Digital Imaging Trek

This chapter introduces the concept and activities of the digitally enabled tourist and the impact such as tourist has on the travel and tourism industry. It summarizes the existing and emerging technical environments that encourage the use of hand held digital recording devices and personal Internet communications. Additionally, it looks at ways tourists publish and exhibit digital visual and written artifacts of their travel experience. The chapter introduces general types of digital communication infrastructure to be considered by the industry to create an experience to support this type of tourism. The authors hope that further understanding of the digitally enabled tourist will inform travel professionals to better facilitate commerce and practice in the industry.

Design and Implementation Approaches for Location-Based, Tourism-Related Services

The globally observed recession of mobile services market has pushed mobile network operators into looking for opportunities to provide value added services on top of their high cost infrastructures. Recent advances in mobile positioning technologies enable services that make use of the mobile user location information, offering intuitive, attractive applications to the potential customer. Mobile tourism services are among the primary options to be considered by service providers for this new market. This chapter presents the key concepts, capabilities, and considerations of infrastructures and applications targeted to the mobile tourist, covering data and content delivery, positioning, systems’ interactions, platforms, protocols, security, and privacy as well as business modelling aspects.

ICT and the Travel Industry

This chapter focuses on the impact of the ICT on the travel industry with a focus on the New Zealand travel agent (TA) sector. We present key findings from a longitudinal study of TA businesses conducted during 2000-2004. These findings are compared and contrasted with information gathered from in-depth interviews with consumers. The study explores major pressure factors on TA businesses: direct airline-consumers sale, introduction of the Internet, and the emergence of the well-informed consumer. The research also establishes that there is great variation in the extent to which travel agents use the advantages associated with new technology and how New Zealand travel agents perceive ICT. We argue that in such a crucial moment of disintermediation and the fight for the consumer, TA will need to implement more aggressive advertising policies with a strong emphasis on their professional advice, personal financial reliability, and time-saving attributes for clients.

Sex Tourism and the Internet

This chapter examines the relationship between the Internet and sex tourism. It argues that interest in sex tourism in the media erupted in the early 1990s, about the same time that the Internet itself was becoming popular. The relationship between the two was both positive and negative. On the one hand, the Internet has allowed members of sexual subcultures to contact each other and for new forms of sex tourism to be marketed. On the other hand, the Internet also provided a platform for those opposed to sex tourism to raise the profile of the issue, in the process conflating images of sex tourism with those of Internet pornography, pedophilia, and child abuse, particularly in relation to tourism destinations in the Southeast Asian region. It has therefore aided the amplification of moral panics surrounding these issues. This sensational coverage has, however, tended to overshadow other forms of sex tourism, including those in which consenting adults meet together in resorts of clubs for recreational sex with each other. Thus, while the Internet has created moral panics and led to crackdowns in certain sections of the sex tourism market, it has allowed other alternative lifestyles to flourish on an unprecedented scale in an increasingly liberalized environment.

Collaborative Commerce and the Hotel Industry

This chapter proposes a framework to consider the application of collaborative commerce (c-commerce) in the hotel industry. C-commerce and some general characteristics of the hotel industry are examined, followed by a discussion on the likelihood of c-commerce adoption by hotels. A case study of two five-star hotels located in Perth, Western Australia is considered in light of the framework. Corporate structure, information technology (IT) and its importance to organisation strategy, the role and attitudes of the general manager of each hotel to IT as well as the social identity of the hotel to c-commerce emerge as issues critical to c-commerce. This area of study is in its infancy and further research is required to more fully consider the issues.

Virtual Reality Mapping Revisited

This chapter provides a brief overview of the available technologies and opportunities for the use of virtual reality in tourism marketing. It acknowledges that in almost all formulations of the tourism marketing model to date however, much has been made of the notion that tourism is unique because production and consumption occur not only at the same time but in the same place, and therefore that location or proximity is often a critical determinant of the take-up of tourism opportunities. The chapter then goes on to posit the question: what if the place variable could be removed from this equation through the further development of virtual reality techniques? The impacts of this might include: less requirement for travel per se (perhaps); better and more real information about the physical actuality of a destination for the potential consumer (likely); price and service quality information very much simplified and improved (definitely), and changed tourism promotion strategies would change (undoubtedly). At the barest minimum, the uncertainties involved in relying on unverified initial information for tourism travel decision-making could be considerably reduced.

Virtual Reality Applications in Tourism

Virtual reality represents one of the most promising digital technologies and offers significant benefits in various areas such as medicine, entertainment, training, teaching, and tourism. This study attempts to identify, analyse, and present the existing virtual reality applications in tourism, and to predict future possible developments. Based on an extensive literature review, as well as on the direct observation and use of virtual reality applications implemented on the Web, this chapter attempts a classification of the virtual reality applications in tourism, based on different phases of tourist experience. This classification can assist practitioners in developing more adapted virtual reality applications for tourist activities.

Developing Visual Tourism Recommender Systems

Tourism recommender systems (TRS) have become popular in recent years; however, most lack visual means of presenting the recommendations. This paper presents ways of developing visual travel recommender systems (V-TRS). The two popular travel recommender systems being used today are the TripMatcher™ and Me-Print™. Tour recommendation using image-based planning using SCORM (TRIPS) is a system that aims to make the presentation more visual. It uses SCORM and CORDRA standards. Sharable content object reference model (SCORM) is a standard that collates content from various Web sites, and content object repository discovery and registration/resolution architecture (CORDRA) aims to locate and reference SCORM repositories throughout the Internet. The information collected is stored in the form of an XML file. This XML file can be visualised by either converting it into a Flash movie or into a synchronized multimedia integration language (SMIL) presentation. A case study demonstrating the operation of current travel recommender systems also is presented. Further research in this area should aim to improve user interaction and provide more control functions within a V-TRS to make tour-planning simple, fun and more interactive.

Changing Technological Trends in the Travel Behaviour of Older Tourists

This chapter examines the growth in usage of information technology and the Internet by older adults. We are becoming an ageing society with seniors and baby boomers now responsible for a larger share of all holiday spending. The Internet provides a perfect vehicle for the travel industry however, many seniors are still fearful about using the Internet, and perceived problems still exist with credit card security, quality control and privacy issues. In the future, Internet travel bookings are likely to increase with the growth in baby boomers who generally prefer to use the Internet. This will further encourage the use of discount fares however it will place increased pressure on the future role of the travel agent. Furthermore the authors hope that through an understanding of the technological needs of older adults, it will inform tourism providers about the best ways to attract older people to use Internet sites for all aspects of their travel needs.

Feeling Welcome

If used in a proper way, the Internet can be a powerful cross-cultural incoming tourism communication tool. This chapter examines to what extent the opportunities are utilized which are offered in the virtual sphere to extend across physical and cultural distances a welcoming hand to potential visitors from far-away source markets. The discussion is based on the results of a study about the non-german language Web sites of Central European DMOs, conducted in 2002 and updated in 2006, and the results of a study of German-language Web sites of non-European NTOs and DMOs, conducted in 2005. It can be shown that an increase in multilingual Web sites within the period under review can be recognized, but that an increase in cross-cultural awareness of the providers of such Web sites is still lacking.