e - Tourism

Abstract

Look at Nielsen Net ratings for top ten sites (7 online travel agencies and 3 airlines companies) in Tourism sector in 2002.

Expedia came first with 11.6 million visitors, Travelocity came second, with 10.2 million unique visitors. Orbitz came third (6.5 million), followed by Southwest Airlines (5.2 million), then came Cheap tickets (4.4 million), American Airlines (4.2 million), Yahoo! Travel (4.2 million), Delta Airlines (3.9 million), Priceline (3.8 million) and AOL travel (3.6 million).

Nearly 57 million visitors visited top ten sites looking for one solution – ‘Happy travelling’.

(Source: Nielsen Net ratings)

Introduction

Information & Communication Technology is getting key component of each & every industries day bay day. This time it is on Tourism.

Industry Overview

Europe is ahead of other continents in development of travel industry with nearly 49 % market share. America is on second with 26 % and Asia with 17 % crowd reached at third position.

Trends in Industry (applicable to most of countries)

1. Being a competitive industry with new entrance of global players coming from abroad.
2. Continuously change in customer demands.
3. Expectations of a tourist are increased and look for more convenience and value.
4. Tourists are getting knowledgeable.
5. There is a need of automated technologies.

Industry & IT

Tourism Industry - a heterogeneous industry made of complex and consists of many components parts. Intangible, perishable and international service industry is getting right business curve backed by information technology now days.

The best example of information technology application in Tourism that i can quote here is Automated reservation system for Railways & Airlines.

There exists IT solutions for hotels, motels, hospitality, travel intermediaries, entertainment and tourism at par for streamline business processes, improving customer relationships and more efficient operations.

Who needs information?

Before starting use of information technology in your ground, it is important for you to know your ground needs of information sharing & accessibility.

Tourism Industry is made of tourist, travel agents, service providers and Govt. & private tourism offices or consultants.

Tourist – a key consumer needs details on destinations, facilities, availibilities, prices, geography & climate information. If it is out of country then border controls & relations.

Travel agents look information & details about tourist (consumer) trends in the market, service providers, destinations, facilities, availibilities, prices, tour packages and direct contact with other branches.

Service providers need to know details of consumer, travel agents, competitors and agencies.

Tourism offices search for trends in industry, size and nature of tourism flows, policies and plans for development.

Solutions simplified..

IT enabled tourism is coined as ‘ e – tourism’. Online tourism is at a platform that enables direct booking, easy payment for end-user, business-to-business trading for product providers, travel agents and resellers.

E – Commerce

All those web sites and portals launched by government as well as private organizations would offer a wide range of tourism products and services like airlines, hotels, restaurants, camp-sites, tours, activity centers, concerts, festivities, shopping and many more with choicest of assortments of services.

Plan your tour online through agents’ web sites. Reservation or shopping of facilities for train, airlines, cruise, hotels, resorts, motels, rental cars and adventures can be done on line.

Still leaving a part of simple web based portal, which just provides static information & beautiful pictures with less updated knowledge and data transfer, tourism industry is expecting more practical and satisfied chain solutions from Information Technology.

Advance technologies in Tourism Industry

Rather than .Com & e-commerce tourism industry is looking for solution like E-Business or U-Business (Universal Business) solutions.

Customer relationship management

CRM based system enables service provider to provide knowledge, value and efficient service to its clients. CRM enables service provider to build up a life time relationship by providing on time solutions. Especially tourism industry needs excellent CRM solutions to assist visitors or clients before flying on tour, during tour and always after tour services. CRM solutions can be provided to a visitor through web, email, call center, kiosks and travelling information offices anytime & anywhere.

Just imagine how beneficial is it for you to know status of your reservation by dialing just 111.

Although you are travelling Japan’s village area, you can draw some information in your most favorite language regarding a place by a call.

What an experience! You are standing at "Taj Mahal" and you are able to read history details with all graphics and animated roles on multimedia kiosks. Even you can check your further travel registration request process through kiosks. So much beyond your imagination. Just think and your jinn are in your service.

Value chain integration

Tourism industry is a chain of many service providers. In long term solutions, cost cutting & effectiveness in data & information transfer, speed in transactions and looking towards heavy multimedia based services – back end systems need an excellent value chain integration through solutions like SCM, ERP and CRM. However till today applications of SCM and ERP are not up to the industrial remarks as tourism industry is kind of service industry.

Knowledge Management Systems

KM and business intelligence systems have wide scope of implementation in Tourism industry.
Well, well, well you can imagine it. Comparing history timelines and providing instance knowledge about place on the spot makes eager to know more about place to a tourist. Even BI enables analyst to find tourist’s behavior and trends with data and information. To find out customer’s demand is no more difficult task.

Use of advance technologies

Interactive Digital Television (IDTV), Mobile technologies and Internet are carving new faces in customer services for tourism industry. Using GPRS and GIS, KM and BI can be easily integrated on maps. It is in process. That’s great for adventure tourist. Where am I ? You are in dangerous forest. Beware!!

Through a mobile, tourist can be guided through cultural heritage through multi – language voice, text or images. Even it is possible for a tourist to find details on fees, opening days and timings for nearby places. Find bookshop, cafe, restaurant or ATM from where ever you are.

Wishing you a Happy journey

In advanced countries, e – tourism concept was applied and put in practice in last decade. However e – tourism is still in growing phase with advance technology’s application. But for developing countries and underdeveloped countries it is under utilization phase.

With application of e-tourism, the travelers would be able to make online reservation, bookings and receive immediate confirmation; this would remove a lot of obstacles that are faced by a tourist.