Tourism Systems and Media
This area seeks to gain a better understanding of the tourism phenomenon by using new methods for measuring and modelling tourism information based on new developments in technology; in other words, all of the economic and socio-cultural activities engaged in by people while travelling or staying in places other than their normal place of residence and work.
Despite significant scientific achievements internationally, there is a need to move forward in new ways of studying tourism flows and the relationship between tourism flows and territory. New systems will allow us to gather much more precise data on human and business activity in a specific environment. This knowledge will not only further the scientific discipline itself, but also enable public and private sector stakeholders to manage their decision-making processes.
This area underpins research in the frontiers of essential ICT knowledge and in combination with other areas and disciplines pertaining to tourism studies: cultivating new ideas and completely novel functions, exploring new options for paths in ICT research, including systems integration and intelligent systems.
Modelling and intelligent management of tourism information
In the future new infrastructures and services will emerge to replace current tourism management systems and today´s Internet. These changes will lead to more sustainable, more competitive growth in the tourism and travel industry. In order for the measurement and modelling of information to be useful and satisfactorily exploited, two main challenges are envisioned in the near future: first, the need to integrate new useful information that will bring added value to the new tourism management systems; and second, using ICTs as tools for the development of sustainable tourism.
Bearing in mind all of the above, the following lines of activity have been prioritised:
- Develop instruments to understand and measure the entire tourism economic system and its role in economies.
- Integrate new tourism data into the current tourism statistic structure.
- Tourism modelling and indicators:
All of this will lead us to a scenario for developing new management models. At the same time it will generate an improvement in quality and in production, as well as an optimisation in time- and cost-effectiveness in parameters affecting sustainability.
Intelligent Tourism Management System
New technological developments in Destination Management Systems (DMS) provide destinations with a competitive advantage. Therefore, it is vital to have efficient tools for the effective management and use of information.
Intelligent Systems in Tourism Management address this need by integrating and distributing tourism services and applications via diverse channels of communication (for a concrete destination), thus enabling users to consult, book and compare tourism products and services.
These new systems are capable of managing the tourism system at every stage of the production process and commercialisation cycle – from the tourism consumer or ´visitor´, to the authorities in charge of designing and promoting industry, transport and tourism policy, to tourism firms and stakeholders. The purpose of the new integral management models is to support stakeholders, companies, public bodies and even individuals in decision-making.
Although human, financial and organisational resources are indeed necessary, evidence suggests that they are not sufficient to achieve optimum competitive management of tourism destinations. Therefore, by adopting these new platforms, or digital ecosystems, stakeholders (companies, individuals and institutions), technologies and know-how can be brought together to create comprehensive destination management (physical and digital).
Bearing all of these possibilities in mind within a Tourism Management System, the problems listed below are of particular interest:
- Content Management System
- Interoperability between tourism systems
- Tourism Recommender System
- Environmental Management Systems
- Aggregation of other advanced services
