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Industry & IT
Tourism and Travel Industry - a heterogeneous
industry made of complex and consists of many components parts.
Intangible, perishable and international service industry is getting right
business curve backed by information technology now days.
The best example of information technology application in Travel and
Tourism that we can quote here is Automated reservation system for
Railways & Airlines.
There exists IT solutions for hotels, motels, hospitality, travel
intermediaries, entertainment and tourism at par for streamline business
processes, improving customer relationships and more efficient operations.
Trends in Industry (applicable to most of countries)
1. Being a competitive industry with new entrance of global players coming
from abroad.
2. Continuously change in customer demands.
3. Expectations of a tourist are increased and look for more convenience
and value.
4. Tourists are getting knowledgeable.
5. There is a need of automated technologies.
Who needs information?
Before starting use of information technology in our ground, it is
important for us to know our ground needs of information sharing &
accessibility. Travel and Tourism Industry is made of tourist, travel
agents, service providers and Govt. & private tourism offices or
consultants.
Tourist – a key consumer needs details on destinations, facilities,
availabilities, prices, and geography & climate information. If it is out
of country then border controls & relations.
Travel agents look information & details about tourist (consumer) trends
in the market, service providers, destinations, facilities,
availabilities, prices, tour packages and direct contact with other
branches.
Service providers need to know details of consumer, travel agents,
competitors and agencies.
Tourism offices search for trends in industry, size and nature of tourism
flows, policies and plans for development.
Solutions simplified..
IT enabled tourism is coined as ‘ e – tourism’. Online tourism is at a
platform that enables direct booking, easy payment for end-user,
business-to-business trading for product providers, travel agents and
resellers.
E–Commerce
All those web sites and portals launched by government as well as private
organizations would offer a wide range of tourism products and services
like airlines, hotels, restaurants, camp-sites, tours, activity centers,
concerts, festivities, shopping and many more with choicest of assortments
of services.
Plan the tour online through agents’ web sites. Reservation or shopping of
facilities for train, airlines, cruise, hotels, resorts, motels, rental
cars and adventures can be done on line.
Still leaving a part of simple web based portal, which just provides
static information & beautiful pictures with less updated knowledge and
data transfer, tourism industry is expecting more practical and satisfied
chain solutions from Information Technology.
Advance technologies in Tourism Industry
Rather than .Com & e-commerce, travel and tourism industry is looking for
solution like E-Business or U-Business (Universal Business) solutions.
Customer relationship management
CRM based system enables service provider to provide knowledge, value and
efficient service to its clients. CRM enables service provider to build up
a life time relationship by providing on time solutions. Especially
tourism industry needs excellent CRM solutions to assist visitors or
clients before flying on tour, during tour and always after tour services.
CRM solutions can be provided to a visitor through web, email, call
center, kiosks and traveling information offices anytime & anywhere.
What an experience! We are standing at "Taj Mahal" and we are able to read
history details with all graphics and animated roles on multimedia kiosks.
Even we can check our further travel registration request process through
kiosks. So much beyond our imagination.
Value chain integration
Tourism industry is a chain of many service providers. In long term
solutions, cost cutting & effectiveness in data & information transfer,
speed in transactions and looking towards heavy multimedia based services
– back end systems need excellent value chain integration through
solutions like SCM, ERP and CRM. However till today applications of SCM
and ERP are not up to the industrial remarks as tourism industry is kind
of service industry.
Knowledge Management Systems
KM and business intelligence systems have wide scope of implementation in
Tourism industry.
Well, well, well we can imagine it. Comparing history timelines and
providing instance knowledge about place on the spot makes eager to know
more about place to a tourist. Even information enables analyst to find
tourist’s behavior and trends with data and information. To find out
customer’s demand is no more difficult task.
Use of advance technologies
Interactive Digital Television (IDTV), Mobile technologies and Internet
are carving new faces in customer services for tourism industry. That’s
great for adventure tourist. Where am I ? You are in dangerous forest.
Beware!!
Through a mobile, tourist can be guided through cultural heritage through
multi – language voice, text or images. Even it is possible for a tourist
to find details on fees, opening days and timings for nearby places. Find
bookshop, cafe, restaurant or ATM from where ever we are.
Wishing you a Happy journey
In advanced countries, e – tourism concept was applied and put in practice
in last decade. However e – tourism is still in growing phase with advance
technology’s application. But for developing countries and underdeveloped
countries it is under utilization phase.
With application of e-tourism, the travelers would be able to make online
reservation, bookings and receive immediate confirmation; this would
remove a lot of obstacles that are faced by a tourist.
Europe is ahead of other continents in development of travel industry with
nearly 49 % market share. America is on second with 26 % and Asia with 17
% crowd reached at third position.
Written By:
Disanta Ojah
disanta@rediffmail.com |
Writer
Profile
an MBA from a popular
management
institute of Delhi. A marketing guy with knowledge of IT done summer
training from KINETIC ENGG. LTD. experience as marketing
executive in Crossroad Help Line Service .
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