Tourists' choices made easy

The rapid development of information and communication technology (ICT) and the spread of the internet have ushered in unprecedented changes in industry structure around the world, changing principal constituents of every business.
Tourism industry is no exception, where ICT is becoming an indispensable part. In Europe and America, the industry has adopted technologies for many decades now, and the trend is just about certain to keep the momentum in the future.
Europe is blazing the trail in the development of travel industry with nearly 49 per cent market share, then comes America with 26 per cent, followed by Asia with 17 per cent of the market. ICT adoption in tourism industry is important in that it is a highly competitive industry with new opening for global actors. There is also a constant change in customer demand and tourists' expectations have gone up who now seek more convenience and value. They are also becoming knowledgeable, bringing the need for automated technologies.
Tourism industry is one of complexities and many components. An intangible, perishable and international service industry, it is getting right business curve backed by information technology. The best example of ICT application in the sector can be seen in online reservation system for railways and airlines.
IT solutions for hotels, motels, hospitality, travel intermediaries and entertainment are also available now. They streamline business processes, improving customer relationship and ensuring more efficient operations.
Before making use of information technology, it is important to know about our need for information sharing and accessibility. Tourism industry comprises tourist, travel agents, service providers, government and private tourism offices or consultants.
Consumers need details about destinations, facilities, availability of services, prices, geography and weather information. If their destination is outside the country, then border control and relations with the country they are heading to also come into consideration.
Travel agents look for information and details about tourist (consumer) trends in the market, service providers, destinations, facilities, availability, prices, tour packages and direct contact with other branches. Service providers need to know details about the consumer, travel agents, competitors and agencies. Tourism offices search for trends in the industry and size and nature of tourism flows, policies and plans for development.
IT-facilitated tourism is coined as 'e-tourism'. Online tourism enables direct booking, easy payment for end-users, business-to-business trading for product providers, travel agents and resellers. All those government and private websites and portals would offer a wide range of tourism products and services like airlines, hotels, restaurants, camp-sites, tours, activity centres, concerts, festivities, shopping and many more with choicest of assortments of services.
We can plan our tour online through the agents' websites. Reservation for train, airlines, cruiser, hotels, resorts, motels, rental cars and adventures can be done online. The tourism industry is expecting more practical and satisfactory chain solutions from information technology, more than simple web-based portal, which merely provides static information and beautiful pictures with less updated knowledge and data transfer.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system enables service providers to provide knowledge, value and efficient service to its clients. CRM enables the providers to build up a lifetime relationship with clients by providing on-time solutions. Tourism industry especially needs excellent CRM solutions to provide visitors or clients with services before they fly, during tour and always after the tour ends. CRM solutions can be provided to a visitor through web, email, call centre and kiosk anytime, anywhere.
We can imagine how beneficial it would be to tourists to know about reservation by dialling just 555. No matter whether tourists are travelling rural China, they can have some information about the place in their favourite language by a simple phone call. What an experience when tourists are staring at Machu Picchu in Peru and reading details about it with all the graphics and animations on multimedia kiosks! Even they can check their further travel registration request process through the kiosks. So much beyond their imagination, some Xawn is always in their service.
Tourism industry is a chain of many service providers. In long term solutions, cost cutting and effectiveness in data and information transfer, speed in transactions and looking towards heavy multimedia-based services backend systems need excellent value chain integration through solutions like SCM (Supply Chain Management), ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) and CRM (Customer Relationship Management). However till today applications of SCM and ERP are not up to the industrial mark as tourism industry is kind of a service industry.
KMS (Knowledge Management Systems) and BIS (Business Intelligence Systems) have wide scope of implementation in tourism industry. Comparing history timelines and providing instance knowledge about a place on the spot makes a tourist eager to know more about the place. Even BI (Business Intelligence) enables an analyst to find about tourist behavior and trend with data and information. To find out customer demand is no more a difficult task.

Interactive Digital Television (IDTV), mobile technologies and internet are carving new faces in customer services for tourism industry. Using GPRS (General Pocket Radio Service) and GIS (Geographic Information System), KM and BI can be easily integrated on maps. It is in process. That is great for adventure tourist. Where is the tourist? Oh! He is in a dangerous forest. Be careful!!
Through a mobile, tourists can be guided through cultural heritage through multi-language voice, text or images. Even it is possible for a tourist to find details about fees, opening days and timings for nearby places. He may find bookshop, cafe, restaurant or ATM. In advanced countries, e-tourism concept was put into practice in last decade.
E-tourism is still in growing phase with advance technology application. But for underdeveloped countries like Bangladesh, it is in under-utilisation phase. With the application of e-tourism, the travellers would be able to make online reservation and bookings and receive immediate confirmation. This would remove a lot of obstacles that a tourist faces.
No more delay! Time goes by. The five mobile companies and the satellite channels, with close coordination of the tourism authorities, may help our tourism industry enter the e-tourism world sooner or later.
The author is a faculty member at National Hotel and Tourism Training Institute, Bangladesh Parjatan Corporation.