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

Customer empowerment in tourism through Consumer Centric Marketing (CCM)

We explain Consumer Centric Marketing (CCM) and adopt this new technique to travel context. Benefits and disadvantages of the CCM are outlined together with warnings of typical caveats Value: CCM will be expected as the norm in the travel industry by customers of the future, yet it is only the innovators who gain real tangible benefits from this development. We outline current and future opportunities to truly place your customer at the centre and provide the organisation with some real savings/gains through the use of ICT Practical Implications: We offer tangible examples for travel industry on how to utilise this new technology. The technology is already available and the ICT companies are keen to establish ways how consumers can utilise it, i.e. by providing ‘content’ for these ICT products the travel industry can fully gain from these developments and also enhance consumers’ gains from it. This can result in more satisfied customers for the travel (as well as ICT) companies thus truly adopting the basic philosophy of marketin

Smart Tourism Destinations: Can the Destination Management Organizations Exploit Benefits of the ICTs? Evidences from a Multiple Case Study

Recent developments of ICTs enable new ways to experience tourism and conducted to the concept of smart tourism. The adoption of cutting-edge technologies and its combination with innovative organizational models fosters cooperation, knowledge sharing, and open innovation among service providers in tourism destination. Moreover, it offers innovative services to visitors. In few words, they become smart tourism destinations. In this paper, we report first results of the SMARTCAL project aimed at conceiving a digital platform assisting Destination Management Organizations (DMOs) in providing smart tourism services. A DMO is the organization charged with managing the tourism offer of a collaborative network, made up of service providers acting in a destination. In this paper, we adopted a multiple case studies approach to analyze five Italian DMOs. Our aims were to investigate (1) if, and how, successful DMOs were able to offer smart tourism services to visitors; (2) if the ICTs adoption level was related to the collaboration level among DMO partners. First results highlighted that use of smart technologies was still in an embryonic stage of development, and it did not depend from collaboration levels

The Impact of Information and Communication Technology on the Tourism Sector

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has changed the global businesses environment by a wide range of tools, methodologies and functions, facilitating the strategic management and supporting firms to achieve a long term competitive advantage. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the new applications of Information Communication Technology in tourism industry, the contribution of ICT to the promotion of the tourist product, as well as the potential to the tourism management and the process of decision-making. One important tool, which helps in making decisions in the field of tourism economy, is the Geographic Information System (GIS), which provides a comprehensible representation of the statistical figures of the tourism economy by facilitating decision-making on tourism policy. In this paper is presented some tourist financial figures and their visualization through graphs by Geographic Information System

TOURISM EDUCATION IN FRANCE AND CANADA: ARE UNIVERSITIES INCORPORATING ICT?

The field of tourism was noted at the 2005 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) conference to be global and growing (Keler, 2005). That growth has continued today, with no signs of abatement (Todd, 2008). Globally, international tourists numbered 900 million in 2007 (UNWTO, 2008). This figure is estimated to grow to 1.6 billion by 2020 (World Tourism Organization, 2005) and 1.9 billion by 2030 (Yeoman, 2008). In the two countries (Canada and France) examined in this paper, the tourism industry is important within the economy. Tourism contributes $28.6 billion (CDN) or 9.7 percent of Canada's gross domestic product in 2007 (Hernandez, 2008) and 36.9 million euros or 6.3 percent to France's gross domestic product in 2007 (Ministère de l'Economie des Finances et de l'Emploi, 2008). The tourism industry in Canada provided over 1.8 million jobs in 2006 or 11 percent of the national economy (Tourism Satellite Account, 2008). Despite France being the number one tourist destination in the world, it represents only six percent of its national income (Tourisme Infos Stat, 2008) and two million jobs (French-Property.com, 2008). It must be noted that these figures are based on different components and therefore may not be comparable. In both of these countries, as well as globally, the growth in the tourism industry is facilitated by information and communication technologies (ICT), including the Internet (Bloch and Segev, 1996). It is estimated that half the global B2C e-commerce turnover is in the travel and tourism sector (Fodor and Werthner, 2004-2005). With increasing time and economic pressures, ICT is an increasingly important component of tourism today. ICT facilitates travellers who do not have time to visit travel agencies or are looking to save money and travellers who are looking to design their own travel itinerary. Further, ICT provides an equalizing platform for increasing numbers of tourist destinations, many in developing countries (About UNWTO, n.d.) broadening the competition internationally. This inclusivity is incorporated into the practical environment (Cunliffe, 2008) as discussed by the World Tourism Organization (Tourism 2020 Vision, n.d.). Given that both private and pubic post-secondary educational institutions are the training ground that readies the graduate for the field of practice; these institutions have the opportunity to connect anticipated actions within society (Gherardi, 2009). In using mock real-life situations, it is found that student professionals are capable of learning at a new level with enhanced understanding (Gold et al 2007). With the emergence of ICT and virtual learning communities (Allan, 2007), the question of the inclusion of ICT in the curriculum of tourism programs is raised. Education performs two functions. One is the provision of specific, structured skill development that is based on behavioural modification such that the graduate ‘fits' into the workplace. Although beginning in technical and apprentice programs, many university programs, specifically those training individuals for the professional workplace, have answered industry's call to make higher education relevant to the workplace. The other function is the traditional purview of universities: training students to think independently, analyze, conceptualize, and innovate. Today, the traditional function to prepare them for the evolution occurring in practice has become blurred with institutions of higher education focusing on the established employment needs of their graduates (Gunn, 1991) and the industry (Bount, Castleman, and Swatman, 2005). Recognizing the dichotomy of training for an industry that is becoming more reliant on ICT while individual operators often do not recognize the need for ICT, we examine the educational training in etourism and ICT of graduates from public and private institutions of higher education in France and Canada. We find that the training provided reflects the status of the industry that has few standards. Thus different institutions interpret the industries needs uniquely. Following this discussion, we present recommendations for the industry and the trainers to establish a minimum standard for employability. We begin with a review of the literature that examines the training available for e-tourism.

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse