Evaluation, Synthesis and Formulation of Proposals for the Use of ...

«Evaluation, Synthesis and Formulation of Proposals for the Use of ICTin the Tourism Sector»In Australia, one can see for example a most advanced virtual reality application developed by theinformation technologies department at the Sidney University. This concerns the development of aprototype e-Tourism environment with the use of 3D gaming technologies. This particular applicationhas many common features with the popular internet game Second Life, but it is oriented to virtualwalks and transactions in tourist and cultural places (such as museums).Finally, Switzerland stands out in the use of digital maps with its national tourist portal,MySwitzerland.com. These maps allow the provision of dynamic information for all the country, withdetails for itineraries, suggestions for organized tours and excursions, the latest snow reports andinformation to locate any type of hotels and accommodation in every city. Furthermore, this entiredynamic context is accompanied by web camera transmissions and a large number of videos, satelliteimages and meteorological maps.The “intelligent” data measurement/analysis systems for tourismData mining and business intelligence techniques are increasingly used in the tourism sector andconstitute essential tools for enterprises developing systems for intelligent data analysis. Such analysisaims at discovering useful patterns in data collected, for reasons of better customer relationshipmanagement (analytical CRM) and targeted marketing. More specifically, these systems allow thesystematic exploration and exploitation of data collected from field research, studies and results fromadvertising campaigns. The patterns sought with data mining and business intelligence methodsmainly concern the demand for tourist products and its differentiation across consumer profiles(customer segmentation). The data used are usually from sources external to the business ororganization environment, i.e. collected from consumers - tourists. However, there are alsoapplications that involve data from the internal environment of a business or organization. In theselatter applications, the aims are also internal, for example to optimize the use of resources, reducecosts and improve performance.In the first case, the business collects and exploits external data. It models the behaviour ofconsumers and locates market segments that are profitable to target (target groups). In the secondcase, the business collects internal data from its everyday operations and information inputs, possiblyincluding qualitative measurements together with the quantitative ones. The aim is to improveperformance within the organization, and to redesign strategic and operational aspects to improve theorganization’s standing.Version 1Month: December Year: 200719