E-tourism in England a strategy .pdf

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5. Strategic options Over the past fifteen years, there has been a considerable investment in systems to collect, monitor and manage data at local, regional and national level. In determining the most appropriate strategy for e-tourism in England it is important to recognise that this does not start from a ‘blank sheet’ - the key requirement would therefore appear to be the creation of a framework that can build upon what has gone before. This strategy addresses the issue of how best to deliver an integrated or joined-up structure that will enable consumers and tourism providers to benefit at local, regional and national levels. A key strategic objective is therefore to enable comprehensive searching, planning, reservations, bookings and payments for tourism products to take place via the Internet and other communications channels such as TICs, call centres, mobile devices and interactive TV services. The core of any such structure will be some form of destination management system (DMS) – a combination of data management software, search engine, booking and transactions facilities, all operating within a viable business model. There are three options for the development of a national e-tourism strategy for England: • A ‘minimum intervention’ approach that relies upon the continuing development of a diverse range of local and regional systems and commercial online reservation services • The development of a complete integrated national system • The development of a federal model, with a national network infrastructure and services designed to work with existing and emerging systems. The relative merits of these approaches are considered briefly in the following sections. 5.1 A minimum intervention approach This option would rely upon the continuing development of regional and local DMS solutions and commercial reservation systems. The national BTA/ETC Jigsaw database would continue to be developed as a source of product information, and DMS software suppliers would be encouraged to adopt common data definitions that would facilitate data exchange. Extensive data collection into Jigsaw would still be required and there would be only limited capability for searching on product availability across England. Investment would be required develop a national web portal linking regions and destinations, and this could include a search engine to enable consumers to find products held in different locations. DMOs that do not yet have a local e-commerce enabled system would need to consider this, without assurance that this would fully integrate with national distribution. The adoption of this approach seems unlikely to achieve the e-tourism strategy aims of enabling public access to comprehensive tourism content or helping small tourism enterprises to adapt to an e-business environment. 5.2 A national DMS This option would seek to build or acquire a comprehensive national system comprising data management software, search engine, booking and transactions facilities. This would extend beyond the Jigsaw product information database into the hosting of a full product availability (inventory) database and associated software to manage this highly volatile 18/44 A strategy for modernising English tourism through e-business – July 2002
information. Technically, this would be the simplest solution, and could potentially be developed in partnership with a commercial operator, helping to spread the costs and risks. The main drawback, however, would be that destinations with existing destination management solutions would not integrate directly into the national DMS and potentially would lose business to it. This is likely to deter the participation of destinations with wellestablished local systems, including most seaside resorts and major cities, and result in duplication. It would also add inconvenience for tourism providers, who would need to work with either or both national and local systems. Such non-participation in the scheme seems likely to render this option unattractive to the main stakeholders, with consequential reduction of the value to consumers. This would thus fall considerably short of a fully integrated English tourism industry. 5.3 A federal network approach The federal approach combines the advantages of each of the first two options. It would deliver the infrastructure that would enable tourism product information to be shared via a national interoperability standard and a communications backbone. This would enable a national level of content integration and search capability to enable easy access to tourism product information at national, regional and local levels, including access to booking and payment services. Much of the information would be maintained locally by RTBs, DMOs and TICs and exchanged via the communications backbone. DMS suppliers would be encouraged to participate in defining the interoperability standard, enabling them to offer DMOs integration with the national framework. DMOs not yet using such systems would find it easier to do so. This hybrid option seems more likely to attract the greatest uptake of destinations and tourism providers, bring most integration and access to the widest sources of product information for the consumer, and thereby maximise the success of the project. This should lead to an overall reduction in duplication of data collection and greater participation by tourism providers, leading to more cost-effective operation. As such, this option would appear to offer the best prospects for contributing towards the sustainability of local tourism services, most of which are dependent upon local authority support. This is therefore the recommended strategic approach – one which was widely supported in the consultation process – and forms the basis for the proposed EnglandNet Online Tourism Network. EnglandNet is therefore being developed by ETC and the RTBs, the organisations currently responsible for managing national tourism data services in England, as the vehicle to implement this strategy. It will be an industry-wide network offering a range of electronic business and marketing services to the industry, and designed from the outset to work with existing destination management systems at regional and local level. It is vital that the implementation of this project should be mutually beneficial to all concerned, leading to stronger, more effective working relationships across the whole sphere of tourism development. The EnglandNet objectives and proposed outputs are discussed further in section 6. In adopting this strategy, EnglandNet must be realistic about the ability of all DMOs and DMSs to deliver the necessary input, whether in terms of quality or quantity. Inevitably there will be situations where DMOs do not have the resources or, in some cases perhaps, the motivation, to deliver the input required within the federal approach. Recognising this, 19/44 A strategy for modernising English tourism through e-business – July 2002
Page 1 and 2: E-tourism in England A strategy for
Page 3 and 4: Contents Foreword 3 1. Executive su
Page 5 and 6: time content on the availability of
Page 7 and 8: 2. Introduction Tourism is a major
Page 9 and 10: 3. Background In tourism, as elsewh
Page 11 and 12: likely to reach saturation point or
Page 13 and 14: This strategy and the EnglandNet pr
Page 15 and 16: 4.2.2 Travel trade Potential requir
Page 17: • To be integrated into a nationa
Page 21 and 22: 6. Key roles in support of e-touris
Page 23 and 24: As EnglandNet develops 3 , the pote
Page 25 and 26: 6.2.5 Regional Development Agencies
Page 27 and 28: Key Actions Lead role Others involv
Page 29 and 30: This same network, with some modifi
Page 31 and 32: Maintain a communications strategy
Page 33 and 34: 8. Monitoring and evaluation To eva
Page 35 and 36: Appendix 2: E-tourism in other coun
Page 37 and 38: 1.1 Internet users’ profile Inter
Page 39 and 40: Thus, over a period of only five ye
Page 41 and 42: It also indicates the reasons cited
Page 43 and 44: 60% 55% 50% 45% 40% 35% 30% 25% 20%

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