An overview of current developments and major issues in the field of tourism and information technology

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TRM 253 www.gurkanozer.org Information Systems
for Tourism Industry

• An overview of current developments and major
  issues in the field of tourism and information
  technology
• Importance of IT for the various tourism
  organizations
• The impact of the Worldwide Web on traditional
  sales approaches

• models of technology use
• up-to-date properties of existing technologies
• inter-organizational systems in Turkey

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Effects of the Internet on customer behavior
the new travel buyer

• In 1997, thousands of travel agents in USA
  started to disappear...
• in the UK, 71 of consumers browsed for a
  flight, hotel or holiday in the last six months
• in USA,
• - consumers spent 79 billion in online
  travel, in 2006
• - 125 billion in online bookings by 2011.
• Internet Advertising Spend Bypassed Newspaper in
  2011

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• The Internet is an ideal technology for travel.
  It offers a vast information resource, immediate
  convenience and interaction that can provide a
  very personal experience. As the Internet reaches
  to every house and business, it will find a huge
  market of travelers looking for information "Just
  Beyond their Imagination, and only a click away".

• Today, Travel accounts for a nearly 35 (almost
  one third) of all annual online transactions in
  the world

• UK has already lost 2000 travel agents in the
  past 3 years, and there will be many more joining
  themWe are going to see fewer agents making
  money 5 years from nowLots of big travel
  companies are going to be non-profit
• TURSAB must have 6000 travel agents last
  elections in 2009 only 1400 agents voted for
  elections!...

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• By 2012, a full 38 percent of all travel is
  expected to be conducted online

• Today's challenge to all players in travel field
  is not in finding passengers, but in "finding
  profit".

• International Tourism receipts reached 856
  Billion usd in 2007 (WTO)
• 54 of British holidaymakers used social media
  platforms in the run up to their trip abroad to
  gain personal recommendations and reviews
  beforehand

• According to a September 2008 released study by
  Prophis eResearch, an estimated 19 million online
  Americans have visited one of the top ten travel
  2.0 traveler community based sites such as
  TripAdvisor in the past 12 months.

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WTO stats
UNWTO's Tourism 2020 Vision forecasts that
international arrivals are expected to reach
nearly 1.6 billion by the year 2020. Of these
worldwide arrivals in 2020, 1.2 billion will be
intraregional and 378 million will be long-haul
travellers. The total tourist arrivals by region
shows that by 2020 the top three receiving
regions will be Europe (717 million tourists),
East Asia and the Pacific (397 million) and the
Americas (282 million), followed by Africa, the
Middle East and South Asia.
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Online-Booking Travel Portals
Basically travel portals started by selling
budget airline tickets over GDSs. Their
interfaces (API) softwares connect to GDSs such
as AMADEUS, SABRE, and make possible to check
availability online real-time.. And therefore
to sell.. Next, the giant hotel database being
sold inside the GDSs became their hotels section!
And the same for rent-a-car and all other
providers, even theater tickets!
In a very short time, it was clear that those GDS
rates of hotels ren-a-car companies were NOT
SELLABLE.. Now, Travel Portals start to
establish their own database of hotels, car
rental agencies, bus-train tickets, etc. But
this time, it is their OWN database, and their
OWN PRICES... Meaning, no longer the AGENT
commissions...Now they are giant TOUR OPERATORS
on the web...
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Travel Portals giant travel shopping centers of
web..
http//www.travelocity.com
http//www.expedia.com
http//www.bookinturkey.com
http//www.venere.com
http//www.elong.net
http//www.orbitz.com
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Beginning of IT use in tourism industry (CRS of
Amadeus, Galileo, Worldspan)
Basically travel portals started by selling
budget airline tickets over GDSs. Their
interfaces (API) softwares connect to GDSs such
as AMADEUS, SABRE, etc. and make possible to
check availability online real-time.. And
therefore to sell..
Next, the giant hotel database being sold inside
the GDSs became their hotels section! And the
same for rent-a-car and all other providers, even
theater tickets!
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• Web 2.0

• Platform for participation, connecting people and
  enterprises
• More sociable approach to creating and delivering
  content
• Emphasizes open and transparent communication and
• possibilities to use and recycle open source
  information

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• User generated content (UGC) will remain King.
• Only 14 of users trust marketing messages,
• whereas 78 trust recommendations of other
  consumers.
• This highlights something many online marketers
  have known for a while user generated content
  can be very beneficial.
• blog comments, product reviews, video
  reviews, creative competitions, galleries, etcç

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With more than 15 million reviews and opinions
and nearly 30 million unique visitors a month,
TripAdvisor claims to be the largest travel
community on the web.
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Virtualtourist allows people to create and share
blog-like pages Of their destinations, including
tips and photos. Tips can be added to your own
"Trip Planner", which allows you to create a
personalized travel guide.
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ICTs (Information Communication Technologies)

• Tourism products are therefore almost exclusively
  depend on "representations descriptions" .

• Tourism is a very information intensive activity.
  Unlike durable goods, intangible and variable
  tourism services cannot be physically displayed
  or inspected at the point of sale before
  purchasing. Tourism services are bought before
  the time of their use and away from the place of
  consumption.

• Communication and information transmission tools
  are therefore indispensable to the global
  marketing of tourism industry

Dimitrios BUHALIS - Information Technology for
strategic tourism management
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TRM 253 Information Systems for Tourism Industry

• ICTs (Information Communucation Technologies) and
  E-Tourism
• Leisure vs. Bussiness TravelPackage vs.
  Independent
• Web 2.0 gt Tourism 2.0
• E-Destinations and DMOs (Destination Management
  Organizations)

• Emails Blogs
• up-to-date properties of existing technologies
• inter-organizational systems in Turkey
• Travel Portals
• Asignments!

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TRM 253 Group Assignment (WEB PAGES)

• affordable turkey http//splendorsofturkey.com/af
  fordable_turkey/
• luxury turkey http//splendorsofturkey.com/luxury
  _turkey/
• ecotourism, national parks and adventures in
  turkey http//splendorsofturkey.com/ecotourism
• health tourism in turkeyhttp//splendorsofturkey.
  com/health_tourism/
• vacations in turkeysplendorsofturkey.com/vacation
  s_turkey/
• cultural tours in turkeyhttp//splendorsofturkey.
  com/cultural_tours/

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TRM 253 Group Assignment (Travel Portal Hotel
visits)
Travel Portal and Hotel visits in Istanbul
There will be a case study evaluation (maximum
15 minutes slide presentation). More details
about the case study will be available at the
Course Instruction Website. Same teams will
visit an online travel portal or 3 hotels
located in Istanbul, ask questions and prepare a
report on this visit. Duration of visit should
not take more than 1 hour. Please apply to me for
a list of companies to be visited. Report max.
8 pages, presentation max. 15 minutes.In order
to get better insider view, students are
encouraged to enter imaginative tours, hotels
etc. into their systems, and see how they
function communicate. For hotels, their web
strategy, web based occupancy, etc.The list of
companies and hotels will be posted soon.