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

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

TIScover-A Tourism Information System based on Extranet and Intranet Technology

The tourism industry more and more intensifies the endeavors to take advantage of the World Wide Web. However, Web-based tourism information systems are required not to offer online brochures only, but rather to provide both, value and service. One system which has recognized this fact is TIScover. TIScover allows the tourist for convenient and powerful access to tourism information and products through the support of different information retrieval philosophies along with an online booking facility. In addition, TIScover employs an Extranet and an Intranet component allowing the decentralized maintenance and customization of the tourism database. With this, a high quality content in terms of comprehensiveness, accurateness and actuality can be achieved and the system can be easily adapted not only for different kinds of tourism information providers, but also for different regions and even different countries. This paper gives a brief overview of TIScover and describes its main functional components

Web Marketing Tourism Destinations

Destinations emerge as umbrella brands that need to be promoted as one entity for each target market they try to attract in the competitively fierce world of travel and tourism. A Destination Marketing Organization (DMO) plays a crucial role in the promotion and management of a tourism destination, mainly through an effective use of its Destination Marketing System as a marketing tool. Due to the fast growing importance of the Internet as an information and communication medium, these systems have been modified in order to be Web-based. However, it is no longer enough for a DMO to just have a Web site. Successful Web Marketing requires an articulated approach to three critical tasks: web site design, promoting the web site, and assessing the web site marketing effectiveness. This paper aims to provide a set of useful guidelines required for DMOs to achieve successful marketing on the Internet. In order to offer empirical evidence of the Web sites that fit within the guidelines provided, official Web sites of ten European DMOs were analyzed

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

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

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

Tourism destination branding through advertising strategies

Brand confusion takes place when a person views an advertisement for a particular brand as a communication about a different brand. This empirical study was conducted in a sample of 134 men and women and based on 24 mass tourism destination advertisements of 8 different Mediterranean countries. Advertisements that were perceived as likeable and distinctive, and that were not information-overloaded suffered less from brand confusion. Destination brands with weak advertising support were found to be more vulnerable to brand confusion. Consumers with higher levels of product category involvement and higher levels of brand awareness and brand loyalty appear to confuse mass tourism destination brands less frequently

Digital destination promotion: understanding and maximizing the use of digital and cultural assets to enhance tourists’ decision making and destination marketing strategies

With the overarching research question “how Information and Communication Technologies can be used to support a destination in improving tourists’ information search and decision making through the use of its digital and cultural assets” this thesis connects the three themes of eTourism, destination marketing and heritage tourism through a user-centric approach and the application of innovative technologies. The eight papers provided utilise and investigate the application of technology to improve the effectiveness and promotion of destination marketing and destination marketing organisations whilst, at the same time, improving user experiences. Interdisciplinary research focuses on the opportunities provided by digital and cultural assets of destinations to enhance destination marketing efforts. This research recognises and discusses the importance and challenges of the commodification process of tangible and intangible heritage as part of the marketing process. Methodologies appropriate to each of the research purposes were applied and data was triangulated to improve understanding. Quantitative data was collected through questionnaires, web crawlers and log files enabling the research to draw on analytical methods such as correspondence and cluster analysis, as well as data envelopment analysis (DEA). Qualitative methods such as workshop cycles, observations, and interviews were used to provide rich narratives analysed through content analysis. The results from the eight papers enhance destination marketing efforts by providing a better understanding of user behaviour and preferences based on travel personalities, travel and search pattern. They provide a clearer representation of the technologies, digital assets and e-Services available, discussing web site content and effectiveness. Strategies and innovative ideas to improve the current utilisation of digital technologies are provided based on the outcomes of the studies presented. Furthermore, a reflection on the use of intangible cultural heritage assets within destination marketing supported through the use of technologies is explored to enhance opportunities for destination marketing. V The research presents innovative and new ways to a destination to create new meanings and unique selling points (USPs) through cultural heritage assets and user-centric technologies. It introduces an interpretative strategy within destination marketing, and ideas to make the tourists’ holiday choice process more engaging. It enhances the understanding of on-line destination presentation, enabling comparisons between providers and improving their competitiveness. The main contribution of this work is new and enhanced insights how to improve on-line destination presentation by understanding its current representation and users’ search and behaviour patterns online and during travelling. It provides examples for the usefulness of ICT and cultural heritage in order to improve destinations’ marketing efforts. It also adds to the debate of the application of technologies for heritage interpretation and the commodification of (local) cultural heritage assets for destination marketing and tourism purposes

Social media in tourism marketing: Travellers’ attitudes and encounters

This paper presents a study that explores consumers’ experiences with technology-assisted service encounters by investigating the applicability of Mick and Fournier’s paradoxes of technology adoption to the social media as distribution channel in tourism scenario. In-depth interviews were conducted to explore consumers’ experiences when using social media distribution services and the results were compared to those of Mick and Fournier. The findings are similar, suggesting that when consumers adopt online technology like social media, they can simultaneously develop positive and negative attitudes. The findings of this study also suggest that the nature of some of the paradoxes experienced by consumers may depend on the industry (tourism in this study) and the technology (social media in this study) being investigated