A DMS provides complete and up-to-date information on a particular tourist destination. It handles both the pre-trip and post-arrival information, as well as integrates availability and booking service too. It is used for the collection, storage, manipulation, and distribution of tourism information, as well as for the transaction of reservations and other commercial activities. Well-known DMSs are TISCover, VisitScotland, and Gulliver.
Published in Chapter:
Intelligent Technologies for Tourism
Copyright: © 2009
|Pages: 6
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-026-4.ch337
Abstract
Nowadays, the tourism industry is a consumer of a diverse range of information (Buhalis & O’Connor, 2005). Information communication technologies (ICTs) play a critical role for the competitiveness of tourism organizations and destinations. According to Staab and Werthner (2002), ICTs are having the effect of changing: • The ways in which tourism companies contact their business; reservations and information management systems; • The ways tourism companies communicate; how customers look for information on, and purchase travel goods and services. In the tourism industry, the supply and demand sides form a worldwide network in which tourism product’s generation and distribution are closely worked together. Most tourism products (e.g., hotel rooms or flight tickets) are time constrained and nonstockable. Generally, the tourism product is both “perishable” and “complex,” and itself is a bundle of basic products aggregated by intermediaries. Consequently, basic products must have well-defined interfaces with respect to consumer needs, prices, or distribution channels. In addition, a tourism product cannot be tested and controlled in advance. During decision-making, only an abstract model of the product (e.g., its description) is available. Besides, the tourism industry has a heterogeneous nature, and a strong small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) base. Undoubtedly, intelligent technologies are increasingly changing the nature of, and processes in, the tourism industry. This chapter reviews, in brief, such technologies applied to the e-tourism domain.