Information and Communication Technologies for Travel and Tourism

Information and Communication Technologies for Travel & Tourism

As one of the world’s largest and most pervasive industries, the travel and tourism sector is as exposed as any other to the forces of change that are being brought about by ongoing developments in the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) arena.

ICT have, in fact, affected the travel and tourism industry for at least the last 50 years (SABRE, the first airline computer system was developed by IBM and American airlines in 1953), particularly in the area of automation and networking of distribution channels.

But what does ICT exactly means? There is not a universally accepted defininition because the concepts, methods and applications involved in ICT are constantly evolving on an almost daily basis. Its difficult to keep up with the changes - they happen so fast.

A good way to think about ICT is to consider all the uses of digital technology that already exist to help individuals, businesses and organisations use information. ICT covers any product that will store, retrieve, manipulate, transmit or receive information electronically in a digital form. For example, personal computers, digital television, email, robots.

So ICT is concerned with the storage, retrieval, manipulation, transmission or receipt of digital data. Importantly, it is also concerned with the way these different uses can work with each other.

In business, ICT is often categorised into two broad types of product:

(1) The traditional computer-based technologies (things you can typically do on a personal computer or using computers at home or at work);

(2) The more recent, and fast-growing range of digital communication technologies (which allow people and organisations to communicate and share information digitally)

The advent of the Internet is also having profound impacts on the industry: travel and tourism has become the single largest category of products/services sold over the Internet and the proportion of business being transacted through this medium is constantly growing.

The traditional focus of ICT research and development is to streamline the functional role played by the Internet in the buying process (safe information search, secure financial transactions and convenient 24/7 access to services). The typical benefits cited from ICT adoption in the tourism industry are customer convenience and the facilitation of multiple transactions (information search, booking, payment, customer feedback); enhanced control by management of information provided for customers; faster responses to customer enquiries and problems; greater efficiencies; cost savings and 24/7 contact and the opportunity to differentiate.

The on-line tourism and travellers markets, and the destination management system are using intranet-extranet-Internet supported tools, a computer reservation system and a global distribution system for tourism management and marketing as factors for building and maintaining competitive advantage. Most of tourist products are different services for tourists, where ICT is an extremely useful tool in management and operation of these activities.

The ICT tools are sometimes deeply involved in selling activities creating a feeling and emotion by tourists. Among these technologically sophisticated tools, which are used in tourist markets, there is the Salzburg Joker card with a special discount for tourists, or a project where a tour guide gives tourists a ‘smart phone’ with maps and pictures of the exposed paintings in the museums and a virtual game for pleasure.

The ‘Salzburg Sommer Joker’ (http://vlado.fmf.uni-lj.si/pub/networks/doc/sojo/sojo.pdf) is the Austrian destination management project where one DM company plans, organizes, manages and controls the configuration of the tourists preferences year by year with an all inclusive Joker chip card that offers free admission or a reduced rate to about 180 sights and attractions throughout the Province of Salzburg. When tourists use the Salzburg Sommer Joker their movement is digitally recorded for accounting reasons at the entry points of every tourism event.

In a nearby Trieste there is a small pizzeria where the personnel use HP iPaq PDA with Wi-Fi modules. Each table is numbered, single seats are numbered clockwise similar to sectors on a floppy disc. When an occasional customer orders a pizza with some special request, for example without onion, the waiter selects the pizza’s icon on his/her PDA, and enters a note for a special request. With a tip on the screen the order is sent wireless to the restaurant’s kitchen. The main advantage with this technology is that anyone can serve and the customers can pay or order to anyone equipped with a PDA within this restaurant.