SOCIAL MEDIA- THE ALL PICTURES

Currently, when “googling” the words “social media” approximately 169 000 000hits appear. At least once a day discussions are held regarding online social mediasites, either in the newspaper, on TV or on the radio. The discussions bring upeverything from how companies, politicians, culture, people and so on should usesocial media, to acquisition rumors of several hundred million dollars for onesocial media site. The number of users is steadily increasing among categories such as private users,but especially among companies and organizations. Statistics show that socialnetworking sites constitute the second leading web category after search sitesmeasured on daily traffic. Asking how many that would be willing to pay amonthly fee to get access to their accounts allows a further look into how valuabledifferent websites are considered to be for the users. Google proved to be the mostvaluable one closely followed by Yahoo. Top three to five on the list were allcommunity driven sites – in sequence YouTube, Wikipedia and Facebook. Another aspect of the usage of social media shows that companies who work withthese platforms benefit from saving money in marketing, sales, support and production development.Social Media, Google, Internet, Facebook, MySpace

THE FUNCTIONALITY OF THE INTERNET AS TOURISM MARKETING INSTRUMENT

One of the important activities of tourism marketing is the creation and distribution of tourism information. This is required by consumers, tourism agencies and tour operators in order to facilitate search and to monitor related products and services. Tourism information includes information regarding potential tourism activities, tourism sights, the means to reach them and other information concerning a destination. Each destination is characterized by a sum of specific pieces of information. The management and distribution of tourism information in brochures involves high costs for the agents who operate in tourism, whereas the Internet offers tourism industry low costs. In order to make the marketing of a tourism product successful, the tourism operator needs to have primarily a strategic outlook to understand perfectly market change from the material to the virtual one, as well as the interplay of forces within it. The Internet has changed forever the tourism environment and marketing, so that no business in this domain can escape its impact any longer. The companies that are willing to get involved and use e-commerce should however benefit from more advantages. Even though a company likes it or not, the Internet exists and it will dominate tourism marketing.tourism marketing, Internet, GDS, online transactions

ELECTRONIC BUSINESS

Electronic Business, commonly referred to as "eBusiness" or "e-Business", may be defined as the utilization of information and communication technologies (ICT) in support of all the activities of business. Commerce constitutes the exchange of products and services between businesses, groups and individuals and hence can be seen as one of the essential activities of any business. Hence, electronic commerce or eCommerce focuses on the use of ICT to enable the external activities and relationships of the business with individuals, groups and other businesse. Many people only see in eBusiness the selling and marketing of products and services via the Internet. But reality shows that this opinion does not hold any ground. The purpose of this paper is to give an overview about eBusiness including definitions, perceptions and models. The main part of this work addresses the importance of the whole value chain and defined business processes within an organization. Michael E. Porter′ value chain model will be used to provide a general idea about value chains within an organization. The second part brings the "basic" value chain in relation to eBusiness and illustrates the importance of it for companies and organizations.eBusiness, eEconomy, eCommerce, Internet, technology

VIRTUAL EDUCATION

The internet economy is strongly connected with its developing modalities. A society desiring to be developed must be initially educated, in order to understand the benefits of the new modality of social integration. The practical finality of the “e” phenomenon in the educational field is the application of an eLearning system.virtual, education

Performance and technology on the travel industry

Much of the technological development taking place in the travel trade and transport sectors is, surprisingly, still at the embryonic stage. The extent to which the subsectors utilize the technology will undoubtedly grow substantially in the future. This may have the effect of increasing the market or alternatively it may merely displace business by changing channels of distribution.travel industry, technological development, distribution

THE UTILITY OF ECOTOURISM SPECIALIZED DISCUSSION FORUMS

The forum is a site on which one can find answers to some questions that concern him/her. It is a means of promotion of a product/service/company, it can be a site where experience is exchanged, where one can meet other people, a free school in which one can be a teacher and a student at the same time, or even a community. Briefly, the forum can be a way of life on the Internet.forum, internet, promotion, ecotourism

THE MAIN APPLICATIONS OF THE INTERNET IN TOURISM MARKETING

Abstract The Internet as a marketing media can be of great benefit to virtual all areas of marketing, from marketing research, through market segmentation, targeting and positioning, to the effective use of the marketing mix, and marketing organisation and control. The following discussion does not attempt to provide an exhaustive list of the Net's use in tourism; rather, it simply intends to exemplify its common applications in and main implications for tourism marketing. Keywords: Internet, tourism, web, marketing. The Internet is widely recognised as an extremely valuable marketing tool. It is generally held that the Internet offers substantial advantages over traditional means of communication: reduced costs of information exchange; increased speed of information transfer and retrieval; increased customer involvement in and control of transactions; and greater flexibility of using the marketing mix. Its main business uses include communications (both internal and external), market research, customer services, market penetration, product development, cost savings through process reengineering, direct marketing, advertising and product delivering. The Internet has the unique quality that, through its addressibility, can transform the prominent marketing communication paradigm from one-to-many to one-to-one or from broadcasting to narrowcasting. The traditional media, such as print, radio and television, follow a passive one-to-many communication model, whereby a company reaches many current and potential customers through the broadcasting of the same message. This approach to communication has three problems: uncustomised message to every consumer, wasted exposures to uninterested audiences, and "noise" distraction from competing and conflicting messages. Another feature of the Net that distinguishes itself from traditional communication media is its ability to respond to user inputs, i.e. interactivity

ELECTRONIC BUSINESS

Electronic Business, commonly referred to as "eBusiness" or "e-Business", may be defined as the utilization of information and communication technologies (ICT) in support of all the activities of business. Commerce constitutes the exchange of products and services between businesses, groups and individuals and hence can be seen as one of the essential activities of any business. Hence, electronic commerce or eCommerce focuses on the use of ICT to enable the external activities and relationships of the business with individuals, groups and other businesse. Many people only see in eBusiness the selling and marketing of products and services via the Internet. But reality shows that this opinion does not hold any ground. The purpose of this paper is to give an overview about eBusiness including definitions, perceptions and models. The main part of this work addresses the importance of the whole value chain and defined business processes within an organization. Michael E. Porter′ value chain model will be used to provide a general idea about value chains within an organization. The second part brings the "basic" value chain in relation to eBusiness and illustrates the importance of it for companies and organizations.eBusiness, eEconomy, eCommerce, Internet, technology

VIRTUAL EDUCATION

The internet economy is strongly connected with its developing modalities. A society desiring to be developed must be initially educated, in order to understand the benefits of the new modality of social integration. The practical finality of the “e” phenomenon in the educational field is the application of an eLearning system.virtual, education