Progress in information technology and tourism management: 20 years on and 10 years after the Internet—The state of eTourism research

This paper reviews the published articles on eTourism in the past 20 years. Using a wide variety of sources, mainly in the tourism literature, this paper comprehensively reviews and analyzes prior studies in the context of Internet applications to Tourism. The paper also projects future developments in eTourism and demonstrates critical changes that will influence the tourism industry structure. A major contribution of this paper is its overview of the research and development efforts that have been endeavoured in the field, and the challenges that tourism researchers are, and will be, facing

ICT diffusion and the digital divide in tourism: Kazakhstan perspective

No abstract available

Industrial placement in hospitality management education: Students’ experiences and development of skills

The element of training is taken into account seriously by universities providing tourism education degrees, hence the development of “sandwich” undergraduate courses that incorporate a period of industrial placement aiming at the blending of theory with practical experience through experiential learning. The survey presented here was conducted in Greece and is objective was to evaluate the outcome of the supervised work experience by examining the views of undergraduate tourism and hospitality management students who completed their industrial placement period. Data were obtained through personal interviews and were of both qualitative and quantitative nature. The tentative results of the research, as described in this exploratory study, indicate some areas for concern and allows for conclusions to be drawn in relation to further improving and enhancing experiential learning

Enabling customers engagement and collaboration for small and medium-sized enterprises in ubiquitous multi-channel ecosystems

Over the last few years, we have encountered an exponential growth in online communication opportunities. Organizations have more and more ways to connect and engage with their current or future customers. The existence of more opportunities in connecting to people can be both an enabler and a burden. Being present at a multitude of different channels requires the effective management of a very large number of adapted contents, formats, and interaction patterns fulfilling the communication and cooperation needs of distributed target groups. In this respect, we integrate existing fragmented communication and monitoring approaches into a full-fledged communication model as a basis for an adequate engagement approach. We describe applications of our approach in both the eTourism and manufacturing domain. In this paper, we introduce an approach that will enable communication, collaboration and value exchange of users through a multitude of online interaction possibilities based on the use of semantic technology. Finally, we also compare our approach with existing solutions with respect to the identified challenges in this subject.European Union (UE) EU FP7 284860 (MSEE

Selling Rooms Online: The Use of Social Media and Online Travel Agents

Purpose – This paper aims to focus on the reason why hoteliers choose to be present in online travel agent (OTA) and social media web sites for sales purposes. It also investigates the technological and human factors related to these two practices. Design/methodology/approach – The research is based on a survey sent to a wide range of hotels in a Swiss touristic region. The empirical analysis involves the specification of two ordered logit models exploring the importance (in terms of online sales) of both social media and the online travel agent, Booking.com. Findings – Findings highlight the constant tension between visibility and online sales in the web arena, as well as a clear distinction in social media and OTA web site adoption between hospitality structures using online management tools and employing personnel with specific skills. Practical implications – The research highlights the need for the hospitality industry to maintain an effective presence on social media and OTAs in order to move towards the creation of a new form of social booking technologies to increase their visibility and sales. Originality/value – This research contributes to understanding the major role played by OTAs and social media in the hospitality industry while underlining the possibility of a major interplay between the two

Promoción en línea de los valores del desarrollo sostenible en los parques nacionales

Las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación (TIC) y tecnologías geoespaciales (TG) ofrecen soporte para gestionar áreas protegidas, como los parques nacionales, además de optimizar la experiencia de los visitantes. Este estudio identifica algunas herramientas cruciales empleadas para promover el desarrollo sostenible de las actividades turísticas en parques nacionales pioneros. Se realizó una revisión de la literatura y un análisis del sitio web de cinco parques (Yellowstone National Park, Royal National Park, Banff National Park, Tongariro National Park y Kruger National Park), reconocidos como destinos turísticos a nivel mundial. Los sitios web de esos parques fueron mapeados, a fin de hacer una comparación final con el sitio web del Parque Nacional de Itatiaia, en Brasil. Como resultados, los cinco parques presentan un contenido calificado, como mapas en alta resolución, mensajes de advertencia en tiempo real basados en TG y recorridos virtuales. A su vez, el sitio web del Parque Nacional de Itatiaia es sólo un portal de consulta, y necesita ser mejorado para subsidiar la experiencia turística

Destination Online Communication: Why Less is Sometimes More. A Study of Online Communications of English Destinations

This research investigates the relationship between Web site design and the Web site end-user experience of a vast number of English tourism destinations, both local and regional ones. Following recent research in the field, this paper evaluates destinations' online communication based on the implemented Web site features and on the effectiveness of the communication itself, borrowing its research methodology from different domains. After content and functionality analysis, a user-experience, scenario-based investigation has been carried out, which demonstrated that complex Web sites do not always serve end-users' needs properly; in other words, Web site complexity is not directly related with good user experience. This research may help destination managers to foster their online communication if they have fewer content and functionalities but are better focused and clearly user-oriented. © 2014 Taylor & Francis