Documenti di Didattica
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Gabriel HOCIUNG
Abstract
The evolution of the Internet in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century has led to a
significant increase of online transactions, allowing users to access and receive information
anywhere, anytime. Tourism makes no exception and it can be considered the most
connected industry to the online environment: booking systems, online marketing, etourism. Instant communication influenced the way tourism relates to the expressed needs
of tourists at any time during tourists experience.
Keywords: e-communication, e-tourism, ICT, internet, social networking
ICT contribution to e-tourism development
The perception of tourism as a phenomenon highlights the relationship between
society and tourism, the mutual involvement and influence they have on each other in equal
measure, to the point where it can not be said if there are changing circumstances in a society
that transforms tourism or if there are tourism flows changing social circumstances. Both
circumstances should be considered as true: tourism transforms society and, in turn, the
transformed society determines tourism.
The evolution of mankind led to instant communication (e-communication), even
between people separated by thousands of miles, living in different cities, countries,
continents or hemispheres. In the third millennium is hard to imagine progress without
instant communication without immediate access to information, using the latest
technologies. It is crucial to understand how communication and information technology
(ICT) affects daily human activities and how decisions in line with technology are made, if
we adapt the rapid development and the continuous knowledge to our needs.
Tourism industry, although affected by the global economic crisis, remains one of the
activities with the fastest development, driven by growing tourist demand. Concurrent and
collaborative development of tourism and ICT makes difficult to imagine tourism before
ICT. The tourism industry has benefited massively and also provided benefits to information
technology industry. For example, we can highlight CRS or GDS, which were the first
global information and multi-organizational systems. The union between tourism and ICT is
firmly recognized currently through the term "e-tourism" (electronic tourism). The Internet
has changed the way consumers are planning or buying holidays and equally affected how
travel companies promote their products and services. 1
Tourism market is based on the information. For example, a potential Romanian
tourist, who wants to spend hisr vacation in a hotel on one of the Aeolian Islands, needs an
update with respect to connections (airport-boat-hotel), to the activities they may conduct at
their destination or even, recommendations from other tourists. Internet makes possible
direct interaction of different types of service providers and tourism products to potential
1
Hociung, I.-G. (2009) - E-communication and tourism vs. the 3rd millennium Tourist, 10-th EUROPEAN
CONFERENCE E-COMM-LINE 2009, September 28-29, ASE Bucureti
customers, wherever they are located around the world and with a relatively low cost.
Internet access has increased in recent years (including Romania), as can be seen in Fig. 1.
http://www.internetworldstats.com
Bojnec, ., Kribel, Z. (2006) - Information and Communication Technology in Tourism, 7th International
Conference of The Faculty of Management Koper, University of Primoska, Portoroz, Slovenia, pp.445-454
4
Buhalis D., Licata M. (2002), The future eTourism intermediaries, Tourism Management Vol. 23, p.207-220,
(ISI)
3
http://www.abeuk.com/pdf/qcf/syllabuses/L5_IT_in_Hospitality_and_Tourism_Operations_dec11.pdf
Berger, S. (2007) - Great age guide to online travel - 1st ed., Que Ed., Indianapolis, USA, p.11
http://www.travelport.com/~/media/Global/Documents/Customer%20Community/Travelport%20The%20Well
%20Connected%20Traveller102010.ashx
8
Haine, I. (1998) Introducere in teoria comunicrii, Editura Fundaiei Romnia de mine, Bucureti, p. 18
9
Rogojanu, A. (2005) Comunicare i limbaj economic, Ed. ASE, Bucureti, p.45
10
Rogojanu, A, Tanadi, A., Piroc, G. (2005) - Deontologia comunicrii - Aplicaii i studii de caz, Editura
ASE, Bucureti, p.34
11
Baack D.W., Singh, N. (2007) - Culture and web communications, Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, No.
60, pp.181188 ( ISI)
12
Hociung, G. (2009) - Mobile communication technologies - tools for promoting and purchasing services, THE
2009 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON TOURISM and WORKSHOP, Messina, Italy
http://www.cityzeum.com/blog/
Malek, M. R., Samany, N., Aliabady, S., Hajibabai, L., Kashyha, M. (2007) - Using smart map in a mobile
information environment for tourism, XXI International CIPA Symposium, Athens, Greece
15
Weathers, D., Sharma, S., Wood, S. (2007) - Effects of online communication practices on consumer
perceptions of performance uncertainty for search and experience goods, Journal of Retailing, Elsevier (ISI)
14
per month. 16 Most members post more than 50 million monthly views, reviews, experiences
they have lived in various tourist destinations / hotels / restaurants / transportation, this type
of activity being used by those organizations that monitor what they are doing well and also
what they are doing wrong, in order to improve the quality of offered products and services
to satisfy their customers.
Twitter can be a tool for tourism operators through the exchange of quick, short
messages with the members of this social network, so the last ones can get almost instantly
the answers to their questions. In 2011, Twitter had more than 200 million users, with over
1.6 billion search queries. 17
http://www.tripadvisor.com/pages/about_us.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter
of tourist has literally the world in his hands, being able to improve the tourist experience
using communication and information technologies.
Conclusion
E-tourism offers tour operators from the places of destination a range of services that
facilitates communication and relationships with other stakeholders and reduce the
processing time of applications in different phases of travel services life, when tourists can
experience various problems or challenges or when dealing with new situations or
environments (e.g.: orientation issues, language barriers, need for information and so on).
Tourists are increasingly sophisticated, they need to connect, communicate, participate
actively and to shape their tourism product. Effective communication is needed between all
the involved stakeholders, local authorities and government, in order to create skills on etourism, e-communication and m-tourism, which can not be achieved without access to the
latest technologies.
Refereces:
-
Baack D.W., Singh, N. (2007) - Culture and web communications, Journal of Business
Research, Elsevier, No. 60
Berger, S. (2007) - Great age guide to online travel - 1st ed., Que Ed., Indianapolis,
USA
Bojnec, ., Kribel, Z. (2006) - Information and Communication Technology in
Tourism, 7th International Conference of The Faculty of Management Koper,
University of Primoska, Portoroz, Slovenia
Buhalis D., Licata M. (2002), The future eTourism intermediaries, Tourism
Management Vol. 23
Haine, I. (1998) Introducere in teoria comunicrii, Editura Fundaiei Romnia
de mine, Bucureti
Hociung, I.-G. (2009) - E-communication and tourism vs. the 3rd millennium Tourist,
10-th EUROPEAN CONFERENCE E-COMM-LINE 2009, September 28-29, ASE
Bucureti
Hociung, G. (2009) - Mobile communication technologies - tools for promoting and
purchasing services, THE 2009 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON TOURISM
and WORKSHOP, Messina, Italy
Malek, M. R., Samany, N., Aliabady, S., Hajibabai, L., Kashyha, M. (2007) - Using
smart map in a mobile information environment for tourism, XXI International CIPA
Symposium, Athens, Greece
Rogojanu, A. (2005) Comunicare i limbaj economic, Ed. ASE, Bucureti
Rogojanu, A, Tanadi, A., Piroc, G. (2005) - Deontologia comunicrii - Aplicaii i
studii de caz, Editura ASE, Bucureti
Weathers, D., Sharma, S., Wood, S. (2007) - Effects of online communication
practices on consumer perceptions of performance uncertainty for search and
experience goods, Journal of Retailing, Elsevier
http://www.tripadvisor.com/pages/about_us.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter
http://www.vincos.it/world-map-of-social-networks/
http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics
http://www.internetworldstats.com
http://www.cityzeum.com/blog/
http://www.travelport.com/~/media/Global/Documents/Customer
%20Community/Travelport%20The%20Well%20Connected
%20Traveller102010.ashx
http://www.travelport.com/~/media/Global/Documents/Customer
%20Community/Travelport%20The%20Well%20Connected
%20Traveller102010.ashx
http://www.abeuk.com/pdf/qcf/syllabuses/L5_IT_in_Hospitality_and_Tourism_Operat
ions_dec11.pdf