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is a wish of small businesses to be seen and noticed on theInternet (Netcraft Ltd 2006). In its turn, EUROSTATresearch data prove that in 2004 more than 82 % of touristaccommodations in 25 EU countries have their own homepages. The highest indicators in the EU are in Finland(98.6 %), Denmark (97.1 %), Slovenia (97.1%), Sweden(96.5 %) and Austria (93.5 %). The lowest percentageswere recorded in Lithuania (59.2%) and Portugal (59.4%).In Latvia, it is 82.8 %. (European Communities Eurostat2005a). According to the opinion of research authors thefigures are too high and do not reflect the real situation inthe state in general. The reasons for such high figurescould be:• The ratio of Riga tourist accommodations isdomineering in the figures of statistics. About 40 %of Latvian tourist accommodations are located inRiga (Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia 2004);• The official statistics does not record the smalltourist accommodations, for example, the CentralStatistical Bureau of Latvia in 2005 reports only 418tourist accommodations.As regards the means used to access the Internet, the e-Europe policy promotes the distribution of broadbandtechnologies that allow more information to be conveyedat faster speed compared to the traditional dial-up phoneconnection. Taking the EU-25 average, only 48.3 % oftourist accommodation enterprises used broadbandtechnologies compared to 52.1 % for the wider economy.Very high rates of broadband connection were shownby: Denmark 87.8%, Sweden 76.4 %, and Finland 74.9%. Slovakia reported the lowest rate -13.7%. Latvia -42.3%, which is less than in Estonia (69 %) and Lithuania(54.4 %) (European Communities 2005 a).METHODOLOGYTo characterise the situation and check-in practice, towhat extent the information on tourist accommodationplaces is accessible on the Internet and to what extent theowners of tourist accommodation places use e-mail as ameans of communication, the research was divided intotwo parts:• Four Latvian administrative districts were chosen foranalysis of availability of home pages and e-mail oftourist accommodations;• Analysis of availability of home pages and e-mail intourist accommodations registered in the database ofLatvian Rural Tourism Association “Lauku ceļotājs”(in English -”Countryside traveler”).In the first part of the research the objects of tourismaccommodations were chosen in four Latvian districtsrepresenting all the Latvian regions:• Ventspils District (Kurzeme Region),• Jelgava District (Zemgal Region),• Ludza District (Latgale Region),• Cēsis District (Vidzeme Region)The selective method and data analysis were chosenas research methods relating to information on tourismaccommodation places in respective districts compiledby Ventspils, Jelgava, Ludza and Cēsis TourismInformation Offices (TIO).Information on Ludza District touristaccommodation places was obtained from LatgaleRegional Development Agency portalhttp://turisms.latgale.lv, on Ventspils from VentspilsTIO portal www.tourism.ventspils.lv, on Cesis Districtfrom par Cēsis TIO portal www.tourism.cesis.lv, onJelgava District from Jelgava TIO, as their home pagewas in a construction stage at that moment. During theresearch, we used the interview method; weinterviewed 7 managers of respective informationcentres and other tourism experts.In total, we made data analysis of 233 touristaccommodations in Ventspils, Jelgava, Ludza andCēsis Districts. We used Microsoft Excel programmefor the data analysis. Tent areas indicated by TIC,were not analysed separately. The authors of thisresearch included two tourist accommodations in thetotal number (in Ventspils District - 2) that offer theirservices only in the summer season.It should be noted that the total number of touristaccommodations in the regions may be bigger thanshown in databases of regional TIOs as several touristaccommodations operate without sending informationabout their existence to the regional TIOs and have notbeen registered in the database of Latvian TourismDevelopment Agency (LTDA) as service providers.This fact was found when checking the informationon the existing accommodations in the given districtsin a popular Latvian internet enquiry portalwww.viss.lv, where one may search and find anynecessary information, including accommodations andin which companies and private persons may place andupdate information about their enterprises. Forexample, in the portal www.viss.lv we found additionalinformation on 7 tourist accommodations in VentspilsDistrict; they were not included in Ventspils TIOdatabase by the research time, we also found 5 touristaccommodations in Cēsis District and one in Ludzaand Jelgava Districts accordingly that were notregistered.Some other gaps were also found when checking theLatvian Tourism Development Agency’s portalwww.latviatourism.lv where the information onAnnual Proceedings of Vidzeme University College “ICTE in Regional Development”, 200696