E-Tourism

1. Future of E-Tourism
Dr. Sumit Kumar Singh

2. Introduction
• In the past few years, developments in the Internet technology have deeply
impacted the tourism industry.
• One of the most significant and recent changes has been the proliferation of
Web 2.0 and the resultant Social media, and their impact (collectively referred
to as Tourism 2.0) on travel and tourism sectors.
• Trends such as Blogs, RSS (Really Simple Syndication), Social Networking,
Podcasts, Online Video, Tagging, Mash-ups and Wikis will shape the
immediate future of e-Tourism.

3. Cont…
• The social media has challenged the traditional marketing and distribution
channels in these sectors and influenced the decision-making process of the
tourists.
• User-generated content (such as hotel reviews on popular websites such as
TripAdvisor.co.in and Raahi.com) play major role in planning tours/trips.
• Travellers and hoteliers have started acknowledging comments, responses
and feedbacks by other customers in selecting a tour destination or hotel.

4. Internet and Marketing of Tourism Products
• Due to the pivotal role information plays in the description, promotion,
distribution, amalgamation, organization and delivery of tourism products.
• The Internet technology has become a main source of sustainable
competitive advantage and a strategic option.
• The development of tourism e-commerce can allow firms to access new
customers, access remote or niche markets and offer alternative access to
traditional customers.

5. Web 2.0 and its impact on Tourism Industry
• There are many industries that have changed from the era of Web1.0 to Web
2.0. Tourism industry is no exception.
• Tourism enterprises like travel agencies, hotels, destination marketers, event
management organisations have been seriously challenged by the rise of
Internet as an intermediary and infomediary.
• At the same time, it has opened up a new world of opportunities for the
businesses.

6. The major applications of Web 2.0
technologies in the tourism industry
1. Blogs/ Weblogs
2. RSS (Really Simple Syndication)
3. Social Networking Service
4. Podcast
5. Online Video
6. Tagging
7. Mash-ups
8. Wikis

7. Blogging
• A blog is a type of Website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries
of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video.
• Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as
more personal online diaries.
• A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other
media related to its topic.
• The ability of readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important
part of a blog.

8. Business Benefits of Having a Blog
• Blogs allow the corporates to post daily tips and needed information to their
customers.
• Interactive nature of a blog allows visitors to post their comments on each
post. It is a great way to get feedback from customers.
• Some blogs are having subscription option which facilitates the interested
visitors to get notifications when a new content is posted on the blog. Many
companies are having blog as a formal communication channel.

9. Impact of Blogging on Tourism
• Blogs are becoming a very important source of information for international
vacationers.
• Many travellers these days conduct their holiday research less through official
tourism boards and companies’ Websites and more from Weblogs such as
India travel zine. com, where members can post local information about
what to visit and avoid.
• Customers have strong credibility towards the information and responses
posted by other travellers.

10. RSS (Really Simple Syndication)
• RSS is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated
works such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video in a standardized
format.
• An RSS feed includes full or summarized text, plus metadata such as
publishing dates and authorship.
• They benefit readers who want to subscribe to timely updates from favoured
Websites or to aggregate feeds from many sites into one place.

11. Business Benefits of using RSS
• RSS allows the users to easily stay informed by retrieving the latest content
from the sites in which they are interested in.
• Internet user can save time by not needing to visit each site individually.
• It also ensures privacy of the user, by not needing to join each site’s email
newsletter.

12. Impact of RSS on Tourism
• RSS feeders save information search time for Internet users.
• It provides up-to-date information about various tour packages, new
destinations, discounts, festivals and other tourism related information for
the users whenever a new content is uploaded in a tourism Website or a blog.

13. Social Networking Service
• A social network service essentially consists of a representation of each user
(often a profile), his/her social links, and a variety of additional services.
• It provides means for users to interact over the Internet, such as e-mail and
instant messaging.
• It allows users share ideas, activities, events, and interests within their
individual networks.
• Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn are the most popular networking sites
worldwide.

14. Business Benefits of Social Networking Sites
• Social networking sites can help to increase the circle of people that a firm
can influence to buy its services.
• In a social networking service company personnel can build personal
relationship with potential customers and help them out with their doubts
and queries and that in turn builds a relationship of trust.

15. Impact of Social Networking Sites on Tourism
• Social networking websites have a tremendous impact on tourism planning
and development.
• Tourists want to use the Internet in order to organize a group trip with their
friends.
• Such tourists’ demands and preferences have given rise to new e-business
models for distributing and producing tourism packages.

16. Podcast and Online Video
• A podcast is a series of digital media files (either audio or video) that are
released episodically and downloaded through Web syndication.
• A list of all the audio or video files with a given series is maintained centrally
on the distributor’s server as a Web feed,
• and the user employs a pod catcher (special client application software) that
can access this Web feed, check it for updates, and download any new files in
the series.

17. Impact of Podcast and Online Video on
Tourism
• Unlike products and goods one cannot feel and try a travel experience before
he/she buys or travels to a destination.
• As a result, the purchase risk is high and it is difficult to persuade a user for
the qualities of a tourism service.
• Podcasting helps users to take better decisions by viewing the audio and
video files of hotels and destinations.

18. Implications of Podcast and Online Video for
Tourism Enterprises
• Tourism operators should provide platform for the travellers to post and
share their own travel experiences in the form of video and audio files.
• Podcasting can be used as marketing as well as communication tools.

19. Tagging
• Tagging is a new way of categorizing information online and common in
user-generated content sites.
• Users tag a piece of content (e.g. an audio, a picture, a word) with a meaning
(a word or phrase) and then this information is categorized in categories
based on this meaning.
• Tagging can be used for saving and sorting ones content as well as sharing
with others.

20. Impact of Tagging on Tourism
• It allows the travellers to tag their favourite Websites in some tagging Websites (Ex:
digg.com) with some meaning.
• For example a traveller can tag a website/blog as ‘best travel agent website’ or ‘blog
for honest hotel review’ and can share it with others through social bookmarking
sites.
• Based on these tags they are sorted in different categories, while others can use
these users’ generated categories for identifying appropriate Websites.
• By this way, more and more users are using tags as collaborative tools for identifying
and sorting content.

21. Implications of Tagging for Tourism
Enterprises
• Websites should offer the capability for users to sort, share and categorize
content based on tagging.
• Tourism Websites should optimize their tags and Meta tags of their Website
in order to get higher ranking in the search engine results.

22. Mash-Ups
• A mash-up is a Webpage or application that uses or combines data or
functionality from two or many more external sources to create a new
service.

23. Impact of mash-up on Tourism
• Tourists expect and demand to combine and cross check information from
different sources so that they can better and easier make a holistic decision.
• Tourists easily get confused from different descriptions found in different
Websites.
• On the contrary, mash-up Websites enable user to see where exactly a hotel/
destination is located with the route map and directions.
• Many mash ups are enriching their services with Google maps and other
related geographical information.

24. Implications of mash-up for Tourism
Enterprises
• By having mash-up programmes, tourism enterprises can help the tourist to
find their locations easily which will increase the number of tourist visiting
that place.

25. Wikis
• A wiki is a type of Website that allows the visitors themselves to easily add,
remove, edit and change available content.
• This ease of interaction and operation makes a wiki an effective tool for
collaborative authoring.
• In short, the visitor can contribute to build this Website up.

26. Impact of Wikis on Tourism
• In tourism wikitravel.org represents the effort of Internet users to
collaboratively create and continuously update an online global travel guide.

27. Challenges for Conventional Business Models
• Technology has always had large-scale impact on the Travel and Tourism
industry.
• The advent of the Internet triggered the trend for the travellers/tourists to
deal directly with the service providers such as the airlines and hotels.
• However, the intermediaries armed with a vast array of product assortments
and value-additions made a comeback through reintermediation.
• This trend was characterized by the proliferation of online travel agents
(OTAs) such as Travelocity.com and MakeMyTrip.com.

28. Conclusion
• Web 2.0 is an outcome of community efforts by all the internet users to
develop a new trend where business takes new shape to benefit its customers.
• Many tourism enterprises have already started experimenting with web 2.0,
which provides incredible opportunities to the marketers who are willing to
implement these tools in their business.
• Due to this innovation, now the marketing communication is on the hands
of the customers; marketer has no control over it.

29. Cont…
• At the same time, Web 2.0 applications give numerous ways to engage the
customers by involving them in the service process and making them as
endorsers by providing platform to interact and give feedback.
• Thus, Web 2.0, which is shaping the future of e-Tourism, is an excellent way
to build customer loyalty, improve brand equity and maximize on customer
interactions in terms of online engagement and experience.

30. Thank You!