Zeszyt naukowy - całość - Wydział ZarzÄ dzania i Ekonomiki Usług

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Peter Mayer, Adam Pawlicz
2. Collecting information involves regularly contacting the actors in order to
update the information available about them.
3. Controlling the collected information is an essential step in information
service. For the tourist who is a stranger in the destination, one of the key
roles of the DMO is that of a semi-external, non-commercial validation of
the tourism offer. Although this is not a legally bounding warranty, DMO’s
are still considered as exercising some level of authority over the information
content they provide. Controlling may occur via the establishment of
local or the application of national or international quality standards.
4. Structuring the information is the necessary step in preparation to information
provision. Structuring does not only mean the allocation of information
sources and types to pre-set categories (such as experiences, accommodation,
transportation, etc.) but also the thematic elaboration of a set and hierarchy
of such categories. Also, it is essential to define the set of data to be
collected on each component, as well as the relations among the data collected.
5. Providing information is considered to be the central task of tourism information
centers. It is, however, obvious that without the preceding activities
no high quality information services is possible.
Spatially we can distinguish between centralized, de-centralized and delocalized
provision of tourist information 15 . Centralized provision refers to a model
of where the task of informing tourists is solely dedicated to a single – central –
tourist information office. The advantage of this model is that tourist contact a professional
information provision service, optimally at a facility providing not only
information but also interpretation of the area. The de-centralized model, in turn, is
characterized by a central tourist office and a number of satellite information points
in the field (as in accommodation units, at attractions, public transport nodes and
the like). The advantage of this model is that it brings information “closer” to the
tourist visiting the area, thus reducing the traffic flows to and in the central area of
the destination as well as increasing the chances of contacting an information point
and enhancing the quality of the trip. De-localized models are based on latest mobile
technology and thus are rather new to emerge. As opposed to the centralized
and de-centralized pull models, where tourists contact the information centers and
points, this is a push model, where the information is brought to the tourist (or to its
mobile device). Selective, event-driven and localized information directly targets
the tourists’ appreciated needs.
15
A. Jancsik, P. Mayer, Fürdőigazgatóságok a Balaton Régióban (DMO’s in Balaton
Region), Study prepeared for the Lake Balaton Tourism Council, University of Veszprém,
Veszprém 2003.