E-tourism in England a strategy .pdf

3. Background
In tourism, as elsewhere, the growth of ICT has been sporadic and sometimes reactive. A
lack of resources has stunted development, while the absence of any national strategy has
meant that systems have emerged on an ad hoc and uncoordinated basis. However,
products such as central reservations systems (as used by travel agencies) have
demonstrated that with proper planning and funding, ICT can both improve consumer
service and improve the efficiency and profitability of businesses, large or small.
At the local and sub-regional level many English holiday destinations have systems which
were initially introduced to help TICs to offer a better service. Local authority support has
played a key role in this development. Over the years, this support was extended to include
marketing, administration and research. With few exceptions, each destination operated its
system independent of other destinations, with little or no electronic communication
between them.
Towards the end of the 1990s, as awareness of the importance of the Internet and e-
business increased, RTBs became more active and most developed regional websites. More
recently, ETC has collaborated with the BTA in the development of a new national tourism
product database (‘Jigsaw’) to manage basic descriptions of tourism products and enable
such data to be entered, imported and distributed through the Internet. The English part of
this project will be integrated into the wider EnglandNet framework.
3.1 The present position
How are tourism businesses adapting to the opportunities of e-business? Although email
and websites are only the tip of the iceberg, they can still be useful indicators to
demonstrate the likely predisposition to e-business. National level data in Table 1 shows the
following pattern for the adoption of the Internet by tourism businesses in England.
Table 1: Adoption of the Internet by English tourism businesses*
% with % with % with
% with
% with
Sector email email websites
online
websites
(all totals at Jan 02) (Feb (Jan (Feb 2001)
booking
(Jan 2002)
2001) 2002)
(Jan 2002)
Serviced (Hotels, B&Bs)
Total: 16, 631
45% 58% 33% 45% 2%
Self Catering
Total: 8,951
47% 63% 38% 51% n/a
Camping and
Caravanning
40% 52% 43% 60% n/a
Total: 1,179
Youth and Group
Total: 666
62% 72% 47% 67% n/a
Attractions
Total: 5,503
33% 48% 36% 53% n/a
Events
Total: 7,394
50% 56% 47% 59% n/a
Averages 46% 58% 41% 56% n/a
* English businesses and suppliers participating in the BTA/ETCtourism product information database.
9/44 A strategy for modernising English tourism through e-business – July 2002