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Information technology in everyday and vacation contexts
Abstract
This research employed a longitudinal panel to examine diffusion of information technology (IT) and its spillover from everyday contexts to vacations. Over the course of the research wireless access to Internet became more common and increasingly IT was brought or available on a trip and the decision of tourists to be off or on the Internet while vacationing became more pronounced. Panelists showed evidence of diffusion with IT advancements through learning, equipment ownership, and improving perceived skills, as well as spillover of IT use and behavior into vacation contexts as a continuation of trip planning and information search beyond home or pre-trip planning, where Internet access is available and most common at destinations and travel facilities.
... The delivery of guide services and tourist travel experiences depends on guide-tourist interactions throughout the tour (Liu et al., 2021). Consistent with the stages in tourism consumption (MacKay & Vogt, 2012), guide-tourist interaction can also be divided into pre-, during-, and post-trip interactions (Parsons et al., 2019;Voorhees et al., 2017). Pretrip interactions have the potential to sway subsequent guide-tourist interactions and tourist experiences (Li, Chen, Liu, et al., 2022). ...
... Consistent with the tourism consumption stages (MacKay & Vogt, 2012), guide-tourist interactions can also be divided into three temporal stages-pre-tour, during-tour, and post-tour interactions. ...
Tour guides play a vital role in shaping service quality, destination image, and relationships with tourists. However, most research on guide‐tourist interactions focuses exclusively on the interactions during the tour, overlooking pre‐tour interactions. Using thematic content analysis, and based on the social situation framework, this study investigates pre‐tour interactions from the tour guide's perspective of guided group tours. The results unravel that pre‐tour interactions are motivated by both the intrinsic and extrinsic goals of tour guides, who act as not only hosts, but also travel stewards, “virtual stage” constructors, and even tourists' friends. The interactions mostly surround service promises, emotional care, and rapport building, in addition to information exchange. Furthermore, a seven‐step behavioral sequence underlying the interactions and six paramount hindrances were identified. This research contributes to the existing literature on host‐guest interactions by generating granular and holistic insights into pre‐tour interactions and offering valuable guidance for optimizing guide services.
... Esse emissor escolhe um meio para comunicar sua mensagem, que, segundo Marujo (2008), ao ser bem utilizado pode contribuir para o alcance dos objetivos de divulgação, motivação e impacto estabelecidos. Nessa dinâmica, a inserção das TICs no cotidiano das pessoas, inclusive em suas viagens (Mackay & Vogt, 2012;Law et al., 2018;Gössling, 2021;Lee et al., 2021), é um fator de mudança a ser levado em consideração na comunicação turística. ...
... A maior parte dos visitantes chega aos seus destinos já cientes das possibilidades de acesso à internet que encontrarão durante a viagem (MacKay & Vogt, 2012), o que em parte é explicada pelo uso de informações de interesse do turista como oportunidades de promoção para as localidades em seus websites (Gössling, 2021). Essa conexão constante está integrada a um novo comportamento de busca e de consumo de informações. ...
Objetivo do estudo: analisar o impacto das tecnologias de informação e comunicação nas atividades de marketing de destination management and marketing organizations (DMMOs) e como estas organizações têm se adaptado à comunicação turística digital.Metodologia/abordagem: estudos de caso de abordagem qualitativa com três destinos e DMMOs de diferentes países, desenvolvidos em duas etapas: entrevistas semiestruturadas com base em pesquisa bibliográfica e documental; e análise dos websites e mídias sociais das DMMOs com auxílio da ferramenta Fanpage Karma.Originalidade/relevância: analisar aspectos do contexto e da gestão das organizações de destino que influenciam sua responsividade aos diálogos on-line.Principais resultados: os casos apresentaram a variedade de características entre destinos e organizações. Identificou-se que há um ambiente histórico, socioeconômico e político local que influencia a promoção dos destinos. Em todos os casos a internet é vista positivamente para a promoção de destinos turísticos, com diferentes graus de adaptação das organizações ao uso de distintas ferramentas. Cada modelo de gestão apresentou diferentes focos e forças da promoção de destinos.Contribuições teóricas/metodológicas: a análise qualitativa do impacto da internet na comunicação das DMMOs em destinos de três países, por meio de estudos de caso realizados com uso de software para analisar as mídias sociais dos destinos, apontou que há, na comunicação turística digital de destinos, novos elementos centrais para o estabelecimento de um relacionamento entre destinos e visitantes, atribuindo maior importância ao conteúdo dinâmico e que gera engajamento do que a aspectos subjetivos da marca turística dos destinos.
... The way people interact, communicate, and behave in today's global environment has changed significantly as a result of the development of information technology and communication (ICT), and this has an inevitable effect that has also had a significant impact on the tourism industry (Khatri, 2019). MacKay and Vogt, (2012) argue that individuals conduct internet searches to learn more about and better understand a destination before choosing one. As a result, businesses and organisations in the tourism sector are investing in enhancing their web presence to facilitate communication with potential tourists in response to the growing demand from consumers for information access. ...
Nature, Eco-and Adventure Tourism (NEAT) has emerged as an industry subsector during the last decade in Albania. By employing an exploratory qualitative multi-method approach, this study identifies key trends and drivers and explores how these change factors could affect this sub-sector, creating new challenges and opportunities. The analysis of these trends and drivers from both a supply and demand perspective inform the subsequent discussion on potential priorities, strategies and actions that can be formulated and implemented by government agencies, local municipalities, destination managers, and tourism operators to develop a sustainable NEAT subsector. The implications extend to many tourism destinations and subsectors.
... Since the late 1990s, the Internet has revolutionized business operations in the hotel industry, and the internet has become a powerful operational and marketing tool [2,13]. MacKay and Vogt [14] noted that information technology was established as a necessary factor for continuous innovation. A quality website is profitable, easy to use, accessible, useful, and offers reliable information [3,4]. ...
The hotel industry is essential for tourism. With the rapid expansion of the internet, consumers only search for their desired keywords on the website when they trying to find a hotel to stay, causing the relevant hotel information would appear. To quickly respond to the changing market and consumer habits, each hotel must focus on its website information and information quality. This study proposes a novel methodology that uses rough set theory (RST), principal component analysis, t-Distributed Stochastic Neighbor Embedding (t-SNE), and attribute performance visualization to explore the relationship between hotel star ratings and hotel website information quality. The collected data are based on the star-rated hotels of the Taiwanstay website, and the checklists of hotel website services are used to obtain the relevant attributes data. The results show that there are significant differences in information quality between hotels below two stars and those above four stars. The information quality provided by the higher star hotels was more detailed than that offered by low-star hotels. Based on the attribute performance matrix, the one-star and two-star hotels have advantage attributes in their landscape, reply time, restaurant information, social media, and compensation. Furthermore, the three-five star hotels have advantage attributes in their operational support, compensation, restaurant information, traffic information, and room information. These results could be provided to the stakeholders as a reference.
... The search of information is an important part of the purchase decision-making, which has significantly evolved thanks to the internet and the ICTs, as they reduce the uncertainty and the perceived risks (Gretzel y Yoo, 2008;Mackay y Vogt, 2012). ...
Purpose The theoretical framework of this study focuses on the trends towards experiential tourism and new communication channels in the tourist sector. The specific areas of action that are covered in this research work focus on: a definition of experiential tourism, an analysis of markets as a resource of experiential tourism and communication strategies and the use of social media by the markets of Madrid to interact with the new experiential consumer. Design/methodology/approach This paper is arranged as follows: first, a review of the documents on new tourist sector trends towards the demand of experiential tourism, on marketing 2.0 and on social media has been carried out; second, communication strategies of the food markets seen as tourist resources are described herein, including results of the research in the use of social media; and finally, conclusions of the study are developed. Findings According to the conceptual approach and after reviewing the documents cited in this paper, it is possible to conclude that food markets are tourist resources that shall be exploited as “experiential providers” for a market niche that is increasingly demanding and expects to have a “tourist experience”. The present paper contributes to the literature on experiential tourism, including new communication strategies as a tool to contact experiential tourists. Accordingly, an analysis is carried out of a specific product/resource, such as the food markets of Madrid as resources or experiential leisure centers, and a study on product strategies (offer of experiences) and communication strategies on their experiential tourism offer fundamentally based on social media and websites. Research limitations/implications Although this work represents an in-depth study of the food markets analyzed, the research could be extended to other markets or to other cities that are also working with markets as experiential tourism resources, though not in a structured design as in Madrid. Practical implications This work is different from previous studies for several reasons. In the first place, food markets are integrated as elements for the study of experiential tourism as tourist resources, and second, commercial interaction and other types of productive activities in urban centers are considered. In particular, social relations and collaboration between small retailers in markets, their managers and the institutions responsible for tourism management in the city of Madrid are barely analyzed in the literature. This includes the collaboration between public (Madrid City Council), cultural and business institutions (Madrid Fusión and Gastrofestival), hospitality and other businesses (established in the food markets) to promote cultural experiences and historic tourism. Social implications The performed study has several implications for employers and policymakers. As historical, cultural and experiential tourism are growing trends throughout the world, new tourist consumer profiles must be analyzed. There are new groups of tourists looking for unique experiences and “local” activities, eager to visit renovated urban historical centers with a developed experiential leisure offer. This tourist activity facilitates the rebirth of the traditional food markets and promotes the creation of jobs and new opportunities for traditional businesses as shown in the present case study focused on the markets of Madrid. Originality/value The present paper contributes to the literature on experiential tourism, including new communication strategies as a tool to contact experiential tourists. Accordingly, an analysis is carried out of a specific product/resource, such as the food markets of Madrid as resources or experiential leisure centers, and a study on product strategies (offer of experiences) and communication strategies on their experiential tourism offer fundamentally based on social media and websites. The role played by food markets in the creation of an experiential tourism offer in Madrid and the communication strategies generated by them is described in this research. This study not only sheds light on the changes undergone by the tourist demand, specifically urban tourism but also it helps understand some of the strategies that big tourist cities are implementing in historic centers to reduce the risks of mass tourism.
... The incorporation of information and communication technologies (ICTs) into people's daily lives has had both positive and negative side effects (MacKay and Vogt, 2012). Although ICTs offer indisputable benefits, such as allowing to maintain family contact, especially in remote or rural locations, which would have a positive impact on people's wellbeing, or others, such as facilitating work allowing to take advantage of waiting times and adapting work times to the working people's needs (Pearson et al., 2017). ...
The research objective was to predict the impact of techno-creators and techno-inhibitors on the different manifestations of technostress in kindergarten directors in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and telework. The participants were INTEGRA Foundation kindergarten directors, from a sample of 567 kindergartens in Chile. To measure the technostress manifestations, the RED-TIC questionnaire was used as an instrument, and concerning techno-creators and techno-inhibitors, those established in previous research were considered. The partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) methodology was used, and the model estimation was performed using SmartPLS version 3.0 software. It was obtained that techno-creators correlate positively and significantly with the technostress manifestations. A negative correlation was found between techno-inhibitors and technostress manifestations and techno-creators, but not significant for skepticism and inefficacy manifestations. Therefore, it is concluded that techno-creators lead to technostress manifestations, however, techno-inhibitors did not show a significant effect in reducing these manifestations in the sample studied.
... The access to the information thought the new platform of IT has impacted significantly on the hospitality market establishing new behaviour patterns and transforms old ones in our daily environments, including vacations, travel, and leisure time (MacKay & Vogt, 2012). ...
Information Technology (IT) has dramatically changed the way in which businesses, organizations, governments, and individuals interact since COVID19 pandemic was declared in 2020. To produce services in the current hospitality industry is complex and sometimes challenging. In order to face the limitations of the hospitality market producer adopted and adapted new information technologies to remain competitive.
... However, with the development of ICTs, mobile and network media have increasingly blurred the boundaries between travel and daily life (Mackay & Vogt, 2012;Wang et al., 2016). ICTs make it possible to be socially co-present: tourists can remain in contact with their families, friends, and colleagues, e.g., by sending messages and sharing photos, diaries and videos via social media, which enables them to remain embedded in their home-based network (Hannam et al., 2014). ...
Selective unplugging refers to being partially connected or disconnected from information and communication technologies (ICTs) during travel. This study explores the processes of escape and return (i.e., linking with the everyday life domain) in selective unplugging and rethinks the relationship between daily life and travel. Based on the analysis of user-generated content and semi-structured interviews, findings show that: (1) tourists disconnect to reestablish the boundaries between daily life and travel blurred by ICTs; (2) tourists might reconnect to contact with the everyday environment driven by social obligations and inner needs; (3) even if the digital connection is cut off, tourists do not completely leave everyday life behind and would experience a special ideal home. Overall, the relationship between daily life and travel appears to show these two elements are interlaced. This study echoes the mobility turn and further discusses the dialectic of virtual mobility and virtual mooring.
... Most studies confirm that what is shared among users generates greater confidence, credibility, and loyalty (Litvin et al., 2008; (Mukerjee and Shaikh, 2019)9, Ayo et al., 2016 andBabic, 2016). Several authors consider that the search of information is an important part of the decision-making process on purchases, which has significantly evolved after the advent of the internet and the ICTs, as they reduce the uncertainty and the perceived risks (Brown et al., 2005;Gretzel and Yoo, 2008;Mackay and Vogt, 2012). In the context of the use of self-service technologies in emerging markets, several studies have focused on technology adoption, technology anxiety, and influence on customer outcomes (Ayo et al., 2016). ...
Traditional commerce does not have a great variety of products: it has a more leisurely sale and does not develop impulse buying. The most important factor is the direct relationship established between the seller and the customer, facilitating advice and creating a relationship of trust between the two. Traditional retailers nowadays need digitization, without which they cannot compete technologically with large companies, whereas they can compete in quality, authenticity, proximity, and service. For all these reasons, it seems appropriate to investigate the antecedents that may influence consumers’ attitudes towards online shopping in traditional retailers. To achieve this objective, a research plan was developed based on a cross-sectional descriptive study using primary data from a questionnaire answered by 4,063 individuals who live in Spain. The result shows that store loyalty and word of mouth (WOM) communications are the main drivers of attitudes to online shopping. As intermediaries, the mediating variables of the quality and image of the store are established. Small stores should focus on authenticity; this is built on the dimensions established by theory: heritage, legitimacy, nostalgia, originality, and social commitment. Authenticity allows these stores to differentiate themselves from their competitors.
... Genealogists use technology extensively in their daily life, including their mobile devices, so it is natural they continue to use them when travelling. MacKay and Vogt (2012) found that those who use information technology in their daily life will also have that technology use spillover into their vacation life. Genealogy tourists follow that trend. ...
In the not-so-distant past, genealogists and family history hobbyists had to lug around heavy boxes, documents, and copious notes and references as they travelled to discover their family roots. Technological advances in mobile devices and applications have created efficiencies and opened paths of exploration that facilitate researching genealogical roots while travelling. This research employs a netnographic approach in studying genealogy blogs, social media, and websites to see how genealogy tourists use mobile devices and apps. Mobile apps used by genealogists are categorized into a taxonomy which shows the plethora of apps and functions that genealogists can rely on before, during and after a trip. The paper then analyzes how smartphone use in general, and mobile app use in particular, affect genealogy tourism. It is found that travelling genealogists use their mobile devices and apps extensively throughout all travel phases to plan and prepare for trips, to conduct and inform their research, and to share their findings. Genealogy tourists also use technology to create and tap into a virtual collective of like-minded others by sharing their knowledge online to help others, acting as a teacher, but at other times may post questions and seek others’ knowledge, as a learner. As such, the study contributes to ongoing efforts to better understand the impact of mobile technologies on travel.
... The next section of the questionnaire involved the measurement of MIT use of Chinese senior tourists in daily life and while traveling. The survey items were adapted from validated scales previously used by McMurtrey et al. (2011) and MacKay and Vogt (2012) to examine technology behaviors among American seniors. Data were gathered for mobile phones and mobile apps ownership, daily online time, usage of travel apps, and usage of social media, WeChat in particular. ...
This study is aimed at examining mobile-savvy Chinese seniors’ perceptions of India as a tourist destination. The research identifies and characterizes a distinctive outbound segment among Chinese urban seniors based on their usage of mobile information technology and focuses on the analysis of how they perceive Indian as an international destination. An online questionnaire was used to collect data via WeChat, a social media platform in China. The study results reveal that there is a notable absence of a clearly formulated destination image of India in the minds of Chinese seniors. The findings illustrate that Mobile-savvy Chinese seniors are a viable inbound segment for India and suggest that mobile information technology is an effective tool for destination marketing organizations to target this untapped market from China. The marketing implications for India’s tourism industry are discussed in detail.
... Nature-based tourism literature suggests mobile device usage has changed travel activities, interpretation, and sensations (feeling more connected, informed, and safe) (Kim & Law, 2015). Additionally, tourists with mobile devices make more spontaneous decisions mid-trip (MacKay & Vogt, 2012;Wang et al., 2012). Yet, research also shows that mobile devices detract rather than enhance tourist experiences when devices are used for purposes unrelated to the tourist experience (Van Winkle et al., 2018). ...
Worldwide mobile devices have become ubiquitous including for visitors to parks and protected areas. Wireless communication technologies, such as Wi-Fi access and cellular network service, are also common but not all parks and protected areas provide these services. Wireless communication technologies could alter the visitor experience, however little is known about visitor preferences for Wi-Fi access and cellular network service nor about experiential outcomes of mobile device usage in natural settings. Therefore, the purpose of this research was twofold: to understand visitor preferences for Wi-Fi access and cellular network service, and experiential outcomes of mobile device usage. The study site for this research was Shenandoah National Park (n = 1442). Using k-means clustering analysis, data were clustered into visitor groups and statistically compared to gain insight into patterns of responses. Visitors mostly reported neutral preferences for Wi-Fi access and cellular network service except for cell service park-wide in all national parks was reported as important. One group of visitors (n = 239) reported that these technologies were unimportant and mobile device usage diminishes their experience. Analysis was also conducted to investigate preferences across age, which showed older demographics reported both cell service park-wide and cell service park-wide in all national parks as important. This information is relevant for management decisions regarding wireless communication technologies access and avail- ability within parks and protected areas.
... As can be predicted, messages that represent the food image (encouraging new food ideas, strengthening some food consumption) can be intentionally reflected by the destination marketers via various information sources to attract potential tourists (Fisher et al., 2012). With the development of information technologies and more effective internet use by individuals for finding information, decreasing ambiguities and perceived risks (Gretzel & Yoo, 2008;Mackay & Vogt, 2012), social media use by destination is highly important to reflect the images online that might help destination branding. Social media is regarded as a transparent platform with more participants compared to traditional information sources (Ukpabi & Karjaluota, 2018;Zhou & Wang, 2014). ...
The main purpose of this study is to discover the most popular foods in Turkish cuisine by analysing user-generated content (UGC) and analysing Instagram posts to determine the most popular themes within a gastronomical context. Photographs, likes, and hashtags of 1167 posts shared with "#turkishfood" hashtag are analysed due to the representative power of this hashtag for the Turkish cuisine. Photography and text mining techniques are used under data mining. Findings for photographs and likes show that users have high and low perceived images for certain food categories. Hashtag findings support the user's positive attitude towards Turkish cuisine. The study will help the destination develop future social media strategies by revealing the strengths and weaknesses of user-generated content (UGC) in the destination's food image branding. This study offers theoretical and practical implications by showing existing and possible image elements for destination food branding with social media.
... According to Minghetti and Dimitrios (2009), tourism is a local and national source of wealth, and internet access is one of the requirements to reduce shortcomings in some tourist areas [102]. Moreover, adequate information and communication technology system in the tourism sector increases positive social and economic impacts from tourism in those areas [103]. ...
The COVID-19 outbreak is causing severe damage to the tourism sector. Gradual restrictions are imposed by the world's governments to improve social distancing and control the number of infected people. It creates a collapse in the tourism demand showing an unusual situation. The paper, after an in-depth analysis of the literature on the tourism value chain, aims to investigate actions and perspectives which influence tourism management in this challenging period. The study uses grounded theory to determine significant elements regarding the management of tourism. Through forty semi-structured interviews with individual people, the paper proposes a model of tourism restart based on value chain theory. The model finds out five relevant factors: tourist attractiveness (i.e., tourism flows, the composition of tourism flows, proximity tourism and coronavirus opportunities), receptive factors (i.e., new receptivity models, health, and prevention models), new business models (i.e., home delivery services, flow management applications, outdoor sports activities), digital divides (i.e., enhancement of the internet structure) and culture (i.e., new outdoor activities). This study contributes theoretically to the value chain theory establishing a model for tourism regeneration. Additionally, the paper gives new practical insights in terms of resilience activities that tourism entrepreneurs could implement for tourists.
Heidegger offers a philosophical perspective on technology that challenges us to engage with the essence of technology instead of adopting instrumentalist views of technology as collections of technological artifacts or tools. He warns that such a view on technology enframes how we relate to technology, and colors what we see and value in potentially dangerous ways. In reflecting on information and communication technology-related
research in tourism, hospitality, events and leisure, this paper reveals that existing research rarely engages with technology in deep and critical ways. As a result, many research questions concerning technology in the field remain unasked or inadequately formulated. Building on Heidegger’s philosophy of technology and bringing in additional philosophical streams of thought, this paper seeks to re-orient and widen technology
research. It does so by drafting a preliminary research agenda that provides examples of the kind of questioning from which technology-related research might benefit.
Artırılmış gerçeklik ve sanal gerçeklik uygulamaları kültürel miras alanlarını yorumlama, sınıflandırma ve yapılı çevrenin anlamlandırılmasına yardımcı olmaktadır. Artırılmış gerçeklik ve sanal gerçeklik, kültürel miras yapısının alanı dâhil olmak üzere genişleyen kapsam içinde uygulamaların potansiyelini ortaya çıkarmaktadır. Bu teknolojilerin uygulamaları, diğer bilgi ve iletişim teknolojilerinin gelişmesiyle birlikte bir süreklilik sağladığında kültürel miras alanlarından en iyi şekilde yararlanılabileceğini göstermektedir. Turizm literatüründe bu uygulamaların kullanılması yaşanacak değişim ve rekabet avantajı sağlama açısından önemli olmaktadır. Bundan dolayı, dünya çapında kültürel miras alanlarında birçok artırılmış gerçeklik ve sanal gerçeklik uygulamaları hayata geçirilmeye başlanmıştır. Dolayısıyla bu çalışmada, Kudüs’teki artırılmış gerçeklik ve sanal gerçeklik uygulamalarının uygulanabileceği müzeler, kiliseler, camiler, kaleler ve ören yerleri gibi kültürel miras alanlarının tespit edilmesi amaçlanmıştır. Çalışmada, nitel araştırma yöntemlerinden literatür taraması tekniği kullanılarak bu alandaki ikincil verilerden yararlanılmıştır. Artırılmış gerçeklik ve sanal gerçeklik uygulamalarının kültürel miras alanlarında kullanılması bu değerlerin korunması, gelecek nesilleri aktarımı ve turist memnuniyetini artırmak amacıyla uygulandığı görülmektedir. Bu bağlamda, Kudüs’ün kültürel miras alanlarında artırılmış gerçeklik ve sanal gerçeklik teknolojilerinin uygulanıp uygulanmayacağı sorgulanırken diğer yandan kültürel miras yapılarının gelecek kuşaklara aktarılması konusunda farkındalık yaratması amaçlanarak bu çalışmanın ilgili literatüre önemli bir katkı sağlayacağı düşünülmektedir. Çalışma sonucunda bu teknolojilerin Kudüs’teki kültürel miras alanlarında kullanılmasına dönük önerilerde bulunulmuştur.
This study presents the first comprehensive systematic review and bibliometric analysis of the Everyday Life Information Seeking (ELIS) research domain, spanning nearly three decades of academic contributions. Initiated by Savolainen’s groundbreaking study in 1995, ELIS research has significantly progressed; however, to date, no researchers have undertaken a thorough overview of this field. Employing a mixed-methods approach, this study combines systematic review techniques with bibliometric analysis, aiming to bridge this gap. The methodology includes rigorous data filtration from the Web of Science and Scopus databases, amassing a total of 345 articles published between 1995 and 2023. Findings indicate a marked increase in ELIS publications and citations, particularly after 2008, underscoring a growing interest in everyday life information seeking. Analysis identified significant contributions from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Finland, and Australia. Thematic analysis unveiled three main research directions: the influence of digital technology on ELIS, information seeking in health scenarios, and diverse information needs and sources among specific user groups. Furthermore this study also proposes an integrative framework, emphasizing the importance of understanding information-seeking behaviors within the complex and diverse context of everyday life. It recognizes the necessity of incorporating various sociocultural perspectives and adapting to the continuously evolving digital environment. This framework serves as a valuable resource for scholars and practitioners dedicated to improving information services and interventions in daily life. The limitations of this study include language and database restrictions, as well as the exclusion of gray literature. Additionally, given the significant potential of integrating information seeking with technology to improve daily life, future research should focus on the foundational theoretical issue of how artificial intelligence technology is reshaping users’ ELIS behaviors.
Bu çalışma, 1991-2024 (26 Nisan 2024) yılları arasında teknoloji bağımlılığı ve turist davranışı alanında mevcut literatürü gözden geçirmek, küresel araştırma verimliliğini analiz etmek amacıyla yapılmıştır. Web of Science (WOS) veri tabanından teknoloji bağımlılığı ve turist davranışı anahtar kelimeleri kullanılarak elde edilen 2626 makalenin, R-studio yazılımı ile niceliksel analizi; VOSviewer ile ağ görselleştirmesi sonuçları elde edilmiştir. Bibliyometrik analiz, performans analizi ve bibliyometrik haritalama olarak iki bölümde incelenmiştir. Çalışmada, bibliyometrik haritalama; kavramsal yapı analizi, entelektüel yapı analizi ve sosyal yapı analizi şeklinde sınıflandırılmıştır. Çalışma sonucunda, 2015 yılından itibaren teknoloji bağımlılığı kavramının araştırılmaya başlandığı, salgınla birlikte sosyal medya, sosyal ağlar, covid-19, dijital bağımlılık, kaybetme korkusu, akıllı telefon bağımlılığı anahtar kelimeleri kullanılarak araştırmaların yoğunluk kazandığı tespit edilmiştir. Birçok ülkede konuyla ilgili çalışmaların gerçekleştirildiği ABD ve Çin’in en etkili ve en çok katkıda bulunan ülkeler içinde başta olduğu görülmüştür. Yazarlarla işbirliği ağında iki ve üç yazarlı kümelenmelerin olduğu gözlenmiştir. Bu durum, çalışma konusunun çok disiplinli ve yüksek iş birliği potansiyelinin göstergesi olabileceğini düşündürmektedir.
This essay abstracts the nature of travel in China in the early years of being open to tourists, particularly as an independent traveler. I use my own and my travel partner’s direct thoughts and observations as quotes; recorded in separate diaries over the 30-days of Chinese travel in the winter of 1987. The essay reflects on the impact this trip had on subsequent travel taken over my lifetime and becoming an academic tourism scholar. The topic of trip planning, then and now, is explored before the journey across China is described in situ. The travel experience is described through modes of transportation, accommodations, food and restaurants, and visiting sites. Across my own travels and the study of others’ travels, a common thread is travel requires skills and planning.
While digital technologies make our lives more comfortable and efficient, they also cause psychological, physical, and social problems. To get rid of these negative effects, individuals want to avoid digital technologies during their vacations and travels, even temporarily. Businesses related to the hospitality and tourism industry are creating products and packages for individuals who want to reduce or completely stop using ICT while traveling. With the emergence of such offers, a type of travel called digital detox has emerged. The aim of this study, which uses a qualitative approach and semi-structured interviews with academics working in the tourism department, is to determine the technology addiction of individuals and to reveal the preferability of digital detox tourism as a niche market. According to the results of the study obtained through content and descriptive analysis, it was revealed that the use of digital technology in vacations and travels generally negatively affects the holiday experience. In addition, it was determined that individuals tend to participate in digital detox vacations to get away, relax and gain new experiences. Although it is unlikely that ICTs will lose their importance soon, the consumption of these tools should be controlled. At this point, the knowledge and awareness of tourism businesses can respond to individual demands and facilitate flexible adaptation to market conditions.
The article discusses EU policy for digital transformation and the associated development potential. The article aims to critically analyse the current progress of the operationalisation and implementation of the relevant policies. It is followed by the recognition of the challenges that can contribute negatively to the necessary strategic objectives and obstacles that may hinder reaching the policy goals. In particular, a significant obstacle may be a major deficiency of adequately prepared experts ready to work in new roles in a dynamically developing data ecosystem. A remarkable example is the role of the Data Steward. This role is essential for fostering the rapid development of the data ecosystem in the EU. We propose creating a universal competence framework for Data Stewards to streamline human resource allocation. The article proposes a basic outline of the necessary skills and competencies ensuring effective data stewardship.
Purpose
The increasing frequency and intensity of the extreme weather events could cause devastating consequences in tourism. Climate change–related extreme weather events and their relation to tourism is an emerging field for education and research. The purpose of this study is to categorize the impact of climate change on tourist destinations with regard to extreme weather-related risks in outdoor recreation and tourism. Managerial implications for policymakers and stakeholders are discussed.
Design/methodology/approach
To outline the risks from climate change associated with tourism, this study uses the Prisma analysis for identification, screening, checking for eligibility and finding relevant literature for further categorization.
Findings
Based on a thoroughly examination of relevant literature, risks and threats posed by climate change could be categorized into following four areas: reduced experiential value in outdoor winter recreation; reduced value in beach scenery and comfort; land degradation and reduced biodiversity; and reduced value in personal safety and comfort in tourism. It also focuses on the significance of using big data applications in catastrophic disaster management and risk reduction. Recommendations with technology and data analytics to continuously improve the disaster management process in tourism education are provided based on findings of this study.
Originality/value
Primary contributions of this study include the following: providing a summarized overview of the risks associated with climate change in terms of tourist experiential value for educational implications; and revealing the role of data analytics in disaster management in the context of tourism and climate change for tourism education.
Aim/Purpose: This study aims to create customer segmentation who use Online Travel Agent (OTA) mobile applications in Indonesia throughout their hotel booking journey. Background: In the context of mobile hotel booking applications, research analyzing the customer experience at each customer journey stage is scarce. However, literature increasingly acknowledges the significance of this stage in comprehending customer behavior and revenue streams. Methodology: This study employs a mixed-method and exploratory approach by doing in-depth interviews with 20 participants and questionnaires from 207 participants. Interview data are analyzed using thematic analysis, while the questionnaires are analyzed using descriptive statistics. Contribution: This study enriches knowledge in understanding customer behavior that considers the usage of mobile apps as a segmentation criterion in the hotel booking journey. Findings: We developed four user personas (no sweat player, spotless seeker, social squad, and bargain hunter) that show customer segmentation based on the purpose, motivation, and actions in each journey stage (inspiration, consideration, reservation, and experience). Recommendations for Practitioners: The resulting customer segmentation enables hospitality firms to improve their current services by adapting to the needs of various segments and avoiding unanticipated customer pain points, such as incomplete information, price changes, no social proof, and limited payment options. Recommendation for Researchers: The quality and robustness of the customer segment produced in this study can be further tested based on the criteria of homogeneity, size, potential benefits, segment stability, segment accessibility, segment compatibility, and segment actionability. Impact on Society: This study has enriched the existing literature by establishing a correlation between user characteristics and how they use smartphones for tourism planning, focusing on hotel booking in mobile applications. Future Research: For future research, each customer segment’s demographic and behavioral factors can be explored further.
The present academic work seeks to contribute to the existing discussion about tourism marketing in Brazil, relating it to modern tourism development frameworks and understanding key issues of tourism development in the country. Through literature review, surveys and tests a simplified tourism development framework model was developed. Then, in deep interviews with tourism specialists were conducted in order to better understand that industry and to validate the first version of the model. After the interviews, all the data was analyzed, and it was possible to understand the main problems regarding tourism development in Brazil and what should be done in order to put in place a modern and technological tourism development framework. Finally, the prior model was evolved to the final version of the simplified tourism development framework, which now addresses the Brazilian tourism key industry issues, such as the creation of a local governance, continuity of public policies, the non-digitalized trade sector and their old business mindset, and many others. This simplified framework would allow any manager without any previous knowledge in tourism/technology to implement modern, digital and technological methods that are necessary in order to succeed in their tourism strategies.KeywordsTourism smart destinationTourism strategyTourism competitiveness
The evolution of mobile devices has allowed the development of features, such as mobile applications (apps), which have contributed to making tourism services and destinations more accessible, significantly changing consumer habits. Currently, apps made available by mobile devices occupy a prominent place in the daily lives of individuals. Thus, the objective of this paper is, on the one hand, to understand the use and satisfaction of mobile applications in the context of tourist trips carried out by the Portuguese and, on the other hand, to know the offer of tourism-related apps available on the Google Play Store and App Store. For that, a quantitative methodology was applied, through the development and application of a survey through social media, between December 21, 2020 and January 8, 2021, and the quantification and description of travel and tourism Apps available in online stores in January 2021. In general, it can be observed that the respondents are knowledgeable and users of travel-related apps, especially in accommodation, navigation, and lodging field. The study offers a valuable contribution to the knowledge of consumer behavior in tourism and the app market.KeywordsTourismMobile applicationsAppsTechnology
Purpose
This study aims to explore when and for what purpose is social media used by tourists in their decision-making; and to further interpret the nature of such usage.
Design/methodology/approach
An online questionnaire was administered to 530 Indians who qualified as recent tourists and social media users. Partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) is used to analyse hypothesised relationships; the results helped us to unveil the tourist social media cycle which is a conceptual model of the results obtained.
Findings
PLS-SEM results indicate that social media is predominantly used in the pre-travel stage for evaluation purposes, during travel stage for purchase purposes and post-travel stage for post-purchase behaviour. Also, it is noted that social media use by a tourist is an ongoing process, and thus, a conceptual model in the form of tourist social media cycle is unveiled.
Practical implications
This study reveals the unique behaviour of Indian tourists with respect to using social media for travel decision-making, which establishes a different perspective of understanding and further strategizing social media’s use in tourism for a developing nation. Also, the tourist social media cycle stresses on the importance of social media as a digital repository where continuously the user-generated content is used by self (existing) or “others” (potential tourists).
Originality/value
To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study that addresses the population and knowledge gap of understanding social media–based tourist behaviour providing a perspective of a developing nation, specifically India. Further, it unveils the nature of social media use by tourist in the form of a first ever tourist social media cycle.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to adopt the uses and gratifications theory to tourism.
Technology and information and communication technology (ICT) have been gaining importance in tourism and hospitality with a booming research interest during the last years and specifically recently due to the disruptions of the COVID-19 crisis. Hence it is useful to structure the existing knowledge in this field to better guide directions for future research. To that end, this study synthesizes the academic literature about ‘technology and ICT’ in tourism and hospitality by carrying out a bibliometric analysis. The study identified 2424 documents, including the words ‘technolog*’ and/or ‘ICT’ combined with ‘touris*’, ‘hospitality’, ‘hotel’, and/or ‘travel’ that were published in the period 1988–2021 and collected from tourism and hospitality journals indexed in the Web of Science (WOS) and SCOPUS databases. The analysis was carried out by using SciMAT software, which offers different bibliometric tools and methods in order to achieve consistent results through a keyword co-occurrence analysis and an evolution map. The findings revealed the major research themes, including technology acceptance model, electronic word-of-mouth, user-generated content, self-services technologies, robotics, smart tourism, virtual reality, and trust in technology. The study concludes by identifying and discussing a future research agenda.
Despite the recognition of the relationship between technological innovation and tourism development, there is a dearth of rigorous empirical specifications to examine the effect of technological innovation on the latter. With 27 cities of the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration (YRDUA) in China as an empirical case, this study explores whether technological innovation can promote tourism development by using a series of panel regression models. The empirical results indicate that technological innovation has a positive effect on the development of tourism in the YRDUA. With respect to different regions, types of cities, and stages, there are differences in the positive impact of technological innovation on tourism development. Additionally, the impact of different types of technological innovations on tourism development is also diverse.
Non-travellers or infrequent travellers have been largely neglected by (tourism) academic research. There is a lack of knowledge about why they don’t travel much as well as about their activities on holiday and the related economic impact on their living environment. The exploratory study analyses the economic impact of non-travellers and infrequent travellers due to their activities for the Department of Vaucluse (France), an important source area and destination in national tourism. The analysis of the socio-demographic structure shows that this group, sometimes associated to the phenomenon of staycation, is heterogeneously composed. Financial, occupational and health conditions are major constraints, while a lack of motivation is of secondary importance. It shows that their economic impact is important and spatially differentiated.
Technology and tourism are intertwined. The interaction between the two then remains instrumental to the tourism growth-mobility making changes in its production, consumption behavior, and business ecosystem. Primarily interaction transformed scattered and unorganized travel into orderly and organized tourism. It also assisted organized tourism to spread amid mass milieu beyond the elitist edge in the post-1950s. Further, it played a crucial role in a qualitative and quantitative transformation of tourism from mass to conscious and sustainable and eventually to responsible practices. Qualitative and quantitative changes from scattered to organized mobility, then mass-mobility beyond carrying capacity, controlled or sustainable-mobility, and finally to the responsible-mobility are technology-tourism interaction driven. The post-1950 increasing mobility in the tourism sector became the indicator of the economic success evident in socio-economic makeover at many places overtly. The overtourism phenomenon emerged as the logical extension of tourism’s rapid increment, then. With the growth of information and communication technology (ICT) dependence within civil society and tourism, this phenomenon and its countercultural reaction turned global by the early twenty-first century. Consequently, a responsible practice emerged comprehending neither limitless growth nor controlled mobility can make a place better to live and better for visit and experience. The increasing application of Virtual Reality (VR) technology during the 2020 pandemic also makes the World perceive this new understanding. The present chapter will focus on how technology-tourism interaction could translate the new understanding into practice resisting the overtourism phenomenon.
Smartphones are increasingly appearing in outdoor recreation settings despite controversy surrounding their appropriateness. This study examined the perceptions of eight instructors of an outdoor leadership development program regarding appropriate and inappropriate smartphone use, tensions and boundaries that arise during outdoor activities, and how those tensions are navigated. Results indicate that instructors often welcomed smartphones for photography, navigation, and limited communication. In addition to travel and down time, instructors allowed those who participated in program activities to use smartphones during main activities so long as it did not interfere with program goals, distract others, or present safety concerns, even in high-risk and back-country areas. When uses were deemed inappropriate, reminders of established policies, increased communication, and social policing by other group members often resolved concerns.
For many, the thought of going out in the work field with limited knowledge of how it operates
is an unnerving prospect as they may not know what to do or even how to go about the whole
affair of industrial training (IT-IET).
Training is the process of providing positive direction, guidance and education to increase the
skills and capacity of trainees. Industrial training refers to the accumulation of practical skills &
knowledge about the industry concerning a profession whilst still acquiring a relevant degree
or diploma. An aspiring trainee’s initial industry exposure is likely to be the most prestigious &
essential in his/her’s career.
Industrial training/ IET/IT is an affair where a student/trainee works jointly with other hospitality
professionals & obeys the instruction to get an intuition about the operations.
Thus the target of industrial training is to provide the feel of the actual working environment and
to procure practical knowledge and skills, which in turn will stimulate, develop and build their
confidence.
Keywords: Industrial Training, Hotel Management Curriculum, Hotel Industry, Prospective
Hotelier, Hotel Management Education.
Smart tourism emerges from the application of advanced technologies in the context of destinations, most often cities. It borrows extensively from smart city development ideas but its conceptualization as well as realization have been kept separate from broader smart city initiatives. This paper argues that such a separation makes little sense in a world where the everyday and the touristic increasingly overlap and smart technologies blur the lines between residential areas and tourism precincts. To resolve the issue, it introduces the concept of the smart tourism city and conceptualizes it in theoretical and practical terms to illustrate its value.
Purpose
The impact of smartphone use at tourist destinations on the relationship of travel companions and trip satisfaction remains unclear. This study considers differences in relational outcomes arising from smartphone use to kill time and reduce boredom during leisure travel with different companions, either family or friends, and uses the Riva's emotion regulation model to examine whether such smartphone use provides immediate relief from ostracism.
Design/methodology/approach
Partial least square (PLS) method and PLS multigroup analysis were used to analyze the data collected from 205 Taiwanese tourists (104 respondents vacationing with friends and 101 respondents with family).
Findings
This study found no negative effect of smartphone use to kill time and reduce boredom on relationship satisfaction and overall trip satisfaction. Smartphone use is rather limited as a contributor to trip satisfaction, and the effect of smartphone use depends on who the tourists are traveling with. The results reflect the effect of the established position of smartphones in everyday life, extending to tourism. The use of smartphones to kill time and avoid boredom is not a sufficiently “active” activity to serve as an effective immediate response to ostracism.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the continuing debate on the impact of new technologies on social relations. Although past studies have examined the relational outcomes of smartphone use, few have investigated this subject in the context of different travel companions. Using Riva's emotion regulation model, this study considers smartphone use as a possible response to ostracism.
Digital well-being has become a popular theme within a public discourse that increasingly attracts consumers, businesses, government institutions and technology providers who all face challenges in their technology-driven existence. However, there have been no attempts to create a comprehensive framework for a general understanding of digital well-being and the new roles and responsibilities that emerge from it in the tourism domain. Thus, this paper looks at understanding digital well-being in general and its concomitant applications in the tourism domain. After mapping characteristic digital well-being approaches and examples, we foresee the need for establishing a digital well-being continuum between everyday life and tourism that rests on three new sets of roles and responsibilities for the tourism domain, grouped around the need for adopting digital well-being philosophy in tourism, setting up new policies, and designing novel services and experiences.
This special issue of the Journal of Information Technology & Tourism focuses on the challenges and opportunities ICT uses or practices create for well-being in tourism contexts. This special issue aims, on one hand, to elaborate on ICTs and their potential negative influence on tourism experiences and overall well-being. On the other hand, it seeks to recognize innovative ICTs and ongoing industry solutions to cope with well-being problems, or leverage IT uptake to create healthier and more beneficial experiences. These issues have become even more prominent in the current Covid-19 pandemic that has critically accelerated technology adoption while also challenging consumers’ and the tourism industry’s relations with ICTs.
With national data from tourists who reside in Spain, this article researches antecedents of tourist autonomy in trip planning, including both tourists’ characteristics and details of their trips. The results indicate positive relationships of tourists’ educational background and their travel experience with autonomy but negative relationships of trip length with autonomy. These data from Spain also highlight the role of the last global economic crisis, revealing its moderating influence on the relationships among several of the antecedent factors and autonomy. These results in turn have relevant managerial implications for tourism operators.
Tourism, which is the international industry and one of the largest employment industries, has more heterogeneous stakeholders than many other industries. The biggest reason for the energetic growth and development of the tourism industry is the development of ICTs. The recent synergistic interaction between technology and tourism has brought radical changes in the tourism industry. Communication that is universal and easy to access has brought the entire tourism industry to a new level of interaction. ICT is dramatically playing a sig- nificant role in the competitiveness of tourism activities, destinations and for other industries (UNWTO, 2001).
Tourism is a knowledge-intensive industry. Travelers take a lot of risks when they invest money and time on a travel experience. The higher the perceived risk level, the more travelers tend to try to find information. Marketing activ- ities in the tourism industry are seen as an opportunity to offer a mix of value for money and decrease risk perceptions.
Increased interest in online technologies means that consumers’ willing- ness to have reach to product selection and their views on these products has improved. Reliability is a substantial element of tourism marketing, and con- sumers avoid marketing messages developed by the brand and instead request information from reliable people.
Since consumers collect data from multi-channel platforms, tourism marketers must follow a logical communication strategy. Marketing commu- nication synchronization between platforms provides efficiency and decreases external costs.
Tourism companies and destinations should invest in the right resources to improve the correct tourism marketing strategy. In order for the action plan created to be successful, the targets, responsibilities, and criteria must be clearly stated. Besides, this plan can make the organization realistic in terms of man- aging effective resources correctly. ICT is one of the most suitable environments to enable information or create information about different components. Thus, businesses can access a large number of significant and up-to-date information rapidly, easily and inexpensively (Requena et al., 2007).
The Internet is easy to access for travelers, representatives of the tourism industry, as well as researchers worldwide. Besides, the Internet has become increasingly complicated and dynamic. Therefore, the use of digital technol- ogies that increase effective communication and articulation among different tourism actors in target networks and markets are considered worthy for business success (Law et al., 2014; Dexeus, 2019).
Events are convenient environments for the use of different senses and the knowledge and feelings of different people. Event marketing is a big part of a marketing communication organization that consists of a wide variety of dimensions. Events can also be a part of communication as their presence in their channels, media, and editions. Event marketing ensures that a certain message is delivered efficiently and memorably. As a versatile marketing and communication component, event marketing can be integrated efficiently with a variety of other actions and projects.
The event industry, which includes conferences, festivals, exhibitions, meetings and sports activities with significant contributions to tourism, is growing and developing rapidly. Therefore, event managers and marketers must identify consumer demands and needs. Through developing technology, effective marketing and management of events are possible with the effective use of ICTs.
Events are taken into consideration in the development and planning of destinations as well as being an important source of motivation for tourism. The roles and effects of events in tourism are also determined in destination planning and action plans are prepared accordingly. Events are increasingly major for destinations to survive in a competitive environment. In addition to the increase in the infrastructure quality of touristic events thanks to tourism activities, it has a positive impact on the local and the regional economy with the income from the sale of goods and services (Hernández-Mogollón et al., 2014).
To create a successful event and interact with consumers, event marketing needs to harmonize between the target group and the brand (Wohlfeil & Whelan, 2006). Developments in ICT make it easier for event marketers to advance and apply segmentation, targeting and positioning strategies. How and how much the event managers will use, rather than whether they use informa- tion technology (IT), has become a more significant issue.
Most events are not for the whole society, so it is significant to identify con- sumer segments that most closely match the event in question. Successful market segmentation and targeting at the events can increase the satisfactionof the participants and increase the motivation and success of the event man- agers. Businesses apply various strategies to achieve a competitive advantage. In a modern marketing approach, businesses want to gain a competitive advan- tage through consumer satisfaction. In addition to increasing consumer satis- faction, ICT supports businesses to measure this.
The characteristics of consumers such as demand, needs and expectations, the resources they have, and their purchasing behaviors differ from each other. Mass marketing approaches are not enough to meet these different demands, needs, expectations, resources, and behaviors. This variety of customer demands and expectations can be turned into an opportunity through market segmentation activities that serve to group customers in terms of similar needs, characteristics, and purchasing behavior. It may be more profitable for firms to perform their marketing events with a differentiated marketing approach rather than determining the whole market as a target market with a good pro- posal. Through differentiated marketing, it is possible to carry out a more effec- tive event marketing activity. ICT strengthens its activities to define, customize and purchase goods and services.
Businesses want to improve their offers and to be preferable to increase their satisfaction by determining the needs of their customers and thereby gain a com- petitive advantage. In this context, it is necessary to exactly determine consumer needs. The process of determining consumer needs is a very costly, time-con- suming and carefully managed process. When businesses determine their target group, they can also determine their marketing strategies to meet the expecta- tions of the target group and increase consumer satisfaction. At this phase, the analysis and commentary of the data collected are used more through ICT.
At present, as a natural result of online marketing being more interactive than traditional marketing, ICT is increasingly interactive in market segmen- tation, targeting and positioning. The use of ICT provides great opportunities for marketers in creating detailed and complicated market models, sizing and estimating goods and services, and preparing offers according to needs.
Although the use of ICT is one of the fundamental traits of the information society and smart tourism, constant online presence and hyper-connected lifestyle can also induce fatigue or even be addictive. Businesses and other institutions related to the hospitality and tourism industry create therefore products and packages for individuals who wish to reduce or forego altogether their use of ICT when travelling. The emergence of such offers has become a part of a trend called unplugged tourism. The main purpose of the research was to provide a supply-focused analysis of unplugged tourism offers in Poland to demonstrate the diversity of establishments and approaches possible in this niche market. Depending on the consumer needs, stays or trips based on the idea of unplugged tourism allow for leisure and recreation, mind and body cleanse, or even treatment of technology addictions.
The purpose of this chapter is to discuss critically, based on a review of recent literature on the topic, the challenges faced by urban tourism destinations with regards to eTourism and new technologies.
Recent developments in both wireless communications and personal navigation technologies have made the concept of location-aware services both feasible and economical. Indeed, it is widely projected that the market for such services will increase substantially in the coming years. Obviously this market will provide significant opportunities and challenges for the tourism sector. In this article, a vision of how an electronic context-aware tourist guide might operate is presented. An implementation of such a guide, designed to meet the particular needs of cultural tourists, is described. Finally, some issues that require further research before such systems can be deployed are identified.
This research examines the persuasiveness of destination Web sites through an investigation of users' first impression. To achieve this goal, it builds on research by Fogg (2003) and by Kim and Fesenmaier (2007) to assess the effect of the design factors of destination Web sites on first impression formation. The results of this study indicate that the participants were able to make quick judgments on tourism Web sites and that inspiration and usability were the primary drivers evoking a favorable first impression. This research concludes by discussing the implications of these findings and possible directions for future study.
This study adds to understanding the relationships between travel information search and product purchase behaviors by examining online and offline information search and purchase behaviors. A conceptual model of travel planning was developed from case-based vacation planning theory. Results indicated travel information search and product purchase commitments in the pretrip stage are different, travel information search and product purchase vary by travel product categories in the pretrip stage, and travel experiences influence travel information search and product purchase for certain travel products in the pretrip stage. This study suggests that travel-planning theory is strong in explaining complex travel behaviors.
There is growing reliance on the Internet and Web sites for promotion of tourism. Evaluation of Web site effectiveness is necessary because of the significant costs for setup, advertising, and maintenance. Research suggests there is a great need for evaluations to go beyond hits and page viewings. The objectives of this study were to develop and apply a low-cost, automated, Internet-based survey methodology to investigate effectiveness of a tourism promotional Web site. Both online and email surveys were used to gather data from visitors to a state Web site. Although responses were received from 833 persons, response rates were low. A check for nonresponse bias indicated that respondents were different from nonrespondents. Respondents primarily learned about the Web site through two sources and reported that the Web site significantly influenced their travel plans. However, study findings suggest that there are substantial methodological challenges in conducting Web-based surveys. Suggestions to improve evaluation methods are provided.
This article explores the research corpus emerging through the application and interaction of information and communications technologies (ICT) with tourism. The purpose is to place such research within current perceptions of this overall ICT area, giving a framework through which to position a perspective and to offer both the prospect of a rational foundation and a catalyst for further applied research—a research agenda.
Information technology, especially the World Wide Web, has had a tremendous impact on the tourism industry over the past years. It is difficult for most destination marketing organizations, however, to keep pace with the evolution of new technologies, the emergence of innovative advertising strategies, the changes in the consumer market, and the growing competition due to increasing globalization. The National Laboratory for Tourism and eCommerce organized a workshop in an effort to identify effective strategies for tourism advertising on the Internet. The results indicated that information technology has led to a number of profound changes in the assumptions underlying communication strategies. It was concluded that the change occurring in the new economy involves a rethinking of who partners and competitors are and how networks with other organizations can increase organizational capacity to learn. Thus, it is argued that success of destination marketing organizations in the new economy is more about change in approach than technology itself.
This study examined differences in vacationers' planning horizons and related them to the purpose of the trip and the length of the trip in terms of mileage and stay. Purposes included desire for excitement, desire for relaxation, and desire for a well-planned trip. These differences were then related to respondents' use of information sources, including print media, broadcast media, consultants, and destination-specific literature.
Post hoc satisfaction (PHS) and real‐time satisfaction (RTS) are alternative ways to operationalize recreation satisfaction. PHS is an appraisal of a recrea‐tionist's current image of the recreation experience assessed after the on‐site activity has occurred. RTS is an appraisal of a recreationist's current state. The purpose of this study was to examine the relation between these two constructs and their empirical operations. Satisfaction was assessed at 12 times during a day hike (RTS), on‐site immediately after the hike (PHS‐0), at home 3 months after the hike (PHS‐3), and at home 9 months after the hike (PHS‐9). Results indicate that PHS‐0 and the summary indicators of the RTS assessments were significantly related (R = .31, p < .01). The relation between PHS‐3 and RTS exhibited a reduced fit (R = .18, p < .01) and a still weaker fit between PHS‐9 and RTS (R = .04, p < .10). In addition, PHS‐0 was significantly greater than both PHS‐3 and PHS‐9. The analysis and discussion suggest that differential reliance on introspection, differential emphasis on recall of past experiences, and differential ability to control the effects of context warrant two distinct constructs of satisfaction.
Communication technologies have made it increasingly feasible for employees to stay connected to work when not in the office. Yet we have little understanding of the implications for important aspects of work and work life. This study investigates how the use of communication technologies beyond normal work hours relates to work-related attitudes and work-to-life conflict. Results found that employees with higher ambition and job involvement were more likely to use communication technologies after hours. Furthermore, use of communication technologies after hours was associated with the employee's work-to-life conflict as reported by the employee and a significant other of the employee.
The paper introduces a discrete model to describe the buckling of a stiffened panel beam under a complex loading environment.
The study begins by examining the existing load interaction equation for a continuous panel. Experimental and finite element
investigations establish the validity of considering the critical panel of a more complex structure in isolation. The paper
then devises a discrete model for this critical panel, which was validated for a range of boundary conditions using anti-optimisation.
The numerical results show that the discrete model exhibits the buckling behaviour of a continuous panel under combined loading.
Recent studies established that the truss-lattice configuration has stable post-buckling behaviour and derived fast analysis
technique for such a structure. It is therefore concluded that the truss-lattice model introduced in the present paper can
offer a fast analysis formulation for buckling (and potentially post-buckling) of multiple-panel beams suitable for optimisation.
It is acknowledged that communication researchers need to develop more sophisticated and nuanced accounts of the social and individual dynamics of the internet in everyday life. Based on a household survey of 1001 adults with 100 in-depth follow-up interviews, the present article explores people’s (non)use of the internet by asking: (1) who is (and who is not) using the internet in everyday life; (2) for what purposes people are using the internet and how are they developing their own constructions of the internet; and (3) how these understandings and uses of the internet are shaped by existing socioeconomic factors and circumstances. From this basis the article goes on to identify the key issues underlying adults’ (non)use of the internet in terms of interest, relevance, mediation of significant others and the role of household dynamics. It also considers, from this basis, how non-users may be encouraged to make use of the internet.
With the huge amount of information available on the Internet and the increasing importance of online search, understanding the tourism domain is essential for effective online marketing. This study focuses on the semantic representation of the tourism domain with respect to information provided on tourism-related Web sites and travelers' information needs as expressed through search engine queries. The results show that huge discrepancies exist between the domain ontology derived from tourism Web sites and the one emerging from user queries. This study offers useful insights into the challenge of representing tourism products and services through Web sites and provides directions for developing Internet-based systems that can better support travel planning.
Mobile services find in travel and tourism a challenging arena for application exploitation, which can greatly benefit from the convergent impact of a number of enabling technologies referred to as ambient intelligence. Fulfilling the specific needs of tourists, travelers, and citizens on the move calls for appropriate paradigms to be implemented in key functions like user interfaces, display systems, interaction with information-rich contents, and information retrieval. This article briefly addresses the state-of-the-art and emerging technology environment and introduces appropriate user profiles, representative of various operational situations. As a result, a comprehensive vision of mobile services in travel and tourism is offered, with particular reference to cultural tourism.
Modern lifestyle has created a new species of tourist who makes several short city trips per year and uses high-tech equipment. LoL@ (local location assistant) is a location-based multimedia UMTS (universal mobile telecommunications system) application that aims at supporting this class of tourist. LoL@ offers maps, localization, and routing functionality, and speaker-independent speech input. To stay in contact with people at home a tour diary is offered. Technical constraints like limited bandwidth, connection loss, and varying localization accuracy have to be accounted for. Although the field trials have not been completed yet, it can already be seen that map representation on smart phones with small displays is feasible.
With the huge amount of information available on the Internet and the increasing importance of online search, understanding the tourism domain is essential for effective online marketing. This study focuses on the semantic representation of the tourism domain with respect to information provided on tourism-related Web sites and travelers' information needs as expressed through search engine queries. The results show that huge discrepancies exist between the domain ontology derived from tourism Web sites and the one emerging from user queries. This study offers useful insights into the challenge of representing tourism products and services through Web sites and provides directions for developing Internet-based systems that can better support travel planning.
Hitherto, the travel distribution role has been performed by traditional outgoing travel agents , tour operators and incoming travel agencies. They were supported by computer reservation systems, global distribution systems (GDSs) or tour operators’ videotext systems (or leisure travel networks). These traditional electronic tourism intermediaries (eMediaries), particularly GDSs, progressively consolidated their position. The Internet created the conditions for the emergence of new eMediaries, based on three ePlatforms, namely the Internet, interactive digital television and mobile devices. New eMediaries include a wide range of organisations including suppliers (e.g. airlines, hotels etc) selling direct on the Internet by allowing users to directly access their reservation systems; web-based travel agents; Internet portals and vortals, and auction sites. The expected proliferation of Digital TV and mCommerce will gradually intensify competition further. As a result, traditional eMediaries must reengineer their business processes in order to survive and remain competitive. This exploratory research identifies experts’ opinions on the future of both new and traditional eMediaries as well as the evolution of their business models.
The growing frequency of vacation travel in the developed world has ensured that tourism is seen as an essential element of the quality of life. A cross-comparative analysis of tourism consumption indicates substantial differences in tourism consumption and the structural position of vacations as a social right between nations. Higher levels of vacation entitlement and consumption in Europe can be linked to corporatist or social democratic welfare regimes that recognize tourism consumption as a social right. In the United States and Japan, however, more liberal welfare regimes are linked to lower vacation entitlements and greater inequalities in distribution of income and/or leisure time. The resulting differences in vacation time availability are reflected in time-intensive tourism consumption patterns in Europe, and money-intensive consumption patterns in the United States and Japan. With increasing liberalization, however, there are signs that these international differences are beginning to narrow.
This paper presents results from a study about the Internet as an information source for travel planning based on interviews
with travelers in 13 countries in 2005. In 1997, a similar large scale survey was carried out in 15 European countries. The
study shows a dramatic but well known change in information sources used by travelers since 1997. The Internet has become
the most preferred information source by approximately 50% of the travelers. Travelers using the Internet as their primary
source of information mostly combine it with other sources such as friends and relatives, brochures, guidebooks, and travel
agents. A logistic regression analysis was performed in order to study the significance of demographics and countries on the
preference of Internet as the first information source.
The application of information technology especially the Internet is changing our way of life and doing business, particularly in the tourism area. A well-defined typology is necessary both to clarify the structure of the online tourism domain, to facilitate the information search process of various Internet users in the tourism area, and to provide appropriate strategies for the development of different types of tourism related web sites. After an analysis of the nature of information, the authors advance a typology of tourism related web sites based on the information communication between different information users in tourism. The implications of this typology for tourism research and tourismrelated web site development are discussed.
Tourism is an inherently social phenomenon. Tourists travel with others and experience places and cultures through interacting with both familiar and unfamiliar others. This volume presents a thorough tour of the social psychological processes which underpin contemporary travel. The fascinating phenomenon of tourist behaviour deals with topics such as motivation, destination choice, travellers' on site experiences, satisfaction and learning. This book uses an array of developing and recently constructed conceptual frameworks to both synthesise what is established, and to create new insights and directions for further analysis and, ultimately, management action.
From pre-trip planning through post-trip remembering, vacations unfold over long periods of time. Through the course of a trip the same travel information may be used repeatedly but with different levels of success and satisfaction. These experiential fluctuations over time were examined in a study of trip planners, who collected travel information from a chamber of commerce before leaving home, to understand how information was applied in situ during their vacation. Travelers with various lengths of stay were segmented into unique groups and their information use was modeled by prior experience with the destination and day of the trip. Dependent variables were five single-item measures for affective and cognitive reactions to the application of travel information. Results suggest longer trips entail more varied daily responses. Prior experience was relevant on selected days of some of the trip lengths.
This paper investigates response problems encountered in a panel study of travel behavior. Though the overall response rate to the three-wave panel study was acceptable (over 60%), three types of response problems were encountered: refusal, non-response, and attrition. In a follow-up phone survey, a sample of individuals from each problem response group was questioned about their study participation and travel behavior. Results indicate that those who outright refused any participation in the study were most different from panel respondents and other partial-respondents, in terms of travel behavior. This study reveals problems that leisure researchers must address to generate high participation and response in panel studies.
The increasing presence of the Internet in our everyday life raises important questions about what it means for access to resources, social interaction, and commitment to local community. This special issue of the American Behavioral Scientist brings together seven U.S., one U.K., one Canadian, and one North American study that examine the way in which the Internet competes with and complements everyday life. These studies show the Internet as a complex landscape of applications, purposes, and users. This introduction summarizes results from studies in this issue anti other extant recent surveys, providing an overview of the Internet population and its activities, statistics that help define and articulate the nature of the digital divide. The authors more from there to consideration of the social consequences of adding Internet activity to our daily, lives, exploring hose use of the Internet affects traditional social and communal behaviors such as communication with local family, and commitment to geographical communities. They conclude with a look at how these studies reveal the integration of the Internet into our everyday lives.
Tourism research has traditionally tackled the question of destination choice by asking visitors to rank attributes identified by the analyst and to indicate the degree to which they measure up to prior expectations. The current presentation offers an alternative qualitative methodology to the gauging of satisfaction, motivation and experience by focusing on tourists and examining the linguistic content of their mental images. The case study is that of Barbados and winter visitors to that Caribbean island. In supplying details of their own projected images and responses to pictorial stimuli in both pre and on-trip situations, they provide a framework for analysis at three levels. While cognitive appraisal of the destination is explored by means of mental comparison, the affective dimension reveals a vocabulary of motive. Finally, there is a cognitive component of imagery in which tourists project themselves into an imagined scenario as if they had already experienced it. These various layers of subjective meaning may be collectively understood as analogous to the discourse of advertising.
This article examines the impact of the Internet on the everyday lives of U.K. citizens through the integration of quantitative longitudinal time-use data and qualitative interviews. It shows that there is little significant change in people's time use that can be associated with their acquisition of an Internet connection and demonstrates the oversimplicity of the impact model for understanding the role of the Internet in everyday life . Instead, it suggests that life style and/or lifestage transitions may trigger adoption of the Internet and, simultaneously, changes in domestic time use. It also demonstrates that Internet usage is too coarse a unit for sensible analysis. Rather, researchers need to consider the patterns of usage of the various applications or services that the Internet delivers.
The increasing presence of the Internet in our everyday life raises important questions about what it means for access to resources, social interaction, and commitment to local commu nity. This special issue of the American Behavioral Scientist brings together seven U.S., one U.K., one Canadian, and one North American study that examine the way in which the Internet competes with and complements everyday life. These studies show the Internet as a complex landscape of applications, purposes, and users. This introduction summarizes results from studies in this issue and other extant recent surveys, providing an overview of the Internet population and its activities, statistics that help define and articulate the nature of the digital divide. The authors move from there to consideration of the social consequences of adding Internet activity to our daily lives, exploring how use of the Internet affects tradi tional social and communal behaviors such as communication with local family and commit ment to geographical communities. They conclude with a look at how these studies reveal the integration of the Internet into our everyday lives.
Free independent travelers require flexible, reactive service delivery due to their regularly changing location and activities and the lack of a wired Internet connection. A ubiquitous travel service delivery system that is able to dynamically deliver services in response to relevant events, such as changing location, availability of new last-minute specials, work opportunities, and safety issues can provide added value while retaining the flexibility that is so important to independent travelers. This article describes such a system. An engineering design research approach has been adopted to design the system. Issues addressed include traveler and service states and events, contexts, situations, and situation-action rules. An architecture is proposed that is based on distributed, cooperating software agents and mobile data technologies. The role of these agents is to continuously monitor situations that are occurring in the physical and virtual service spaces and to take the required action for any situations that are relevant to the traveler.
Mobile services available on mobile devices such as mobile phones and personal digital assistants are a suitable instrument for spontaneous, ad hoc access to information travelers need while being on the move. The supply of mobile services with specific relevance to the traveler is already well developed. Mobile services allow to book last-minute trips, rental cars, and hotels; they provide information about changes and delays of flights and trains, and offer guides on restaurants, events, and sightseeing opportunities at the destination. This article shows that integrating location-based services (LBS) creates additional value for most of theses products or services. LBS are applications of mobile technology that utilize the information about the location of their user. The four primary functions of LBS for the traveler are: (1) localization of persons, objects, and places, (2) routing between them, (3) search for objects in proximity such as restaurants, shops, hotels, or sights, and (4) information about traveling conditions, such as traffic-related data.
"This article seeks to delineate some themes of social criticism which bear on the labour-leisure problem, to suggest ways in which diverse traditions of research may be blended in attacking it and to describe a current study being carried out at the University of Michigan, the object of which is to analyse the leisure correlates of work situations… . The empirical work is centered around a concept of style of life… used to designate consumption patterns, patterns of participation and media exposure." It is assumed that the style of life in this sense is dependent on a person's long-term work pattern, which also shapes leisure life and personal outlook. In terms of long-term working patterns, a "mobile mass" and a "nonmobile mass" are distinguished. This long-term difference in social mobility is suggested to be more crucial for style of life than social status attained at a given time. From Psyc Abstracts 36:01:1GA43W. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This study investigates the nature of marketing information systems (MkIS) within small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and focuses on the importance of external information and market intelligence. The sources of market intelligence are investigated with particular emphasis on understanding the usefulness of the Internet for external information gathering. The empirical research to support the study uses survey methods to investigate marketing information systems, market intelligence and Internet use within hospitality and tourism SMEs in the Yorkshire and Humber region.
The findings indicate that SMEs in this sector make use of informal marketing information systems which mainly concentrate on internal and immediate operating environment data. Important wider market intelligence is underutilised owing mainly to the resource constraints of these smaller businesses. The Internet has not yet been recognised as an important source for market intelligence despite having the benefits of providing much of the necessary data more quickly and at a lower cost than many other sources. Copyright
Information technology is entrenched in everyday life; yet, scholars have not firmly established whether this use blesses or vexes individuals and their families. This study analyzes longitudinal data (N =1,367) from the Cornell Couples and Careers Study to assess whether increases in spillover explain changes in distress and family satisfaction associated with technology use. Structural equation models indicate that cell phone use over time (but not computer use) is associated with increases in negative forms of spillover (positive spillover is not significant) and is linked to increased distress and lower family satisfaction. Overall, the evidence suggests that technology use may be blurring work/family boundaries with negative consequences for working people.
This article examines the impact of the Internet on the everyday lives of U.K. citizens through the integration of quantitative longitudinal time-use data and qualitative interviews. It shows that there is little significant change in people's time use that can be associated with their acquisition of an Internet connection and demonstrates the oversimplicity of the impact model for understanding the role of the Internet in everyday life. Instead, it suggests that lifestyle and/or lifestage transitions may trigger adoption of the Internet and, simultaneously, changes in domestic time use. It also demonstrates that Internet usage is too coarse a unit for sensible analysis. Rather, researchers need to consider the patterns of usage of the various applications or services that the Internet delivers.
This article presents a survey on vehicular telematics over heterogeneous wireless networks. An advanced heterogeneous vehicular network (AHVN) architecture is outlined which uses multiple access technologies and multiple radios in a collaborative manner. The challenges in designing the essential functional components of AHVN and the corresponding protocols (for radio link control, routing, congestion control, security and privacy, and application development) are discussed and the related work in the literature are reviewed. The open research challenges and several avenues for future research on vehicular telematics over heterogeneous wireless access networks are outlined.
Crompton, John L., “Motivations for Pleasure Vacations,” Annals of Tourism Research, October/December 1979, VI(4):408–424. The study is concerned with identifying those motives of pleasure vacationers which influence the selection of a destination. It also seeks to develop a conceptual framework capable of encompassing such motives. Empirically nine motives were identified. Seven were classified as socio-psychological, namely: escape from a perceived mundane environment, exploration and evaluation of self, relaxation, prestige, regression, enhancement of kinship relationships, and facilitation of social interaction. The two remaining motives, novelty and education, formed the alternate cultural category. The latter were noted to be at least partially aroused by the particular qualities that a destination offered. By contrast socio-psychological motives were found to be unrelated to destination attributes. Here the emphasis shifted from the destination itself to its function as a medium through which socio-pschological needs could be satisfied. The research data suggest that the tourist industry may usefully pay greater attention to socio-psychological motives in developing product and promotion strategies.
Tourists' behaviors often differ from those in the home environment, yet researchers have also found that tourists retain some home behaviors in the pleasure-tourism environment. These differences have been explained in the literature, although researchers have not attempted to predict individuals' actions while engaging in tourism. The LIP behaviors framework was developed from the literature to predict individuals' behaviors while on pleasure travel in relation to their home-based behaviors. Four concepts (compensatory, spill-over/familiarity, liminal, and liminoid) were used to construct the framework, which may serve as a basis for future study.RésuméUn cadre théorique pour les comportements du tourisme d'agrément. Les comportements des touristes sont souvent différents des comportements habituels; pourtant, les chercheurs ont trouvé que les touristes gardent quelques comportements habituels dans l'environnement du tourisme d'agrément. Ces différences ont été expliquées dans la littérature, bien que les chercheurs n'aient pas essayé de prédire les actions des individus pendant qu'ils font des voyages d'agrément. Le “cadre des comportements LIP” a été développéà partir de la littérature pour prédire le comportement des individus qui font des voyages d'agrément par rapport à leur comportement habituel. Quatre concepts (compensatoire, effet d'entraînement/familiarité, liminaire, liminoïde) ont été utilisés pour constituer le cadre, qui pourra servir de base pour des études futures.
The information-intensive nature of the tourism industry suggests an important role for the Internet and Web technology in the promotion and marketing of destinations. This paper uses the extended Model of Internet Commerce Adoption to evaluate the level of Web site development in New Zealand's Regional Tourism Organisations. The paper highlights the utility of using interactivity to measure the relative maturity of tourism Web sites.
Vacations are a major consumer expense category. People devote considerable attention to deciding whether to take one or not (generic decision), to making joint decisions as husband, wife, and children, and to acquiring information from different sources and media. Information functions to sensitize, persuade, heighten appreciation, and legitimize choices. Several vacation types can be distinguished. Life-style, as a broader concept, may server as a good basis of explanation for vacation behavior. Equity and attribution are important concepts in understanding vacationer (dis)satisfaction and complaint behavior.RésuméLes vacances forment une part importante des dépenses des consommateurs. Les gens consacrent une attention considérable à la'ecision dáller ou non en vacance (la décision générique); á la prise en commun des décisions des vacances par le mari, la femme et les enfants; et à l'acquisition des informations à partir des sources et média différents. L'acquisition de l'information joue un rôle primordial dans la sensibilisation, la persuasion, l'appréciation et la légitimation des choix. Plusieurs types des vacances peuvent être utilisé comme concept pour expliquer le comportement du vacancier. Equité et attribution sont des concepts importants pour comprendre la satisfaction ou la dissatisfaction et le comportement des plaints.
Tourists now routinely travel with cell phones, have ready access to Internet cafes, and use low-cost fixed telephone services to remain in contact with people at home. Using the guiding ideas of the intersubjective construction of space and location, the meanings of “home” and being “away” were explored in relation to the regular contact made possible by these new communication services. It was found that the easy and frequent contact with friends and family members was associated with a feeling of being simultaneously at “home”, with continued participation in pre-existing social networks, while also being “away”.RésuméChez soi et au loin: touristes dans un monde connecté. Les touristes voyagent maintenant de façon routinière avec un téléphone portable, accèdent facilement aux cafés internet et utilisent des services à bas prix de téléphone fixe pour rester en contact avec les gens de chez eux. En utilisant les notions de base de la construction intersubjective du lieu et de l’espace, on a exploré la signification de “chez soi” et “au loin” par rapport au contact régulier que ces nouveaux services de communication rendent possible. On a trouvé que le contact facile et fréquent avec les amis et la famille était associé àun sentiment d’être simultanément “chez soi”, avec une participation continue aux réseaux sociaux préexistants, tout en étant “au loin”.
Few customers buy tourism products online. The reason for this may be a lack of risk-reducing, value-added services online. Thus, access to risk-reducing value-added services is supposed to increase online purchase of tourism products. In this article it is proposed that the importance of access to risk-reducing value-added services will vary across customer segments. Customers are divided into segments based on 1) Internet experience, 2) experience with tourism products, 3) search mode, 4) product complexity, and 5) perceived level of risk associated with purchasing tourism products. Perceived risk is found to have an effect on the importance of access to 13 of 17 value-added services. The other segment variables are found to have significant effects on fewer value-added services.
The purpose of this article is to report on a study of 1) what kind of value-added services offered by tourism businesses' Web sites are perceived the most important by customers, and 2) a comparison between customers' preferences for and the actual offerings of value-added services by tourism businesses' Web sites. A survey among customers of online tourism businesses shows that search engines, service integration, and personalization are the most preferred value-added services by the customers. In addition to the survey among customers, a survey was undertaken among tourism businesses to reveal the level of value-added services offered on their Web sites. By comparing the results of customers' preferences for value-added services and tourism companies' offerings, it is found that tourism businesses should provide more value-added services on their Web sites in order to fill the gap between customers' preferences for such services and the companies' actual offerings.
This study emerged from the question of how mobile handsets can change the nature of cultural and historical tourist experiences in ubiquitous city environments. The artucke describes the development of a new and entertaining type of mobile tour guide system that positions the mobile handset as a key delivery system for site-specific cultural and historical information. The central objective of the project was to organize a cultural and historical walking tour around the mobile handset and its unique advantages (i.e., portability, multimedia capacity, access to wireless Internet, and location-aware potential) and then integrate this tour with a historical story and role-playing game that would deepen the mobile user's interest in the sites being visited, and enhance his or her overall experience of the area. After prototyping and user testing, new strategies for developing mobile information service with entertainment elements to deliver cultural historical content of the location were considered.
An increasing emphasis on mobility has stimulated the widespread adoption of portable hardware such as mobile phones and handheld and notebook computers. Mobile travelers accessing data through the Internet or enterprise networks from any location will be one of the critical driving forces behind business strategy for travel and tourism organizations. Travelers face language barriers as an obstacle while visiting other countries. The authors have developed a flexible services architecture-based Web services tool that will remove human language barriers by making itself available on any operating system, on any hardware including PDAs, laptops, cell phone, web TV, etc., and at any location where an Internet connection is found. This article presents the details of the flexible services architecture model and outlines its application to a translator Web service model that has real implications in the domain of tourism and travel.
