Preface
Introduction
This edition fosters multidisciplinary discussion and research on the adoption of information and communication technologies (ICT) in the contexts of culture and tourism. Its key objective is to be the leading scholarly scientific reference edition for all those interested in, researching and contributing to the cultivation of a regional and global vision for the management of cultural content and tourism.
For this reason, the book delivers research articles, position papers, surveys and case studies aiming:
* To provide a holistic and multidisciplinary discussion on how technology supports new unforeseen digital highways for the provision of cultural content and tourism services
* To promote the international collaboration and exchange of ideas and know how on digital culture and electronic tourism
* To investigate how emerging technologies and new managerial models and strategies can promote sustainable development for culture and tourism
* To promote the issues of digital culture and electronic tourism as key pillars of the knowledge society
Objective of the Book
In a turbulent world, culture and tourism provide two of the most fascinating aspects of human life. Creativity, imagination, brilliant colours, music, sounds, artifacts, and spectacular places are becoming the required connectors for humanity. In a global perspective, the new capacities of emerging technologies, such as pervasive and ubiquitous computing, semantic knowledge portals, broadband and satellite networks, Web 2.0 and semantic web, open source software, and set new tools, define new horizons for human creativity and connectivity.
In the digital world of the knowledge society, the development of infrastructures for the provision of services to citizens for access to cultural content and tourism services requires a multifold analysis of social, business, and technological factors. It seems that, unfortunately, there is a significant gap in the performance of current approaches and a key absence of scholar publications that will provide a fruitful dialogue.
In the context of the knowledge society, the key inquiry is to go beyond the traditional barriers for the open access to cultural content and integration with learning and working. On the other hand, critical deficits in economic and social performance of tourism are evident due to the inefficiencies of current technological approaches that treat the tourism connection to information technology as a database problem. Our strategic fit is that culture and tourism require an integrated approach emphasizing content, context and multiple, dynamic views of interactions.
The main objectives of this edition are summarized as follows:
* To provide the leading edge approaches and applications of ICTs in culture and tourism
* To provide the state-of-the art for government consultation and advice for academics/practitioners/policy makers and managers of the culture and tourism industry
* To contribute to the literacy of digital culture and electronic tourism
Target Audience
The audience for this book includes:
- Government Officers
- E-Culture and E-Tourism consultants, experts
- Academics and researchers in the field both in universities and business schools
- Information technology directors and managers
- Quality managers and directors
- Politicians
- Professors in academia,
- Policy Makers
- Government officers
- Students
- Human resource directors
- Libraries and information centres serving the needs of the above
- Corporate heads of firms
- Senior general managers
- Managing directors
- Board directors
Among others, the book “Digital Culture and E-Tourism: Technologies, Applications and Management Approaches“addresses the following topics:
Digital Culture and Electronic Tourism: The Research Domain
- The digital culture and electronic tourism domain: philosophical routes, demonstration of various communities, success stories, lessons learned
- Digital culture and e-tourism key issues: effective strategies, diffusion models and reference theories
- Deployment of ICTs in museums/cultural centres, policy issues, integration issues, extensibility, interoperability
Digital Culture and Electronic Tourism: The Theories
- Sociological/economic theories and models
- Content vs community manifestations
- Collaborative/context aware/personalised approaches
Digital Culture and Electronic Tourism: The Technologies
- Culture and tourism portals
- Push/pull technologies
- Web 2.0
- Semantic web
- Adaptive and personalised technologies
- Metadata and content standards
- Free and open source software
- Ubiquitous and pervasive technologies
- Intelligent agents
- Content/knowledge management systems
- Emerging technologies
- Grid technologies
Digital Culture and Electronic Tourism: The Practices
- Digital culture and electronic tourism practices in different educational/learning contexts
- Surveys of digital culture and electronic tourism adoption in education
- Future of digital culture and electronic tourism
Digital Culture and Electronic Tourism: The Applications in Domains
- Domain applications: museums, schools, labs, experimental approaches, educational/school portals
- Tools/emerging technologies and new generation applications
- Challenges for the future; specification of government policies for the promotion of digital culture and electronic tourism
- Roadmaps for the future
Before closing this preface, we would like to thank sincerely IGI-Global staff for this opportunity to edit this book and their help and support during the development of the book.