rental companies, loyalty programs and much more.
For clients, this means a disruption to their vacation. For businesses, this means lost revenue, reputational damage and rising costs of compensation and remediation.
What makes these incidents particularly damaging is their visibility. A manufacturing company can easily survive a short-term IT outage, but a travel company can't. Travelers tweet from airport lounges, frustrated passengers speak to television crews and regulators demand an explanation.
The scrutiny is instantaneous and relentless, and it is this public attention that makes IT downtime in this sector a national story rather than just an operational problem.
What could go wrong?
Improving resilience in this high-stakes environment requires more than just traditional backup systems.
The emphasis needs to shift to anticipating problems, containing them quickly and preventing them from developing into societal crises.
This is where modern IT operations practices come into play.
Continuous monitoring is the starting point. By transmitting telemetry in real time, teams can spot early warning signals that might otherwise go undetected until they impact customers.
Automated responses such as self-healing books can then handle many incidents at machine speed before they escalate.
Where human intervention is needed, cross-team coordination scenarios mean the right experts are mobilized immediately, rather than wasting precious minutes deciding who should respond.
It is equally important to prepare for the unpredictable. Resilient organizations practice incident response in the same way airline pilots practice emergency response.
This develops muscle memory that allows teams to operate clearly in the midst of chaos.
When everyone knows their role, downtime is reduced, communication is clearer, and trust is restored more quickly—both within the company and with the traveling public.
Sustainability is not just a technical issue. It extends into experience working with clients.
Clear and timely updates delivered through multiple channels can mitigate the impact of delays and cancellations. Transparency reduces frustration and demonstrates accountability, even when the failure itself cannot be avoided.
For travel companies, regaining trust often depends on how they communicate and how quickly systems are restored.
Failures happen, recovery is where organizations shine
Ultimately, the risk of downtime will never be completely eliminated in ITOps, but how organizations prepare for and respond to it is critical.
In the travel sector, where customer travel is based on timing and trust, sustainability is a hallmark of business as customers can easily switch service providers if they hope it will save their holiday or important trip.
Companies that can maintain continuity in the face of disruption are able to protect not only revenues, but also reputations. Passengers remember which airlines or booking platforms left them stranded and which kept them informed and allowed them to move on.
Regulators are taking note, too, increasingly expecting operators to demonstrate robust contingency planning.
Investments in technology, training, and cultural change required to sustain IT operations should be viewed as a source of long-term competitive advantage.
Thanks to preventive monitoring, automation and established response plans, travel businesses can turn potential crises into manageable events, maintaining customer loyalty and ensuring the smooth running of the wider ecosystem.
In an industry where a few minutes of downtime can turn into a news cycle that covers nothing else, resilience is a quality that ensures that organizations are judged by how they bounce back rather than how they fail.
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