tag. It does not introduce any new resource, but it creates a triple with a certain predicate. The subject is the current resource in scope, the predicate is the value of the attribute, and the object is the content of the tag; therefore, the triple sentence is “#acme legal name is ‘Grand ACME Hotel’”. Note that in this case the object is not another resource, but a simple string of characters, also known as “literal” value. Therefore, this triple is not relational but it describes an attribute of the resource. Relational triples are created with the “rel” attribute. For instance, the hotel resource is related to an offering, which is another typed resource. It is unlikely that the particular offering of this hotel will be referenced from any other context; therefore it is not necessary to name the resource. The scope of RDFa attributes is the key to achieve syntactical concision while at the same time, the attributes can be precisely attached to certain tags of the document. There are some situations in which it is necessary to introduce some neutral XHTML tags (

and <span>) surrounding some distinct pieces of information, as it happens with the phone number in the example. Moreover, the hierarchical structure of the XHTML document leads to role reversal for some resources. In the example the VCard resource, which is the electronic equivalent to a business card, is the subject of some triples and the object of a posterior one. The example also illustrates another distinctive feature of RDF descriptions, namely the mixing of URIs from different vocabularies. One of the vocabularies prominently used in the example is GoodRelations, which introduces classes and properties specially aimed to describe products and services. In this case GoodRelations assists in the description of the resource being offered by the hotel (a double room) and its price, as well as the relationship to the legal entity that makes the offering (the hotel) and its contact information. The webpage in the example will appear completely normal in a conventional web browser

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but behind the scenes, it contains machine-ready data. Software applications can easily identify the resources being described, such as the hotel contact information and the price tag of a double room. Therefore, they can use these data for new purposes like creating a map with a pin at the hotel location or comparing this offer with similar ones for the users’ benefit. The large players of the web are increasingly aware of this potential. During 2009, sites such as MySpace and SlideShare started to add RDFa attributes to their web pages, of course without any disruption to their usual appearance. Even more interestingly, both Yahoo! and Google added support for RDFa in their web crawlers. In other words, they can “read” the data encoded in RDFa within XHTML pages. Moreover, Yahoo! has created a guide and some tools for web page authors to easily add RDFa to their web sites. The advanced features of Yahoo! SearchMonkey make it possible to enhance the search engine results with the data crawled from the web. Besides the tooling from Yahoo!, other useful tools include the RDFa Distiller by Ivan Herman and some vocabularyspecific wizards that allow to quickly assembling descriptions of business entities or people.

STRUCTURED SOURCES EXPOSED AS LINKED DATA Not all the data is trapped in documents. Fortunately, large amounts of data are available in a purer form: structured sources. Two representatives of this higher form of data are relational databases and spreadsheets. A distinctive feature of structured sources is that individual pieces of data are clearly delimited and aligned in meaningful organizations: tables, rows and columns. The availability of data in such form is always desirable, because it can be easily translated to linked data. It is not exaggerated to say that almost any medium or large web site is powered by a relational database in its back-end. However, many factors

may impact the quality of the structure of such databases. For instance, some web content management systems (CMS) offer little help to separate the actual data from their final presentation. Obviously, this unfortunate circumstance reduces the potential for information re-use. Therefore, it is critical to aim for the highest levels of information structuring when a new web site is designed. Other databases have never been exposed on the web, not because of confidentiality issues but due to an unfavorable cost/benefit balance. This is especially the case of many databases maintained by public administrations. However, the balance is shifting due to the increasing benefits offered by the web of data and the lower cost of publishing the data. One of the tools that has greatly contributed to make it trivial to expose a database on the web as linked data is D2R Server, by the Free University of Berlin (Bizer & Seaborne, 2004). This pioneer software application delivers at lot of value to its users. In addition to publishing on the web RDF descriptions of the entities stored in a relational database, it also offers a web service endpoint that responds to advanced queries formulated in SPARQL, the standardized query language for the web of data (Prud’hommeaux & Seaborne, 2008). Moreover, it is also possible to browse the database contents using a conventional browser; in other words: it makes the data available for both the document web and the data web. D2R can be easily deployed due to its integration with enterprise web architectures (J2EE platform and all popular relational databases) as well as its ability to perform all these tasks with almost no previous configuration. At the same time, it relies on a mapping language that can be optionally tuned to choose the URL schemas or to hide some private parts of the database. Spreadsheets are also used to organize collections of data, usually in the back office of many organizations. They also have their equivalents to D2R Server: one of the most prominent is RDF123 by the University of Maryland (Han et al., 2007). Although it is not as feature-rich as D2R Server,

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RDF123 also has a powerful mapping language and a meta-data layer.

SERVICES ON TOP OF DATA Publishing data is just one side of the coin. The other one must be software applications; otherwise the ocean of data would be useless. Due to the distributed nature of the data, which may be dispersed along many sources, the mashup approach fits perfectly. A web mashup realizes the vision of software component re-use by assembling new higher-value services and data aggregations from smaller pieces of functionality or data, usually from different providers. Mashups have become one of the flagships of the “Web 2.0” trend. For our purposes two different kinds of mashups can be identified. Firstly, there are front-end mashups, which are applications built by assembling simple user interface components such as listings, forms, multimedia viewers and maps. The distinctive feature of a front-end mashup is that users directly interact with them. Sophisticated front-end mashup platforms, such as EzWeb, empower the user to visually re-arrange the components, add new ones and easily define how the components interact with each other (Lizcano et al., 2008). This approach makes it possible to quickly develop new mashups to query and explore the web of data by combining re-useable search components with detail views. A second category of mashups do not produce user interfaces and therefore are not the focus of direct interaction by the users. Data mashups produce refined data from other data sources. They were discovered by the main public when Yahoo! introduced their groundbreaking Pipes platform. It has an intuitive drag-and-drop interface based on a canvas where components are added from a palette and later connected through “pipes” that determine the data flow. The palette contains components that allow grabbing, filtering, com-

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bining, sorting and transforming the data, among other operations. When Yahoo! Pipes made its debut in early 2007, the web of data was much smaller and contained little amounts of RDF. The situation is changing, and due to initiatives such as Linking Open Data, the increased availability of RDF data motivated the DERI research institute to develop DERI Pipes (Le Phuoc et al., 2009). The concept is similar to Yahoo! Pipes, but DERI Pipes fully exploits the added benefits of the standards-based web of data. Armed with this tool, the creation of data integration services from existing data sources becomes a matter of drawing a diagram. Although this tool is still a laboratory prototype, it clearly demonstrates how it is possible to quickly develop data-intensive services.

USE CASE: CRUZAR Cruzar is an application developed by Fundación CTIC for the web site of the city council of Zaragoza, Spain (Mínguez et al., in press). It showcases many of the ideas that have been described in the preceding sections. As part of this project, some existing public data sources of the city council were adapted and published on the web as RDF data. These data sources were tourism databases and geographical information web services. The result was a consistent dataset about tourism points of interest and events. The new dataset integrated information to a degree that was not possible before. Following a common pattern, existing vocabularies were re-used where possible and new ontological definitions were introduced for domain-specific classes and properties. Regarding the classification of tourism stakeholders described at the beginning of this chapter, the city council is both a primary provider (it operates some tourism resources) and an intermediary (it collects data from privately-operated tourism resources, hotels and restaurants).

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On top of this novel view of the city tourism data a new service was built to allow tourists to elaborate customized routes across the city. At the core of such service there is a recommendation system that takes into account the profile of the prospective tourist to pick the most attractive locations for the visit. Additionally, in order to offer an integrated view of the tourism experience the application combines all available information through some user interface components, such as a detailed view of the points of interest, an agenda-like listing of the suggested route, a map that highlights the remarkable landmarks along the route and a visor that displays multimedia content associated to the locations. Additionally, by making all these data available on the web, the Cruzar project enables anyone to develop new creative applications and services. Work is already ongoing to build the next applications. A mashup platform and customized re-usable components should be available by the time this book hits the libraries.

CONCLUSION The tourism industry is more dependent on information than ever. Prospective tourists (customers) are demanding information resources and services that they consume before, during and after their trips (Hepp et al., 2006). At the same time, primary providers and intermediaries are in need of more powerful means to deliver, aggregate and consolidate data and services in order to serve up to date, accurate, complete and easy to use information to their clients. The existence of state-of-the-art information systems is increasingly perceived as a quality factor and a differential value. The web of data will introduce notable improvements on how the data is found, managed and exploited on the web. The benefits will manifest on a more efficient access to the information and the availability of a new generation of innovative services which would be otherwise impossible or

not cost-effective. In the last decade, we already witnessed a similar revolution fired by the rise of the first generation of the web, the web of documents. As it happened before, it will take some time to master the full potential of the web of data. However, its potential impact and opportunities are large enough not to be disregarded just because it is still in its infancy. Joining the web of data as a provider does not require big investments nor disruptive redesigns of the current web infrastructure, because easy migration paths exist for both structured and semistructured existing data sources. For intermediaries, the web of data brings easier data integration processes which are cornerstone of their business. Moreover, it enables completely new services which were not possible or cost-efficient before. There are some challenges in the horizon. The web of data pictures a landscape where data are independent from the applications and flow worldwide without technical boundaries. In such scenario, in which data can be picked from many sources, filtered, organized and transformed in an automated fashion, it is important to pay attention to the rights of use for these data. Unfortunately, as it often happens with the new spaces opened by science and technology, there is some initial confusion about its legal aspects. While it may be tempting to apply copyright-based licenses to data (such as the Creative Commons or the GNU families of licenses), data often escapes the scope of the copyright laws. It does not look sensible to apply copyright to the triple “Picasso’s birth year is 1881”, neither it is clear whether a URI can denote “attribution” to the original source of the data. In an attempt to shed some light on this matter a new initiative called “Open Data Commons” proposes some licenses especially designed for data. However, it is foreseeable that it will take some time until widely agreed licenses emerge, and licensing best practices are clearly defined. Anyway, this aspect is not to be dismissed until then; data providers must think about the rights of the data they are publishing,

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while data consumers must be careful to honor the licenses of the data they are using. A related challenge involves trust. Intensive data flows and data integration processes have little value if there is no indication on the trustworthiness of their result. The provenance of each piece of information is as important as the information itself. The technological foundations necessary to meet this requirement are still evolving. Data is at the core of many business and industries of the new economy. A remarkable improvement in the way data is managed on the web will necessarily have an impact which cannot be disregarded. The tourism industry has the chance to exploit the new opportunities to its advantage.

REFERENCES Adida, B., & Birbeck, M. (2008). RDFa Primer (W3C Working Group Note). Boston: World Wide Web Consortium. Auer, S., Bizer, C., Kobilarov, G., Lehmann, J., Cyganiak, R., & Ives, Z. (2007). DBpedia: A Nucleus for a Web of Open Data. In Aberer, K. et al. (Eds.), The Semantic Web: Sixth International Semantic Web Conference (pp. 722-735). Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Springer-Verlag, Berlin. Bennett, D., & Harvey, A. (2009). Publishing Open Government Data (W3C Working Draft). Boston: World Wide Web Consortium. Berners-Lee, T. (2009). Tim Berners-Lee on the next Web. Talk at TED. retrieved September 15, 2009, from http://www.ted.com/talks/tim_berners_lee_on_the_next_web.html. Birbeck, M., & McCarron, S. (2009). CURIE Syntax 1.0: A syntax for expressing Compact URIs (W3C Candidate Recommendation). Boston: World Wide Web Consortium.

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Bizer, C., Heath, T., & Berners-Lee, T. (in press). Linked data – The story so far. International Journal on Semantic Web and Information Systems. Bizer, C., & Seaborne, A. (2004). D2RQ – Treating non-RDF Databases as Virtual RDF Graphs (Poster). In McIlraith, S.A. et al. (Eds.), Third International Semantic Web Conference.(LNCS, Vol. 3298). New York: Springer. Cyganiak, R. (n.d.). About the Linking Open Data dataset cloud. Retrieved September 15, 2009, from http://richard.cyganiak.de/2007/10/lod/. Han, L., Parr, C., Sachs, J., & Joshi, A. (2007). RDF123: a mechanism to transform spreadsheets to RDF (Techical Report). Baltimore, MD: University of Maryland.Computer Science and Electrical Engineering. Hepp, M., Siorpaes, K. & Bachlechner (2006). Towards the Semantic Web in E-Tourism: Can Annotation Do the Trick? In Ljungberg, J. & Andersson, M. (Eds.), Fourteenth European Conference on Information Systems (pp. 2362-2373). Le Phuoc, D., Polleres, A., Morbidoni, C., Hauswirth, M., & Tummarello, G. (2009). Rapid semantic web mashup development through semantic web pipes. In Quemada, J. et al. (Eds.), Eighteen International World Wide Web Conference (pp. 581-590). New York: ACM. Lizcano, D., Soriano, J., Reyes, M., & Hierro, J. J. (2008). EzWeb/FAST: Reporting on a Successful Mashup-based Solution for Developing and Deploying Composite Applications in the Upcoming Web of Services. In Kotsis, G. et al. (Ed.), Tenth International Conference on Information Integration and Web-based Applications & Services (pp. 15-24). New York: ACM. Manola, F., & Miller, E. (2004). RDF Primer (W3C Recommendation). Boston: World Wide Web Consortium.

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McGuinness, D., & van Harmelen, F. (2004). OWL Web Ontology Language Overview (W3C Recommendation). Boston: World Wide Web Consortium.

Prud’hommeaux, E., & Seaborne, A. (2008). SPARQL Query Language for RDF (W3C Recommendation). Boston: World Wide Web Consortium.

Mínguez, I., Berrueta, D., & Polo, D. (in press). CRUZAR: an application of semantic matchmaking to eTourism. In Kalfoglou, Y. (Ed.), Cases on Semantic Interoperability for Information Systems Integration: Practices and Applications. Information Science Reference.

Sauermann, L., & Cyganiak, R. (2008). Cool URIs for the Semantic Web (W3C Interest Group Note). Boston: World Wide Web Consortium.

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Chapter 8

Supporting and Promoting Tourism Network Systems through ICT Applications Marco De Maggio University of Salento, Italy Valentina Ndou University of Salento, Italy Laura Schina University of Salento, Italy

ABSTRACT This chapter explores the concept of Destination Management Systems (DMSs), as opportunity for innovating in Tourism Industry, enabling different forms of collaboration and cooperation, with a particular focus on Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). Firstly, it argues on the capability of DMSs to combine new technological applications with managerial and market requirements in order to support and promote a Virtual Tourism Network System characterized by online communities, and secondly on the possibility to involve the small and medium segment in complex networks for value creation and the knowledge sharing. The importance of DMSs is also addressed in the creation of virtual linkages inside and outside specific boundaries with consequent provision of new learning processes. Furthermore, the authors, hope that from the assumptions and the insights of the studies reported will follow a high spread of the concept of DMSs considered as a significant contribution for developing strong innovative patterns of collaboration in Tourism Industry.

INTRODUCTION The proliferation of network studies was the corollary of growth and success of the industrial districts of small and medium enterprises DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61520-867-8.ch008

in Europe, particularly in Italy. These networks, also identified with industrial clusters, have been acknowledged as successful models for local development, where small organizations can thrive and compete in a continuously changing environment. Evidence of their excellent performance has been extensively reported in literature (Goodman,

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Supporting and Promoting Tourism Network Systems through ICT Applications

Bamford, and Saynor, 1989; Pyke, Beccattini and Sengenberger, 1990). As in the industrial districts, tourism industry is generally made of enterprises of small and medium size, generally located in the same area and characterized by variably strong links among themselves and with the local community. The common characteristics of tourism industry and industrial districts are represented by the interdependence of the participating firms; the cooperative competition and the importance of trusts to support collaboration; the “community culture” and its dependence on public policies (Baggio, 2008; Hjalager, 1999) The district interpretation looks at the tourism destination as a network of groups of actors, economic and non economic, involving stakeholders whose core activity can be directly or indirectly related to providing tourism related services (Baggio, 2008; Beccatini, 1990) A new technological wave during the last decade saw the rise of easy and accessible means to foster interaction and collaboration among organizations and the wide range of actors within their external environment (Laudon & Laudon, 2007), but created new challenges to the actors of the Tourism sector, and the need to interpret and guide successfully the digitalization of processes and value chains in tourism organization, identified as “eTourism” (Buhalis, 2003), Starting with an overview of the technology diffusion in European Tourism industry, the following sections describe the Destination Management System as the key managerial approach able to combine the potential of the new technological applications with the managerial and market needs that Tourism industry is facing, towards the support and promotion of Tourism Network Systems. The creation of ICT enabled virtual network systems is presented as a means through which small and medium firms can collaborate horizontally, vertically and diagonally, achieving economies of scale and scope, profiting from cost effective use

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of technology and reaching customers in a more efficient and effective way. The in dept analysis of virtual networks in tourism is supported through the development of three case studies related to well known tourism DMSs, useful to define the status, features and characteristics of virtual tourism networks and to extract useful insights and policy recommendations for their implementation and development. Following, a section devoted to the presentation of Web 2.0 Technologies as enablers of Online Communities to support Destination Management success is introduced, pointing the importance of transferring the effectiveness of the real “pass the word” mechanism in the digital sphere, to overcome the criticalities of promoting a product characterized by high level of complexity and intangibility. Finally, according to the evidences coming from field and case studies, supporting prerequisites and policy recommendations are presented for successful ICT application in Tourism, intended as the main conditions and issues to stimulate and facilitate the creation of network tourism systems,

ICT APPLICATIONS IN TOURISM SECTOR During the last decades three important technological waves have contributed to change tourism operational and strategic processes in a dramatic way: the Computer Reservation System (CRS), in 1970; the Global Distribution System (GDS), in 1980; and mainly the Internet era in 1990 (Buhalis, 2003; Emmer, Tauck, Wilkinson, Moore, 1993; O’Connor, 1999). Since 2000 a new radical shift took place about the communication technologies, marked by the development of a wide range of new tools and services able to facilitate the interaction among players located all over the place (Buhalis, Law 2008). Information Systems, applied as means to collect, process, store and disseminate information within

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organizations to support their decision-making coordination, control, analysis and visualization, evolved toward dynamic, interoperable mechanisms to support processing and dissemination of information among organizations, to enhance their collective intelligence and to maximize the effectiveness of interaction and collaboration between organizations and the wide range of actors within their external environment (Laudon & Laudon, 2007; Turban & Aronson, 2001). On one hand, Tourism Industry benefited from universal, ubiquitous communication access, gained through the ICTs, reaching new ways and quality of interactivity and new levels of development in search engines. Accordingly the enhanced capacity and speed of networks have influenced the numbers of travelers around the world that use technologies for planning and experiencing their travels. At organizational ground, ICTs have modified the efficiency and effectiveness of tourism operators, the way businesses are conducted in the marketplace, and the way customers interact with tourism operators (Buhalis, 2003). On the other hand, rapid technological change posed new challenges to the actors of the Tourism sector. Technical complexity of modern systems calls for an improved integration of all aspects of the innovation chain; the concentration and coherence required to achieve both significant technological development and market impact necessitate engagement of research and business communities to support the co-evolution of technology, market, social and economic dimension of the Industry (Buhalis, Law 2008). The wide category of ICT applications able to support business activities is generally referred to as “eBusiness” (Beynon-Davies, 2004). It is especially important for tourism, due to the specific data processing needs of this Industry and to its intensive reliance on information provision (Sheldon, 1997) The range of eBusiness applications devoted to Tourism sector is identified as “eTourism”, defined as the digitalisation of all processes and

value chains in tourism organization (Buhalis, 2003; Reino, 2006). Under the eTourism perspective technology emerges as an “info-structure” of organizations, supporting the full variety of internal and external communications and processes (Buhalis, 2003); a holistic integrated system of networked equipment and software, which enables the mechanism for processing and communicating the data (Buhalis, Law 2008). The technological innovation process that happened in the different activities that build a tourism system has been marked by some common aspects, such as: •

•

•

•

•

Interoperability: in order to enable partners to interact electronically with each other using the most convenient method and delivering the right information, at the right time and cost, and at to right user. Use of ontologies1, as suggested by a number of authors (Jakkilinki, Georgievski, Sharda, 2007; Maedche, Staab, 2002, 2003;), a mediator software system effectively translates partners’ data and allow to communicate electronically. Multimedia: one of the key areas of development that influences tourism, it answers to the need of extensive representation of photos and graphics in order to provide a tangible image or experience to travel planners (Buhalis, Law 2008). Mobile and wireless technologies: enabling travelers to retrieve travel related information without any time and geographic constraints; to book hotel rooms and air tickets, receive information about transport services, travel guides for destinations (Berger, Lehmann, & Lehner, 2003). Web design functionality and usability: it is relevant for searching functionalities to have informative, interactive and attractive web site (Chu, 2001). Kim and Lee (2004) classified web service quality into six dimensions: ease of use, usefulness, infor-

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Figure 1. Use of ICT systems for internal process in EU-10 (Source: eBusiness W@tch 2006)

•

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mation content, security, responsiveness, personalization. Accessibility: with a special focus on the barriers for people with disabilities (Michopoulou, Buhalis, Michailidis, and Ambrose, 2007). Ambient intelligence: identified as a set of properties of an environment in which people are at the center of a process of creating2 (ISTAG, 2003).

All these aspects while enhancing the heavy use of technology above all operational and distributional activities, put pressure on organizations operating in a traditional way, brought to outsource functions and processes to external organizations (Paraskevas and Buhalis, 2002), mainly for processes related to the marketing and distribution areas (O’Connor and Frew, 2002).

Technology Diffusion in Tourism: State of the Art in Europe Despite the availability of a wide range of technologies suitable for tourism organizations, data related to the Tourism system at European level show the existence of a digital divide among tourism firms, depending on their size3. The e-Business W@tch, 2006 reports the position of tourism sector among the different sectors

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impacted by the ebusiness in Europe:, as for the overall use of ICT and e-business and in particular for the deployment of ICT infrastructure and for the adoption of e-integrated business processes, it shows that the tourism industry only scores in the middle. As for the diffusion of ICT applications, internal to organizations, about one fifth of the companies uses an Intranet; generally, larger companies tend to make wider use of the intranet than smaller ones: only 20% of micro enterprises reported using an intranet, compared with the 80% of large tourism companies that use this tool. (see figure 1). As for the use of Accounting Software, the percentage of usage increases significantly with the company size: about 45% of micro enterprises use special accounting software, 63% of small, 79% of medium and 91% of large companies. While the percentage of use of Enterprise Resource Planning(ERP) systems, is low, both for small and medium firms, there is an average growth for the large ones. Finally, the same trend can be observed for the Document Management Systems (DMS), used by a small part of companies, generally large ones, but less than in most of the other sectors.

Supporting and Promoting Tourism Network Systems through ICT Applications

Figure 2. Online cooperation and collaboration in tourism within EU–10 (Source: eBusiness w@tch, 2006)

The current level of deployment of the technologies useful to create a collaborative and cooperative environment is modest as well (figure 2). Figure 2, shows how firms using online tools for collaborative design, namely e-design processes with other companies within the tourism sector range from 6% to 47% according to company size. With regard to Collaborative forecasting of demand systems, it has been observed the existence of quite sophisticated tools for calculating demand, determining the amount and the duration of production or service provision, but its usage is modest and increases according to the companies’ sizes. The range is quite similar also for the adoption of systems related to managing capacity and inventory online in the tourism industry, and about the systems useful for sharing documents and information. This trend of low use of technologies by firms is related to the fragmentation of the industry and to the features that characterize it, such as financial shortage, lack of awareness of ICT benefits, lack of skills and capabilities. Furthermore, the lack of assistance and accompaniment for enterprises facing the process of technology adoption plays a crucial negative role in the adoption itself. For a lon time literature has been dominated by approaches and models that explain how to automate rather

than how to assist organization to evolve to the new era. Recently the importance of ICTs usage for both re-engineering and automating business functions and processes, and providing operational and strategic tourism management approach, is emerging (Inkpen, 1998; O’Connor, 1999).

THE DESTINATION MANAGEMENT SYSTEM APPROACH: THE RISE OF VIRTUAL NETWORKS IN TOURISM Since small and medium firms in tourism sector look reluctant or incapable to adopt and make wide use of the new technologies, recently a new trend emerged, toward the creation of Destination Management Systems able to develop and support tourism destinations focusing on information and reservation systems, in order to promote tourism enterprises and attractions in the area. Destination Management Systems (DMS) have been considered as marketing tools promoting tourism products of a particular destination, which might be a nation, region, city or other recognizable geographical entity. In this sense DMS underpins the functions of a Destination Management Organization (DMO), both public or private, in its primary objective that is the pro-

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Figure 3. DMS structure (Source: Tourism Technology Working Group, 1999)

motion of tourism business within geographical defined areas, normally including a link to reservations and sales facilities (Frew, O’Connor 1998). Accordingly DMSs are one of the most important strategic tools for DMOs’ success in the growing electronic marketplace. Its running on the Internet is not just cost effective, but it allows information to reach a global audience and can also be more customized at the same time, in order to meet the needs of market segments (P. Rita 2000). According to the definition provided by the Tourism Technology Working Group (1999), DMSs are intended as a technological infrastructure for supporting DMO to collect, store, manipulate and distribute information in all its forms, and for the transaction of reservations and other commercial activities. The first DMSs emerged during the 1990s in Austria, with the creation of TIScover in Tyrol region, and in Ireland, with the rise of the Gulliver system. Initially they were configured as vertical systems articulated accordi to the strcucture represented in Figure 3. The enhancement of small firms’ competitiveness in Tourism sector through well-established networks is a complex process, going far beyond technology. While the technological architecture

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behind a DMS represents its core structure, reaching this goal requires the creation of organizational structures and skills, new leadership forms, transformation of public - private relationships. New forms of networking and collaboration among industry’s actors can facilitates collective learning and innovation, so firms need to establish dynamic learning organizations both at an intra and inter firm level and create flexible linkages within and outside their physical or local boundaries. ICT tools and their applications can be applied to expand organizations’ boundaries and localized knowledge by virtual linkages inside and outside their boundaries and to focus on the knowledge factors and inject learning processes. By ”virtual tourism networks” we mean those ones that comprise a multiplicity of autonomous, interdependent, and self-organizing actors, without physical borders of separation from the environment, that rely on the Internet infrastructure to integrate and exchange value (adapted from Passiante and Romano, 2000; Pollock, 2000). They are configured as a complex system of enterprises that realize the shift from value chain to value network, where each single enterprise provides a small part of the total service or prod-

Supporting and Promoting Tourism Network Systems through ICT Applications

uct, and contributes in increasing the total value delivered. By using internetworking technologies actors could share knowledge and information, feeding so the process of learning and innovation and creating in this way learning and innovation networks. Virtual networks are assumed to lower the complexity and uncertainty that characterize the business environment by close cooperation among organizations, by bringing together different and specialized resources, knowledge and competence basis, by producing and offering collectively and rapidly a product or service that the market demand. The recent trend of creating DMS for tourism oranizations presents a useful approach toward the creation of network systems where small and medium firms can highly collaborate horizontally, vertically and diagonally and can achieve economies of scale and scope, make cost effective use of technology, reach global customers, take part of global online marketplace and develop further their.

Virtual Networks in Tourism: Insights from Three Case Studies To look at the main status, features and characteristics of virtual tourism networks and to extract useful insights and policy recommendations we conducted both a desk and a field analysis, to develop a qualitative and quantitative research about the emerging relevance of the tourism sector as based on network systems. The qualitative analysis was based on the study of three European representative cases of well known tourism DMS, whose results provided a deeper understanding of relevant concepts and issues characterizing these new systems. The cases are 1. Tiscover: one of the Europe’s leading online Destination Management Systems (DMS). It is one of the first ever travel information system founded in 1991 with the formation

of TIS GMBH as a subsidiary company of Tirol Werbung. When it embarked on the development of the TIS destination database in 1991, it decided to set up a separate company constituted as a whole owned subsidiary of the Board (WTO, 2001). Today it is a publicly listed company and it is one of the most known tourism portal which collect together the portals and tourism structures of several nations such as Italy, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, UK and South Africa. Differently from major DMS suppliers, it is a private enterprise, which does not use public funds, instead it is an auto-financed system, attaining funds from fees and payments charged to tourism providers in order to be presented on the systems. The Mission of Tiscover is to market/promote destinations and serve customers universally, in a consolidated way by creating a single information system and offering a seamless blend of tradition and innovation. It aims to distribute timeless, reliability and functionality information in a convenient way by use of multiple channels. It is a knowledge/information network where suppliers, distributors, customers and partners collaborate and integrate electronically for its success and development. Its business model is built upon experience and expertise of staff on eDestination marketing, Know-how of customers, technical and eTourism skills. 2. Ireland, where in the early 1990 a joint venture between Board Fáilte and the Northern Ireland Tourist Board started with the aim to realize a comprehensive and up to date tourism database as a very powerful tool for both marketing and visitor servicing. This initiative gave birth of Gulliver system which is today a key resource for tourism industry and the leading consumer site for tourist information and reservations. The system includes everything imaginable of interest to

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tourists along with the means to research and book all types of accommodations anywhere in Ireland. Initially, Gulliver was essentially an internal reservation system used by tourist offices to book accommodation for services. Today, Gulliver goes directly to customers by its premier customer site Goireland.com. It is the online shop window for Irish Tourism Businesses and the leading consumer site for tourist information and reservations. The Gulliver system currently offers the possibility for tourism organisations to book facilities through the tourist office network; reengineering of the technology and search for new solutions is a continuous process of the system. Its corporate mission is to develop a public private partnership that delivers the benefits of a network system to the industry within a sound commercial business model and to increase the contribution of tourism to the economy by facilitating the development of a competitive and profitable tourism industry. 3. Holland. Holland.com website for tourism management was developed and implemented by Netherlands Tourism Board in strong collaboration with a private and public partnership network of different local companies, specifically: Ministry of Economic Affairs; Detelegraf (the largest newspaper in Holland); Heineken (beer’s company); Rabobank (a large bank in the region); Veronica (a TV center); KLM Royal Dutch airlines; and KPN (the telecom company). The initial version of this site was released on September1st, 1998 under the name Visitholland.com. A merger between Netherlands Tourism and Recreation board (TRN) and Netherlands Board of Tourism (NBT) was realized in 2001. Since then it has operated as a single centre of expertise for

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the Netherlands as a destination for tourism and conventions. Today the department which manage the DMO is called the Department of Internet Services which function as a real research and development organisation since it doesn’t only base its activities in offering a suitable database and search engines but instead on searching and developing continuously innovative solutions, researching constantly the satisfaction of customers and their preferences, as well as being in line with new and emergent models, practices and political issues. Recently the DMO of Holland is trying to make its site more accessible for handicap and disable persons, responding so to the new European political issues which call for a more attention to the needs and requirements of these persons. Holland.com mission is to offer a convenient one-stop shopping place for tourists worldwide by offering a wide range of tourism and non-tourism products in a reliable and credible way. It is also aimed to market the destination and operate as a single centre of expertise for tourism firms in Holland. The quantitative analysis was used to complement the first look at the tourism network system, through a survey targeted on SMEs in Tourism sector, to gather their perceptions, attitudes regarding the real and potential benefits that the network systems bring on. An e-mail questionnaire strategy was applied and 129 out of 600 e-mail questionnaires was the total usable sample size used to extract insights and considerations. According to the conducted study, a network tourism system can be described as in Figure 4. According to this representation all the actors are distributed around the virtual tourism network, that in many cases is represented by the destination management organisation itself and is built around the DMS platform. The integration enabled by virtual networks is related to both functions/ processes in order to increase efficiency, and public/private external

Supporting and Promoting Tourism Network Systems through ICT Applications

Figure 4. The configuration of Network tourism Systems

organisations to support e-business models and new forms of relationships. It is aimed to offer personalized and high quality services, and to enable customers to continuously communicate and relate with tourism-related enterprises, accessing information instantly, inexpensively and interactively, regardless of physical location. The tourism network is made up of three main critical components,: 1. Nodes 2. Linkages 3. Hub actor Nodes are represented by actors participating in the system. A multitude of different actors collaborate with each other and engage in value creating coordination of interdependent activities. Every actor contribute with skills, knowledge, and information to create so a pool of expertise for better management and a knowledgeable centre that represent a very strategic resource for the system and its participants. As for the Linkages, each node is linked with other nodes and with the central hub by specific networked applications that realize the internetworking among different actors, applications

and support upstream transactions with suppliers, downstream transactions with customers and distributors. Nodes symbolise channels for communication, knowledge sharing, transfer and information power. On the other hand the establishment of linkages between potential members of a network allows them to know each other and to make a first assessment of benefits they can accrue. The direct linkages available for tourists allow them to directly reserve and book their holidays from tourism suppliers, bypassing intermediaries and what is most important, offering much more possibilities for highly customization of products and services. The Hub Actor is the central management unit that act as a facilitator and catalyst. It functions as a knowledge centre that promotes and organises cooperation and collaboration among actors, provide training and industry service. In case of tourism systems the hub actor in most cases is the DMO supported by DMS technology infrastructure. It is in the position to integrate and bring together all tourist providers, to empower interactions, to develop an integrated and complex tourist product. In the case of Tiscover the initiative started from a regional DMO – Tirol Tourist Board. In

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other words, DMO-s provides the context for other actors of the destination and tries to integrate and coordinate processes, to market and manage relationships toward a highly and new integrated value preposition. Through the analysis of the three cases defined before, some common features emerge to characterize network tourism systems. They are summarized below, according to selected dimensions. a. Collaboration Network systems are generally aimed to: •

•

•

•

offer a seamless travel tourist experience by blending together in a ‘one-stop-shop’ marketplace all the necessary elements and issues a customer may require in a certain destination; provide a cost - effectiveness way of transacting for customers by providing an easy and friendly way to book and reserve a trip; gain high customer satisfaction and fulfilment by personalizing and customizing products and services by means of new innovative ICT tools e.g. CRM applications. promote the destination and its structures under a single qualitative brand.

The interviewers in our study reveals that in order to realize these objectives, strong collaboration and partnership between and among different players, tourism/non-tourism organizations, is compulsory to provide comprehensive, qualitative, integrated, specialized services, information and products. We found in our case studies that different categories have been engaged in initiatives such as financial and assurance organizations, universities and research institutions, public organizations, Internet service providers, application providers, service providers, technology suppliers, telecom companies. These partners support and facilitate everyday activities of the system and help the system to grasp the total sat-

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isfaction of customers with every single service in the destination level. b. Activities Another, important feature for an effective network system is to offer - a complete base of activities, services and information necessary for tourists before its journey in the place in addition to a wide number of value added services, personalized and customized. In our study the range of products offered goes from the accommodation structure until to the lowest level of information. Information, services and products concern not only before trip needs but also during and after trip needs and requirements. This in order to be continuously in contact with customers and provide them with all needed and required information for journey planning and organization. c. Processes The incorporation and support of electronic components of network systems requires the performance of new and complex processes which crosses the boundaries of organization. New processes emerge that involve sharing information and processes among different actors. Customer relationship management; electronic publishing and editing; network promotion; e-Marketing and e-Management, are some of new processes that we found to be performed by the network systems in order to enable an effective transition toward integrated systems and to fully exploit the opportunities. d. Distribution New distributive channels and tools are available for tourism products as web-sites, search engines, e-mail tools, CRM, electronic newsletters, call centers. These tools provide more effective methods for communicating their products and services, interrelating with their target customers,

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recruiting and retaining them and provisioning more customized and personalized products/ services. Furthermore, new electronic distributive channels allow tourism firms to set aside more variety and alternatives to communicate with different customers, from different places and with different backgrounds. e. Content The data concerning tourism are very heterogeneous and different involving so the need for a destination to organize and aggregate the local tourist supply, based on specific know-how and provide comprehensive, qualitative, integrated, specialized information and contact point with any type of service providers. This is due to the fact that, tourist perceive the destination as a single brand, he/she does not base its evaluation on a single service or product, but otherwise in his/her overall experience with the location. The interviewers in our study reveal this characteristic as the departure point for the creation of network systems. The case studies revealed that there was a large and integrated presence of local tourist suppliers’ products and services offered, including information about site and attraction, events, folks, list and contact point of available facilities, accommodation establishments and other catering business, travel agencies and tour operators, weather conditions etc. Also, the online reservation was available in almost all our cases, although this was mostly available for accommodation structures. f.

Transactions Security

Secured and convenient online transactions were reported to be very critical by our interview respondents. This is related with the reality that customers in general are resistant to make online reservations because they don’t trust to offer

their credit cards nr. and other private personal information on-line. Statistical data show that there are more lookings than bookings and usually customers use a web site to take information and then they prefer to use a traditional intermediary for booking their travel. In our case studies we found that managers were struggling to turn lookers into bookers by offering secured, convenient payment methods for their customers as well as innovative technological tools and applications which permit the company to continually be in touch with customers. g. Required Skills The implementation of electronic models requires organization wide-changes, particularly in governance and skill development, which would be required to support new capabilities. Specifically the management and development involve integrating a mixture of skills and network interdependency which allow the knowledge sharing and creation, use of core competencies of each networking group as well as more efficiency in tasks’ handling. Our interviews reveal that one of the main features of systems was the set up of a teamwork group with interdisciplinary skills as well as the creation of knowledge-based communities among participants for knowledge sharing and effective learning process. A mixture of skills and capabilities were required to handle different aspects and activities such as: the promotion of destination and tourism enterprises; e-Marketing of destination; customer relationship management; planning and management of e-business strategy; on line bookings and transactions. Capabilities necessary to support and realize these very complex systems include information management capabilities; analytical capabilities; technical capabilities; communication, networking and coordination capabilities; management and business capabilities.

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h. Revenue Models Different revenue models are available since systems realize their revenues in different ways based on the activities and services they offer. The main source of revenues comes from advertising fees and membership subscription fees. Other sources of revenues include commissions on transactions, public sector funding, and profit on retail sales, charges for different services such as training, customer information, market surveys, web-design, and payment for advice, support and marketing assistance.

WEB 2.0 TECHNOLOGIES: ONLINE COMMUNITIES TO SUPPORT THE DESTINATION MANAGEMENT The growing diffusion of ICT applications within Tourism sector, and the development of new and more powerful ones, supported by interoperability, personalization and constant networking, empower the actors of a Tourism system and accordingly increase their efficiency. In recent years, the advent of the “Internet 2.0” has allowed Tourism Systems to overcome a critical point of the complex tourism product, that is the uncertainty driven by the intangibility of its nature and the impossibility for customers to test and evaluate previously the characteristics the product they are going to buy. The use of Internet during the first phase of development of DMSs was limited to the visualization of static contents. Later the enhanced capability to develop the integration of databases and the growing diffusion of the Content Management Systems enabled the development of dynamic web sites that improved the interaction among web users in searching, finding and producing digital contents. Today the traditional internet tools represented by forums and newsgroups, thought to allow the exchange of information and opinions, have been

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complemented by new tools whose category is generally identified with the name “Web 2.0”, coined by Tim O’Reilly in 2004, and referring to the Internet second generation, made of collaborative internet-based services such as social networks, blogs, wikies and the new means for participation, information sharing and online collaboration. The pervasiveness of Internet and the potentialities of these new tools offer to Tourism sector the opportunity to activate within the digital sphere the dynamics of the real “pass the word”, that plays a crucial role for the purchase of products characterized by complexity and intangibility. Tourism product is strongly heterogeneous, made of the integration of several different components, and very hard to standardize, since it is the result of environmental factors, contingent and unpredictable circumstances, and sometimes strongly differentiated processes. To reduce the uncertainty related to the choice of a particular destination, tourists are led to recur to more reliable sources of information, able to describe real tourists’ experiences, and to communicate quality and opportunities related to a destination choice. The rise of the Tourism DIY (do-it-yourself) while benefiting from the functionalities enabled by the web, opened the way to more democratic and somehow uncontrollable communication dynamics that show the need for the destinations to develop and coordinate unambiguous and unitary communication strategies to let destinations take advantage of a promotion effect. The improvement in the web-based collaboration among the different territorial stakeholders is able to grant the creation and diffusion of an effective message to promote a destination for all the web users (Lanza et al, 2007). The relational dimension is becoming more and more the basic component of the tourism product/ service; accordingly the relationship quality is the main determinant of the success of the tourist’s experience. As a consequence, it becomes crucial for operators and firms of the sector to monitor

Supporting and Promoting Tourism Network Systems through ICT Applications

time by time mood and satisfaction of tourists or potential ones to tune effective marketing strategies and ensure their competitiveness. For this reason blogs are becoming largely diffused among tourists’ communities. In 2006 the tour operator TUI (http://www.tui.it/default.aspx) developed the initiative of a public competition entitled “Blog your holiday”. The initiative saw the participation of more than 1200 bloggers located in all Italy, and let the tour operator gain the title of Italian Blog Marketing First Initiative. In 2007 it was successfully replicated, enhancing the web 2.0 characteristics of the initiative. The initiative is focused on creating a “tale of the journey”, made up by the bloggers on their own blogs, and proposed to a public voting. The winner blogger receive by TUI a holiday, but also the voting users can obtain some other awards. Since the probability of a blogger to win increases with the number of his friends invited to participate, the initiative counts on a virtuous mechanism of community growth based on the “viral dynamic” of the participants behaviour (Lanza et al, 2007). A recent study was conducted about 11 online travel communities known at global level (Dippelreiter et al., 2008). They were selected in part among the most long-established ones, to explore the quantity of provided features; in part among recently established ones, developed along the Web 2.0 paradigm; and in part among the most destination focused to discover how much they provide region-specific features. The analysis uncovered a clear distinction between of two types of interaction: on one hand a personal communication where members’ interaction is guaranteed by the direct communication to each other; and an information exchange, where members interact providing, reading and commenting information. Tourists have a different interaction behaviour according to their position in the Tourist Lifecycle, that is articulated on three phases: pretrip, on-site, after-trip (Werthner and Klein, 1999).

During the pretrip phase tourists face planning and decision making processes, but to satisfy their information needs they are sometimes disoriented by a huge amount of unstructured information, especially in the blogging communities. In this phase destination browsing is of high importance, and Web 2.0 technologies has enabled advanced forms of destination browsing such as interactive navigation on geographical maps. It is also important for users to have the possibility to aggregate the relevant trip information for later on-trip assistance. As for the on-site phase, beyond the possibility to use a personal travel guide develop in the previous stage, there are few effective services accessible during the trip. It become relevant for users the capability to download selected contents, and to interact with web resources by adopting a mobile device, to post entries, images and videos in a dynamic way. During the last phase, the after-trip stage, it becomes crucial to develop practices and culture oriented to motivate members to share the ended experience with the community itself, since this information is of great value for all the potential tourists that are entering the first phase of the tourist lifecycle.

CONCLUSION: SUPPORTING PREREQUISITES AND POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS FOR SUCCESSFUL ICT APPLICATION IN TOURISM To ensure that a network system realizes its maximum potential, the existence of a favourable or enabling environment is paramount, as result some fundamental conditions and policies which support and facilitate it are required. Below some of the main conditions and issues that stimulate and facilitate the creation of network tourism systems are listed, according to the evidences coming from the case studies.

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First, many times ICT use doesn’t guarantee profitability and many times worse the competitive position of firms (Porter, 1985). One of the main reasons associated with that is the fact that application and implementation of ICT tools and infrastructures are not suitable for their needs and objectives. They lack an e-business strategy design. The first step in every e-initiative is the establishment of an appropriate and context tailored strategy. Every project or initiative needs to be rooted in a very careful, analytical and dynamic strategy. This seems to be a very difficult task, requiring a focus on many aspects and processes, a holistic vision, long-term focus and objectives. In many cases the shift toward new electronic business models is limited to a simple transfer of information and services online without taking into consideration the re-engineering process needed to grasp the full benefits. Part of the strategy is to engage in a rigorous assessment of the current situation, the reality on the ground, articulate costs, impacts and benefits as well as continuously monitor and evaluate the project upgrading. Second, a successful e-business strategy requires an accurate e-business infrastructure characterized by flexibility, scalability and reliability. Innovative, compatible technologies need to be used to ensure secure and convenient transactions, interoperability and systems integration through the use of open standards, as transmission control protocol (TCP), internet protocol (IP), and secure socket layers (SSL), presentation of multimedia information, and use of a set of applications for internal and external integration, data management and electronic commerce. Establishing privacy and secure transactions policies between organizations and individuals will be needed to ensure, among other things, the privacy, security and legal recognition of electronic interactions. Third, the promotion of the entire touristy destination supply requires the need for a strong cooperation and networking of all local enterprises and partners of tourism industry. Tourism firms are highly dependent on actions, directions and

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also resources of other firms. Furthermore, being that tourism market is fragmented and insists on differentiated products, the basis of competition is to rely on product quality and reliability and in the ability to deliver promptly and in small batches. Therefore they have to seek collaboration and joint action for at least two reasons: to access other firm’s resources through the web of network relationships; and to create joint actions for satisfying at maximum destination customers and so improving the quality of service provision of destination as a whole. Working together at destination level to create a tourism destination brand (like Tiscover, Holland) is critical in tourism industry. Because tourism products are experiential, customers often make their first choices on brand name reputation. Collaboration between the private and public sectors is needed too, in order to provide resources, skills and capabilities required. For example, the partnership with ICT firms is able to support with technical skills and infrastructure; meanwhile, collaboration with universities and research institutions will provide the required staff, learning and training courses for staff and stakeholders. Fourth, to ensure collaboration and cooperation of different players, it is important to try to build social capital and trust among them. The interplay of competitive and cooperative firms could not be able to distribute its benefits if it is not anchored in a special social climate involving a sense of cultural identity and shared of social norms, values and attitudes. Collaboration and trust can be supported in many ways, such as: • • • •

raising awareness of the benefits of knowledge exchange and networking; providing support and appropriate incentive schemes for collaboration; initiating network brokers that bring together actors; acting as facilitator and moderator of networking and knowledge exchange;

Supporting and Promoting Tourism Network Systems through ICT Applications

• •

facilitating and creating a context for informal and formal exchange of knowledge; Setting-up programmes for collaborative research and development.

Choosing appropriate communication mechanisms is key to raise awareness, to foster trust among different actors and to facilitate rapid interaction all over the life of a network. Different communication mechanisms need to be chosen for different purposes. Fifth, in major cases network initiatives have been led by public destination management organizations (NTO/RTO) which have the political power and databases ownership regarding all touristy suppliers. It is believed that a champion who believes that the specific network will build skills that are relevant is very important. They also own some kind of social capital in relationship with tourism partners and stakeholders which is an outcome of long and historical relationship among them. Therefore, these public organizations are indispensable at an initial phase to ensure the network creation based in this embedded historical social capital. There exist a certain number of mechanisms to build trust in e-business environments, such as, for example, virtual communities (Hagel et al, 1997), performance history, mediation services or insurance in case of harm, third party verification and authorization, and, a clear and explicit privacy policy (Friedman, 2000; Dimitrakos, 2001). In networks trust and loyalty is established through the creation of a strong and highly qualitative brand name of the destination, under which all tourism elements are represented. Sixth, leadership and political support is essential for bringing together tourism suppliers and one of the main driving forces of every new and innovative project or initiative. Suppliers, in general, are often willing to cooperate only if there is concrete evidence that the system can offer bookings and immediate financial gains, while they avoid investing in establishing links or developing the system (Buhalis, 2002). A leading

player which is able to understand the real costs and benefits of the project, to motivate, influence, include and support other organizations and institutions, is required. Leadership is necessary before, during and after project implementation. Before the project is initiated, leadership is needed in order to explain the concept, the model and create awareness; during the project, leadership is needed to manage change and support the project; and after the project, it is needed to pledge the required flexibility and adaptability of the initiative. Seventh, hybrid human capacities are central for successful implementation, such as technological, commercial and management. Technical skills for installation, maintenance, designing and implementation of ICT infrastructure, as well as skills for using and managing online processes, functions and customers, are necessary. To address human capital development issues, knowledge management initiatives are required focusing on staff training, seminars, workshops in order to create the required skills. Furthermore, lifelong learning is an essential prerequisite as the rate of change increases and new technologies, practices and competitive models emerge. Finally, customer orientation is paramount. Different customer groups have very different and complex needs, which need to be taken in account in order to assure high satisfaction and fulfillment of customer needs. It is important to develop sophisticated data management systems, which integrate customer information and are so able to profile customers purchasing habits, to offer personalized and customized products and services, maintain direct and interactive communications with customers, gain and retain them. Convenient and diverse access alternatives and solutions need to be offered to customers including mobile telephones, kiosks, and multi-channel access to services. As WTO (1998) argues – “The key to success lies in the quick identification of customer needs and in reaching potential clients with comprehensive, personalized and up-to date information”. CRM activities and community

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building are paramount for realizing this. Customer relationship management tools are one of the most important tools for building and capturing knowledge about firm’s customers. Moving from product–centric to a customer–centric approach necessitates the use and leverage of new internetworking tools for a better management of customer relationship dynamics.

REFERENCES Baggio, R. (2004). Network Analysis of a Tourism Destination, Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, School of Tourism - University of Queensland, Australia, July 2008 Becattini, G. (1990). The Marshallian industrial district as a socio-economic notion . In Pyke, F., Becattini, G., & Sengenberger, W. (Eds.), Industrial Districts and Inter-firm Co-operation in Italy (pp. 37–51). Geneva: International Institute for Labour Studies. Stefan Berger, Hans Lehmann, & Franz Lehner (2003). Location-based services in the Tourist Industry.

Chu, R. (2001). What online Hon Kong Travelers look for on airline /travel websites? International Journal of Hospitality Management, 20(1), 95–100. doi:10.1016/S0278-4319(00)00046-3 Dimitrakos, T. (2001). System Models, e-Risks and e-Trust. Dippelreiter, B., Grun, C., Pottler, M., Seidel, I., Berger, H., Dittenbach, M., & Pesenhofer, A. (2008). Online Tourism Communities on the Path to Web 2.0: an Evaluation. [Conizant Comm. Corp., USA.]. Information Technology and Tourism, 10, 329–353. doi:10.3727/109830508788403132 Discover Ireland (2010). Retrieved from http:// www.discoverireland.com/it/ Emmer, Tauck, Wilkinson, Moore (1993). Marketing hotels using global distribution system. Frew & O’Connor (1998). Destination Marketing System strategies: refining and extending an assessment framework. Frew & O’Connor (2004). Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism. New York: Springer Computer Science.

Beynon-Davies P. (2004). Review of “e-Business”.

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Buhalis, D. (2002). Information Technology and Tourism: Trends and Developments.Buhalis D.,(2003). eTourism: Information Technology for Strategic Tourism Management.Pearson London. Financial Times/Prentice Hall.

Hjalager, A. M. (1999). Tourism destinations and the concept of industrial districts, ERSA conference papers no. ersa99pa288. European Regional Science Association.

Buhalis, D., Law R. (2008). Progress in Tourism management: 20 years on and 10 years after the Internet: the state of Tourism research. eBusiness W@tch, 2006.

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Roopa Jakkilinki, Mladen Georgievski, Nalin Sharda,(2007). Connecting Destinations with an Ontology-Based e-Tourism Planner. Kim W.G. &Lee H.Y.,(2004). Comparison of web service quality between online travel agencies and online travel suppliers. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing. Lanza, E., Malizia, W., & Del Corpo, B. (2007). Collaborative Online Network: Promuovere il Turismo con il Web 2.0, Rapporto sullo Sviluppo Sostenibile 2007, Fondazione ENI Enrico Mattei, available at http://www.feem.it/ NR/rdonlyres/F2758EE5-1955-4DA3-BF022F9E5FD454AA/2414/62007.pdf Laudon, P., & Laudon, C. (2007). Management Information Systems: managing the Digital Firms & Multimedia. U Prentice Hall. Maedche, Staab,(2002). et al., SEAL – tying up information integration and web site management by ontologies. Michopoulou, E., Buhalis, D., Michailidis, S., Ambrose, I.,(2007). Destination Management Systems: Technical Challenges in Developing an eTourism Platform for Accessible Tourism in Europe. O’Connor, P. (1999). Electronic Information Distribution in Tourism and Hospitality. Wallingford: CAB International. Paraskevas, A., & Buhalis, D. (2002). Outsourcing IT for Small Hotels: The Opportunities and Challenges of Using Application Service Providers. Tourism Research. Passiante, G., & Romano, M. (2000). Impresa e competizione nella Net Economy. Approcci e modelli interpretativi . In Passiante, G., Elia, V., & Massari, T. (Eds.), Net Economy. Approcci interpretativi e modelli di sviluppo regionale. Bari: Ed. Cacucci Editore.

Petti, Ndou,(2004). Virtual Networks in the Tourism Industry. Pollock, A. (2000). Intelligent Destination Management Systems: The makings of a nervous system for tourism?. Poon (1993). Tourism, technology, and competitive strategies. Porter, M. (1985). Competitive Advantage: creating and sustaining superior Performance. New York: Free Press. Porter, M. E. (2001). Strategy and Internet. Boston: Harward Business Review. Pyke, F., Beccatini, G., & Sengenberger, W. (1990). Industrial Districts and Inter-firm Cooperation in Italy. Geneva: International Institute for Labour Studies. Reino, S.,(2006). The Development and Validation of an Assessment Model for eTourism Capability. Report, W. I. (1994). Transactional Corporation, Employment and the Workplace. UNCTAD. Rita P.,(2000). Web Marketing Tourism Destinations. Romano, A., & Passiante, G. (2000). Un modello per la gestione innovativa dei Sistemi Economici locali - Il Sistema Innovativo Virtuale . In Valdani, E., & Ancarani, F. (Eds.), Strategie di marketing del territorio. Milano: EGEA. Rosenfeld, S. (1996). United States: business cluster in Networks of Enterprises and Local Development. Paris: OECD. Sengenberger, Loveman& Piore,(1990). Small Business Dynamics, International nation and regional perspectives.Publisher Charlie Karlsson, Bengt Johannisson and David Storey. Sheldon, P. J. (1997). Tourism information technology. CAB International.

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The European e-Business Watch, (2006).Retrieved from http://www.ebusiness-watch.org/studies/ sectors/tourism/tourism.htm Thomas, L. (2000). Friedman. The Lexus and the Olive Tree. Tiscover. (2010).Retrieved from http://www. tiscover.com/ Turban & Aronson. (2001). Decision Support Systems & Intelligent Systems. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Young Chung & Buhalis,(2008). Web 2.0: A study of online travel community.

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ENDNOTES 1



2



3



An ontology represents a set of concepts within a domain and the relationships between those concepts. That represents a new paradigm for how people can work and live together. According to the eBusiness W@tch, we can distinguish four categories of firms, according to their sizes: micro (1-9 employees), small (10-49), mediunm (50-249), large (250-+).

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Chapter 9

New Approaches for Managing Tourism Complexity: Implications and Insights Valentina Ndou University of Salento, Italy

ABSTRACT This chapter’s main objective is to provide a new conceptualization of the tourism which has major implications for management approaches, business models and strategy techniques of the sector. The objective is to try to reconcile the complexity of the environment with the managerial techniques and strategies that aim to create sustainable competitive advantage. The author will begin with a review of tourism characteristics of supply and demand side. Then they will analyze the paradigm shifts that are taking place overall in the new economy and the main challenges they bring on in the tourism context. Subsequently, they will discuss the need to realize a shift in tourism conceptualization and management in itself. The author will move their focus of analysis away from traditional, mechanical views of tourism to dynamic approaches that take into account the behavior of the overall system and help identify key leverage points of change and transformation.

INTRODUCTION It is already known that innovativeness and sustainability of tourism sector is highly related with the economic progress and growth of localities and regions and affects social, cultural and economic life. It is one of the economic’ sectors that contribute for a large part of employment,

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61520-867-8.ch009

balance payments, GDP growth, capital investment (in direct and indirect sectors). Therefore, approaching tourism in a systemic and strategic way will be of particular relevance for many social aspects and for the innovativeness of different sectors. But, despite its pivotal role in economic activities, only recently tourism research has been considered worthy of serious research endeavor and academic study (Cooper et al, 1998). From the early 1800s when the word ‘tourist’ first appeared, significant contributions have been

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New Approaches for Managing Tourism Complexity

done in literature about tourism management, tourism planning and organization. However, many authors acknowledge that tourism studies and theories lack behind the developments and progresses done in other disciplines (Hall, 2000; Hall and Butler, 1995). In general there is a trend to not focus much research in the tourism sector, and very few contributions have been done to study tourism in the light of new strategic approaches. Besides, traditional approaches seem to subsist yet in tourism literature. While, the extant literature on strategic management witness as outdated the traditional, mechanical approaches to explain and to handle the dynamicity, the complexities and the unpredictability’s of the new environment. In the light of these assertions, this chapter’s main objective is to provide a new conceptualization of the tourism which has major implications for management approaches, business models and strategy techniques of the sector. The objective is to try to reconcile the complexity of the environment with the managerial techniques and strategies that aim to create sustainable competitive advantage. We will begin with a review of tourism characteristics of supply and demand side. Then we will analyze the paradigm shifts that are taking place overall in the new economy and the main challenges they bring on in the tourism context. Subsequently, we will discuss the need to realize a shift in tourism conceptualization and management in itself. We will move our focus of analysis away from traditional, mechanical views of tourism to dynamic approaches that take into account the behavior of the overall system and help identify key leverage points of change and transformation.

TOURISM FEATURES Tourism is a service sector with a particularly complex product, made up of different constituent resources and which depend on an extremely fragmented supply. Like other services, tourism

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Table 1. Features shaping tourism demand and supply Features shaping tourism Supply features • Modularity • Heterogeneity • Information intensive • Fragmentation • Local

Demand Features • Volatility, Ambiguity, Uncertainty • Experiential • Global

services are intangible, non-storable, customerspecific nature, overlapping of production and consumption, and sensitivity to relationship and reputation. In general, tourism from the supply side perspective can be seen as a whole range of individuals, businesses, organizations and places which combine in some way to deliver a travel experience (Cooper et al, 1998). Distinctive features shape the demand and supply side (Table 1). In the following sections we will rehearse these features. a. Supply side Features: In the supply side tourism is characterized by: Modularity – Tourism products and services are made up of different syndicated resources supplied from a large array of suppliers. This characteristic breeds product uniqueness and differentiation from other durable good. Delivering the product means coordinating and assembling different parts of the whole problem solving process for the client. This attribute provides for the sector major opportunities and potentialities for innovation as modularity allows disaggregation and re-aggregation of components to create different utilities and idiosyncratic products and services. Heterogeneity - The market structure of the tourism industry is extremely heterogeneous, with many players characterized by different dimensions and economic performances. Tourism also interrelate with many other sectors and activities

New Approaches for Managing Tourism Complexity

of the economy generating so a multiplier effect in the economy. This characteristic could provide several benefits for tourism competitiveness, as firms have the possibility to harness external economies and to capitalize on complementarities, critical for learning, innovating and rapidly creating new products and services. Information intensive business – the production and the distribution of information constitutes the core element of the tourism industry. What tourism actors like hotels, travel agencies, and tour operator’s exchange and distribute with each other is the information and knowledge to handle effectively their tasks and operational processes. In this sense, tourism market and its supply chain can be considered an information system network, characterized by interrelated conglomeration process of all those players being involved in the production, distribution and consumption of travel products. Fragmentation - Refers to a clear division into two parts: on one hand, there are the large tourism organizations and on the other side exists the universe of SME competing with large organizations and with one another. SME pre-dominate the tourism sector. In Europe there are some 2.7 million SMEs in European tourism sector (West, Central and Eastern Europe), accounting for 99% of all companies in the tourist sector. (EC, 2003). This characteristic makes the endeavour of tourism management more difficult as different approaches strategies and mechanisms are required to handle needs and requirements of these two groups. At one side this characteristic represents a challenge, as SME are in general reluctant to changes and innovation. But at the other hand it presents an opportunity, too, as it facilitates quick start-up and flexible supply sources that can respond quickly to fluctuations in demand (Cooper et al, 1998). Global supply - Tourism value chain is distributed in a global scale. Most of tourist actors reside in different places. For example to accomplish the demand of a German tourist that wants to make his vacations in Italy communicate with the travel

agency in Austria, then flight with the airline company of England, then resides in a hotel in Italy. Then, one time arriving in the specific location the tourist experience local endowments, natural or cultural, inherited or created. This characteristic stem for a good understanding global dynamics of tourists, in order to attract and motivate the right tourist’s managers need to and then involve local skills and knowledge to plan and execute local actions to meet the needs of different tourist markets b. Demand side features While, tourism demand is: Volatility, Ambiguity and Uncertainty- Demand uncertainty and volatility characterizes tourism products and services. Tourists in general try to maximize their value in relation to costs in terms of money and time on tourism services and products and as a consequence they pay close attention to their choices and their travel experiences. The quality of tourism products is ambiguous because the value, quantity and quality of their constituent resources or parts are far from explicit and quantifiable. Moreover tourism is highly vulnerable to diverse political, social factors such as terrorism, war, disease, fluctuation of exchange rates, political conditions, and environmental issues. These factors are a major concern for the sector and their strategies for growth and competitiveness. Experiential – The product tourist buy is a series of events, themes such as the trip, the museum, the hotel, the restaurant etc that he wants to be engaged on during his journey. Tourist does not appropriate a tangible product, but overall some memorable moments that could result in a good or negative experience. Tourist experience products and then makes their positive or negative judgments about it. So, we may consider tourism as an “experience good”, as a form of hedonic consumption, where the experience is an end in itself (Hirschman and Holbrook, 1982)

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Table 2. Supply – Demand interaction Demand Experience demand

vs

Modular supply

Personalization

vs

Standardization

Integrated packages

vs

Fragmented supply

Global competition

vs

Fragmentation and local competition

Complex customer profiles

vs

Homogenous offer

Confidential – Tourist normally buy products or services before the time of consuming, and therefore it is difficult for customers to asses them prior to consumption. They need to rely in an “abstract” model and to be confident that the experience, they search for, will materialize and expectations would be satisfied. Complex – Tourism demand is much differentiated and complex since potentially everybody, from every part of the world is a traveler and a tourist. Competition in the tourism sector is measured at a global level and so it becomes important that all tourists’ operators seek to increase their level of market visibility by way of improved strategies of communication and relations with the end client and commercial partners. These particular characteristics of the sector make the management of the sector very challenging. A conflictive interaction between the demand and supply side exists, as set out in the table 2. Complex customer profiles demanding for experiential, personalized, integrated products could not be satisfied with a point-to-point offer, with standardized, homogenous and fragmented services. On the other hand, the global competition is in conflict with local competition of firms and with the fragmentation of the sector. Despite that, some opportunities are available to the sector, too. For example, matching the experiential demand, and responding to volatility and uncertainty of demand, the modularity and fragmentation feature could offer major opportunities for the sector being that there exist

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Supply

many possibilities to combine and match different modular products to come out with diverse products, differentiated for diverse tourists. The possibility of “mixing and matching” a range of “Plug and Play” compatible components within a single modular architecture suggests new kinds of product strategies and new possibilities for product creation processes (Sanderson and Uzumeri, 1995). Also, the informational characteristic of the sector represent enough opportunities for the sector to embrace new e-business models and to use technology tools for operational efficiency, cost reduction, quality of services, convenience, innovation and effectiveness.

PARADIGM SHIFTS AND INDUSTRY’S CHANGES Paradigm Shifts The growing complexity and dynamicity, the explosion and use of e-commerce and e-business models generate major impacts for tourism businesses and its competitive positioning strategies. The general trend of almost all tourism firms is the move toward the creation of business-tobusiness, business-to-consumer marketplace offering a medium to establish direct relationships among suppliers, consumers and intermediaries in every level. A lot of new online travel businesses have emerged recently such as Expedia, Orbitz, Online Destinations, Travelocity and online last

New Approaches for Managing Tourism Complexity

Table 3. Paradigm shifts PARADIGM SHIFTS Unit

Old paradigms

New paradigms

Market

Slow and linear

Fast and unpredictable

Economy

Supplier driven

Customer driven

Competition

Local competition

Global competition

Competitive Advantage

Raw material, cheap labor and capital, cost reduction through economies of scale.

Knowledge/ Competencies/ Dynamic Capabilities/ Human Resources.

Production

Mass Production

Flexible, Lean Production

Organizational Structure

Hierarchical management structure

Network structures, self-organizing actors

Managerial Approaches

Mechanical/Reductionism/Mono-Disciplines thinking

Dynamic/Multi-disciplinary/systemic thinking

minute to provide direct, easy, convenient, online travel access and reservation as well as to enable distressed inventory to be distributed efficiently. These developments are mostly a response to the new paradigms that characterize the context and which thrust for a reinvention of traditional modes of managing, producing, marketing and distributing tourism products/services The new paradigms are focusing on a customer driven orientation and ‘Trust based marketing’ instead of cost efficiency orientation and ‘Push marketing’ initiative. Hierarchical structures characterized by internal productive efficiency, functional rationality, departmentalization, management by rule and mandate are being replaced by network organization characterized by flexibility, innovative entrepreneurship and organization learning (see Table 3). These new paradigms require new ways of looking things and offer a radical transformation of the prevailing managerial common sense for best productivity and most profitable practice, which is applicable in almost any industry (Freeman and Perez, 1988). In fact substantial changes are shaping the sector. They are mostly qualitative and regard changes of consumer’s attitude and behavior, communication and distribution modes, interrelationship and collaboration among different actors of the

tourism value chain. The main changes consist on the following broad categories: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Customer Empowerment Business Digitalization Disintermediation/Re-Intermediation; Changing actors relationships

1. Customers Empowerment - Internet technologies have empowered tourists with more information and knowledge. Tourists have become more intelligent and more experienced. The online market trends allow customers to undertake the entire tourism product search and booking on line, 24-hours a day, seven-days-a week in which they can check the availability of the products, make online payment and follow their orders through the entire process without the aid of any intermediaries. Thus, they become more selective in choosing organizations basing their decisions on speed of services, customization and personalization, convenience and reliability. The profile of new digital customers stems for changing in organizations attitude of serving and relating with them. In particular organizations must be aware of customer value and their immense choices. To survive and be competitive organizations need to appropriate their strategies and objectives to the new customer needs and they

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have to be able to change their value preposition. Since customers have more choices they will be looking for the company with the most efficient – and integrated service offering (Overtveldt, 2001). In order to satisfy the consumer’s needs they must get as close to the customer as possible by going directly into their homes and offices; by enabling the customer to access and select information when, where and how they want it; and by developing long term relations with those customers. 2. Business Digitalization - Business digitalization consist on the permeation of ICT tools and applications in tourism functions, activities and processes. This trend is being materialized with the emergence of different e-tourism players such as Expedia, eBookers, Reshotels, Priceline, Travelocity. These businesses have digitalized the distribution and delivery of products and services. Some of them have achieved considerable growth rates such as Expedia being the largest online travel intermediary in the world and ranking the fourth largest travel agency in the USA with gross sales over $US5 billion in 2002; Travelocity – online travel agency starting as a small department of SABRE is the second largest online travel agency in the world for the leisure market and the online market leader for corporate travel; Lastminute.com one of Europe’s leading online retailers specialized in last minutes offers for airline tickets, hotel rooms, package holidays (Daniele& Frew, 2004). Also, suppliers have been able to capitalize on technology for improving the coordination of buying and selling, to meet in a more efficient way the needs of a more demanding customer base, to leverage it for internal processes and costs, to reduce processing cycle time and effort. Some hoteliers already generate total revenues above 30% from the Internet and more than half of this distribution directly to consumers. Some pro-active hoteliers and several major brands (Marriott, Hilton, etc) already boast a Direct vs. Indirect online revenue ratio as high as 75:25. According to Starkov and

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Price (2004) at Hospitality eBusiness Strategies (HeBS), over 16% of all revenues in hospitality are generated from the Internet (14% in 2003). An estimated 53%-54% of all Internet bookings in hospitality will be direct to consumer (i.e. via hotel-owned websites). 3. Disintermediation/Reintermediation – As result of business digitalization the tourism distribution is experiencing a process of disintermediation and re-intermediation, at the same time. Disintermediation is a structural change that ICT tools bring about in the distribution context. A great number of suppliers have embarked into online distribution channels substituting so the traditional costly intermediaries. It has been estimated that the traditional distribution channels costs about 30% of booking value to a hotel, where 10% of this value goes to travel agents, 4% for GDS transactions, 10-12% for CRS hotel, 0,5% switch systems and 3% credit card charge (Richer, O’Neill-Dunne, 1999). Therefore, a shift from simple transaction processors, resellers and information providers toward more knowledge based activities as consultants, information brokers and developer of personalized products is needed for travel agents (O’Brien, 1998). They need to change their roles from ‘agents for principals’ to ‘agents for customers’. However, at the same time re-intermediation is occurring, to compensate search costs and increasing information needs (Constantelou, 2002). New eMediaries have proliferated that offer consumer convenience in travel shopping through the use of sophisticated profiling and intelligent agents. Less entry barriers are presented in the intermediaries sector. Thus traditional and nontraditional organizations are being positioned as re-intermediaries in the new tourism value chain. 5. Relational Changes - A fundamental change has occurred in the relationships between the customers, suppliers, intermediaries, partners and other stakeholders. Vertical and horizontal integration of services are prevailing, enabling the integration of information and services from vari-

New Approaches for Managing Tourism Complexity

Table 4. Implications for tourism actors Actor

Implications

Customer/Tourist

Customers become more demanding. Tourists become more dynamic and interactive. They relate and continuously communicate with tourism enterprises, supporting, in this way, accountability, product’s quality and improvements of services. The relationships between tourism providers and customers change.

Intermediaries

Intermediaries move away from simple transaction processors, resellers and information providers toward more knowledge based activities as consultants, information brokers and developer of personalized products. They change their roles from ‘agents for principals’ to ‘agents for customers’ and, in some cases they enlarge their business to become tourism technology providers (like the case of Amadeus).

Suppliers

Suppliers change their structure and distribution process. They move toward electronic interactions and the development of electronic marketplaces for tourists. They embark in business-tobusiness e-commerce activities in order to lower their costs and improve inventory control.

Destination (Local/Regional/National management organisations (DMO)

DMO change their role and act as stimulators for collaboration and coordination of different actors. They embrace new technologies in their business and restructure themselves towards more flexible, less rigid institutional forms that can develop effective partnerships with private sector, organizations and associations in order to provide the best combination of services, products and professionalism to customers as a single system.

ous tourism organizations to help customers and other stakeholders get seamless services. Through the use of direct channels customers are able to directly communicate with the tourism organizations, request information and purchase products, access information instantly, inexpensively, interactively regardless of physical location. What these changes implicate for tourism actors? Table 4 delineate in a summarized way how these changes affect the role and attitude of diverse tourism actors:

RE-CONCEPTUALIZING TOURISM Problems with Traditional Approaches New tourism developments and trends signal a high complexity of the sector and require new techniques and new approaches to handle them effectively. Tourism definition in itself, as: ‘a set of activities and attractions which, situated in a defined space (corresponding to one or more

locations), and combined together, respond to a specific need of the tourist’, hint complexity. This growing complexity of the sector represent profound shift of thinking about the strategy and management practices of tourism, in particular in relation to how competitive advantage can be achieved and how sustainability could be attained. Conventional, traditional approaches, which have prevailed in the tourism management, are being increasingly considered unable to give directions for organizations to cope with uncertainty and unpredictability of the future. In traditional approaches the concepts of control and predictability have reigned. The competitiveness was based on having cost advantageous, comparative advantages and/or abundance of natural resources that could attract tourists. Strategy was a matter of positioning the firm within an industry according to a generic strategy either of low cost or product differentiation. The management techniques were based on the principle that organizations components and the interaction patterns could be understood and predicted, by breaking down the whole in its parts. Using these principles of traditional approach one could assume that if a country has abundance

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of natural resources, cheap labour/capital which are efficiently controlled and planned that country could be successful and competitive. But, if it is so, then: Why countries, which are characterized for their abundance with natural tourism attractions like sun, sea and beach as well as cultural resources, are losing competitiveness? Or why many destinations in developing countries characterized with abundance of resources and cost advantages, are not able to create wealth and prosperity in tourism. The traditional approaches used to manage and plan tourism activities are not giving sustainable responses to these issues. Analyzing and studying the constituent parts separately, do not give much insights on how all parts can function together, on what directions the whole industry/or sector need to move on, what actions, decisions and policies need to be activated in order to leverage the entire system. Senge (1990) notes “…..we are taught to break apart problems, to fragment the world. This apparently makes complex tasks and subjects more manageable, but we pay a hidden enormous price. We can no longer see the consequences of our action; we lose our intrinsic sense of connection to a larger whole”. There is the need to set out a new competitive framework for tourism management in the new economy. The traditional thinking of seeing the whole as sum of the parts need to be replaced with the new thinking that sees the whole as much more than the sum of parts, as a product of its interactions. “The whole is more than the sum of its parts.” (Aristotle) The applicability of this shift in tourism thinking is very relevant. It is well known that tourism is composed by complex products, including different syndicated parts offered by very heterogeneous actors. Furthermore, the ‘tourist experience’ is created in relatively small geographic areas known as clusters defined as geographic spaces in which the entire tourism experience takes place’ (WTO, 2000). Thus, tourism is a system in itself, the competitiveness of which depend on how

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its constituting parts, interact, and interrelate to deliver the best value for money for its tourists. Breaking this system into parts and assuming that the whole is the sum of its constituting parts mean that if a tourist consumes different products (let’s say five e.g.) and remains unsatisfied with only one of them, overall it is satisfied. However, in reality it is not true. It could happen that the un-satisfaction with only one product, or piece could undermine the overall tourist experience and satisfaction level. The tourists overall impression depend in its experience with all products, services and attractions as a whole, and is a matter of system dynamics, of how good and efficiently different parts interrelate and interact to cope with complexity and uncertainties. This means that much of an individual tourism business’ potential to achieve growth lies outside the power and the influence of the single company. Thus, a successful tourism destination is the one that gives the best value for customers as a whole system. But, what approach we need to adopt to study the system as a whole, its interactions and their implications?

Approaching Tourism as a System To understand the interactions of constituent parts, we need to conceptualize tourism as complex, dynamic, nonlinear systems and adopt holistic interpretations and multidisciplinary approaches to understand the dynamics of interactions of system’s actors with each other and with their environment. Recently, an alternative is provided by what is generally called the theory of complexity (Savioti, 2001). Across a number of different fields of study the complexity theory, which stems from the study of dynamic systems in natural sciences, is emerging to be an appropriate tool for the study of interdependent interactions among economic agents. From early 1990s, complexity theory has gained momentum in management literature as a

New Approaches for Managing Tourism Complexity

response to increasing turbulence in society and business. Many researchers have begun to use metaphors and analogies of complexity theory to study organizations and social phenomena (Eve, Horsfall and Lee, 1997; Stacey, 1992, 1995; Lissak, 1999) (Stacey, 1995; Grant, 1995). The complexity science represents a growing body of interdisciplinary knowledge about structure, behavior and dynamics of change in a specific category of complex systems known as complex adaptive systems. Understanding the local dynamics in a complex system can provide great insight into the behavior of the overall system and help identify key leverage points of change and transformation. The use of complexity theory metaphors can change the way managers think about the problems they face. It leads toward a systems thinking, that is: the ability to understand the key interrelationships that influence the behavior in complex systems over time - and should give the managers the capacity for ‘seeing the wholes’ (Senge, 1990). The principles of complexity and system thinking assume that: 1. The behaviors of the system arise from the interrelationships, interaction of elements within the system and between a system and its environment. 2. Through interaction and interrelation each part influence and is influenced by the others and thus the co-evolution takes place. 3. The behavior of systems can not be predicted in any precise sense. There is no tendency to stable equilibria, cascades of change are constantly interacting and reshaping competitive landscape (Grant, 1995). Small changes could have major, nonlinear, unpredictable changes in other parts of the system. 4. Systems have the capacity to self-organize, to adopt and change, and create new structures and systems in absence of formal authority (Grant, 1995).

Table 5. From mechanistic approaches to Dynamic approaches Mechanistic approaches Reductionism of phenomena Cause-effect relationships

Non-linear dynamic approaches ‘Holistic’ view of phenomena Interdependence

Marginal increments

Breakthroughs

Dichotomy thinking

Dual thinking

Mechanistic metaphors Metaphor of assembly Behaviors are pre-defined Emphasis on control The future is an extension of the past

Biologic metaphors Metaphor of morphogenesis Behaviors emerge Emphasis on support The future born in the present

In Table 5 a confrontation of the principles and concepts of the two approaches (mechanistic and dynamic non-linear approach) is set out. It is worth noting that, complexity is not a methodology or a set of tools (although it does provide both). It certainly is not a ‘management fad’. The theories of complexity provide a conceptual framework, a way of thinking, and a way of seeing the world (Kelly, 1998). But, what does it mean to conceptualize tourism according to complexity theory? If we conceptualize tourism with the complexity theory it means that we adopt a systemic thinking shaped by: •

Multidisciplinary view – as a new knowledge creation process for social and business innovation which transcends the discipline borders. Different disciplines need to be engaged to study and analyze the economic, geographic, geologic, and ecologic components of tourism systems. Interactions between tourism systems and their environments are pervasive (Simmons, Leiper, 1998). A multidisci-

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•

•

132

plinary approach help integrating diverse sets of knowledge and experiences to study and analyze the context and the local dynamics where the systems act, along with the environment in which they are embedded. Only by understanding the system dynamics, one can choose the actions that have the greatest leverage (Senge, 1990). Interactive and co-evolutionary view - All constituent parts of the tourism system are interrelated and interact with each other, and with the environment where they are embedded. They influence each other either directly or indirectly through feedback loops, which continually evolve and adapt to accomplish overarching goals (Sanders and Kadtke, 2001). They are subjects of common patterns of behavior (Grant, 1995). Therefore, change need to be seen as a co-evolution process with other related systems rather than as adaptation to a separate and distinct environment. In a co-evolutionary view each part is a fully participating agent which both influence and is influenced by, ecosystem, as well as economic, cultural and social conditions (Kelly, 1998). The reciprocal and high interdependency of tourism firms drive firms to an iterative process of interactions from which new co-evolutionary patterns emerge. Non-linear Innovation view – Patterns of innovation are non-linear created by the interaction and interrelationships of the system actors which disrupt existing patterns and generate radical, pervasive changes. Using the terms of Prigogine (1990) all systems contain subsystems which are continually “fluctuating”. When one or more fluctuations become so powerful, as a result of positive feedback, that they shatter the pre-existing organization, the system has been forced into a far-fromequilibrium condition and has reached a

point of bifurcation. The far from equilibrium situation makes systems unpredictable, as it couldn’t be predicted any precise time which direction change the system will move. In this situation firms are constrained to seek to organize to the new, unpredictable conditions, to experiment and explore their ‘space of possibilities’. This exploration helps them to discover and create new patterns of relationships and different structures (Kelly, 1998). This new conceptualization of tourism requires the discarding of conventional ways of doing business and shift to a new strategic management paradigm: ‘Systemic Strategy Management’ that focus on co-shaping organizational value prepositions through systemic organizational capabilities (Leibold et al, 2002).

Implications for Tourism Structures and Approaches Adopting the systemic thinking for tourism management requires major adjustments to be done on firm structure, production designs, managerial approaches and strategies. To the degree that a company operates within a system of competition and dynamic developments, gaining and sustaining competitive advantage depends on understanding not only a firm’s value chain but also how the firm fits in the overall system (Porter, 1998). As environment become more and more complex managers have to learn to expect the unexpected, the unpredictable and unknown. Therefore the main implications the transition toward system thinking bring on, are the followings: 1. Knowledge need to be conceived as the strategic resource for competitiveness – In order for managers to be able to cope with the unpredictable emergence there is the need of increased recognition of knowledge resources and knowledge management tech-

New Approaches for Managing Tourism Complexity

niques that help on understanding problems, opportunities, challenges just in time and act upon. In these terms, knowledge resources are considered as the most critical strategic resource as well as the ability to acquire, integrate, store, share and apply them become the most important resource for building and sustaining competitive advantage (Grant, 1996, Kogut and Zander, 1992, Penrose, 1995, Teece et al, 1997,). Companies having superior knowledge are able to coordinate and combine their traditional resources and capabilities in new and distinctive ways, providing more value for their customers than can their competitors (Penrose, 1995, Teece et al, 1997). Hence, competitive advantage can arise from effectively creating and transferring knowledge (Alavi 2000), especially collective tacit knowledge that is not stored in any given individual, and it is also difficult to convey to others (Brown and Eisenhardt 1997; Orlikowski 2002). Knowledge will become the fundamental factor underpinning successful tourism organizations. 2. Create Specialized Human capital – People are the repository of knowledge. Consequently, the knowledge worker turns out to be the most important asset for organizations. Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) point out that ‘Knowledge is created only by individuals. An organization cannot create knowledge on its own without individuals. Organizational knowledge creation should be understood as a process that organizationally amplifies the knowledge created by individuals and crystallizes it at the group level through dialogue, discussion, experience sharing, or observation’. The recognition of human capital as a strategic asset is especially relevant for tourism management, owing to its labour-intensive nature. Human capital is considered to be one of the pillars on which the development of tourism

resides upon. The efficiency of the sector is highly dependent on the development and management of people skills. However, in conditions of rapid market and technological change the skills and knowledge assets depreciates quickly. Changing the skills base, creating multidisciplinary competencies and capabilities are the drivers for innovative solutions and services. In this framework, learning is seen as a response to an increasingly unpredictable and dynamic business environment and as the only sustainable competitive advantage. Drucker (1993) highlights: ‘The most important contribution management needs to make in the 21st century is to increase the productivity of knowledge work and of the productivity of the knowledge worker’. 3. Modular production structures - To achieve continuity and flexibility production structures that allow interactions of processes, functions, humans, and actors are necessary. Modularity structures based on semi-autonomous modules may be particularly useful in reconciling the need for close collaboration at the small group level with the benefits of critical mass. (Sanchez, Mahoney, 1996). Modular production structures allow firms to be much more flexible as different ‘mixing and matching’ situations could be realized, creating large number of product variations, functionalities, features and/or performance (Sanderson, Uzumer, 1990; Sanchez, 1995). Modularity can be an important source of strategic flexible (Sanchez, 1995) when they enable a firm to respond more rapidly to changing markets and technologies by rapidly creating product variations based on new combination of new or existing modular products. In the tourism context the modularity feature of its products and services could turn to be a very powerful characteristic for the competitiveness and innovativeness of the sector. However, to realize these poten-

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tialities organizational designs that permit different product interfaces could be created. For example, a loosely coupled technological platform could provide the context for coordination and modularity structures in tourism (DMS technological platform) 4. Networks to facilitate the innovation process - Co-evolution and innovation patterns require action processes based on knowledge sharing, knowledge searching and creation, for continuous upgrading of resource basis and attainability of a sustainable competitive advantage. From a systems thinking perspective it is more useful to think of organizations as value networks that generates tangible and intangible value through complex dynamic exchanges between two or more individuals, groups, or organizations (Allee, 2002). In this view, organisational structures need to evolve toward network structures which can facilitate the design and production of complex products (Grant, 1996) and can be thought of as creating inimitable and non- substitutable value, as an inimitable resource by itself (Gulati, 2000). They are considered superior to other structures to cope with complex systems owing to: multifirm co-opetitive relationships, center-less organizational structures, dynamic relations and knowledge flows, immediateness and flexibility of response to change thanks to ‘real-time’ IT infrastructures; creation of collective capabilities at the organizational and inter-organizational level; Emphasis on customer relationships. Furthermore networks assure more sustainability as its resources being idiosyncratic and created through a path dependent process (Gulati and Gargiulo, 1999), are difficult for competitors to imitate and substitute. Therefore, the challenge for tourism firms is exploit networking and collaboration for using and deploying other resources to gain competitive advantage and to enhance customer value.

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5. Adopt a Dynamic Strategy - Being that knowledge is key to providing a competitive edge, strategy revolves around knowledge management techniques. The application, creation, transfer and distribution of knowledge (residing in humans, products, services, ….) help managers and organizations to respond and adopt to the new emerging situation and to reflect on their own actions. Hence, the strategy process centres around knowledge management and continuous learning. As Helfat and Raubitschek (2000, p. 961) attests it is the coevolution of organizational knowledge and capabilities that can result in competitive advantage. However, the ability of firms to realize strategies that create competitive advantage depend on their capabilities to capture and absorb the resources and knowledge residing inside the network, on the relationships between firms, customers and suppliers. These capabilities are known in literature as ‘Dynamic Capabilities’. Dynamic capabilities are the antecedent of organizational and strategic routines by which managers alter their resource base (acquire and shed resources, integrate them together, and recombine them) to generate new value-creating strategies (Grant 1996; Pisano 1994). As such, they are the drivers behind the creation, evolution, and recombination of other resources into new sources of competitive advantage (Henderson and Cockburn 1994; Teece et al. 1997). Therefore, strategy need to be conceived as an action research process, based on experimentation, trial and error, continuous search, learning and feedback. Following these new implications, the competitive advantage is created through a process of combination and renewal of knowledge assets and human resource (skills and capabilities) in appropriate modular and network structures and which

New Approaches for Managing Tourism Complexity

Figure 1. Drivers of competitive advantage

shape the action strategy for superior profitability of organizations (Figure 1).

CONCLUSION New principles and concepts are now at the heart of competitive advantage in the new economy. The new world of business puts less premium on playing by pre-defined rules and more on understanding and adapting as the rules of the game, as well as the game itself, keep changing. The growing complexity and dynamicity, the explosion and use of e-commerce and e- business urge the need for the adaptation of more holistic, interdisciplinary perspectives for tourism management and development. New conceptualizations and analytic approaches are required to deal with the new reality. The complexity theory is the one that have gained enough momentum in managerial literature and offer a unique opportunity for organizations to shift from the traditional mechanistic view toward a more dynamic and systemic view. Many researchers have begun to use metaphors and analogies of complexity theory to study organizations and social phenomena (Eve, Horsfall and Lee, 1997; Stacey, 1992, 1995; Whateley, 1992; Lissak, 1999; Stacey, 1995; Grant, 1995; Sanders, 1998). The complexity science represents a growing body of interdisciplinary knowledge about structure, behavior and dynamics of change in a specific category of complex systems known as complex adaptive systems (Sanders, 1998). According to the complexity perspective, in this chapter we have argued that tourism could be

conceptualized as a complex, dynamic, nonlinear system and we have tried to analyze the concept and the implications that the applicability of the new dynamic, systemic thinking brings about for the tourism management. In a summarized way the following principles come into sight: •

•

•

•

Coping with uncertainties of markets new competitive frameworks and strategies are needed for sustainable tourism development; A systemic thinking approach could help tourism managers to understand parts as well as interaction patterns of its actors; Tourism need to be conceptualized as a whole system and as such a multidisciplinary, interactive, coevolutionary and innovative view is indispensable; The implications of this new conceptualization regard structures, approaches, competitive resources and strategic actions. In specific: ◦◦ Knowledge become the strategic resource for tourism enterprise; ◦◦ Human capital become the most important asset; ◦◦ Learning and knowledge management the most important processes; ◦◦ Modular production structures and Network organizational structures the new organizational structure to cope with uncertainties and non-linear innovation.

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Consequently the strategy need to be conceived as an action research process, based on continuous search, learning and feedback.

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Helfat, C. E., & Raubitschek, R. S. (2000). Product sequencing: Co-evolution of knowledge, capabilities and products. Strategic Management Journal, 21, 961–979. doi:10.1002/10970266(200010/11)21:10/11<961::AIDSMJ132>3.0.CO;2-E Henderson, R. M., & Clark, K. B. (1990). - Architectural innovation: the reconfiguration of existing product technologies and the failure of established firms. Administrative Science Quarterly, 35, 9–30. doi:10.2307/2393549 Hill, C. W. L., & Jones, G. R. (2001). Strategic management an integrated approach. New York: Houghton Mifflin. Hirschman, E. C., & Holbrook, M. C. (1982). - Hedonic Consumption: Emerging Concepts, Methods and Propositions. Journal of Marketing, 46, 92–101. doi:10.2307/1251707 Kogut, B., & Zander, U. (1992). -Knowledge of the Firm, Combinative Capabilities, and the Replication of Technology. Organization Science, 3(3), 383–397. doi:10.1287/orsc.3.3.383 Leibold, M. Probst. G. & Gibbert, M. (2002) Strategic Management in the Knowledge Economy: New Approaches and Business Applications. New York: Wiley. Lissack, M., & Guntz, H. (1999). Managing the Complex. Boston: Quorum Books. Lucking – Reiley. D., Spulber, D.F., (2001) Business to business electronic commerce. Paper prepared for the Journal of Economic Perspectives. Mitleton-Kelly, E. (1998). Organisations as Complex Evolving Systems. http://www.lse.ac.uk/lse/ complex/publications/OACES.htm Nonaka, I., & Takeuchi, H. (1995). The Knowledge-Creating Company: How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamics of Innovation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Teece, D. (2000). Managing Intellectual Capital. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Teece,D.J.,Pisano,G.,&Shuen,A.(1997).Dynamic Capabilities and Strategic Management. Strategic Management Journal, 18, 509–533. doi:10.1002/ (SICI)1097-0266(199708)18:7<509::AIDSMJ882>3.0.CO;2-Z Werthner, H. Klein, S., (1999). Information Technology and Tourism - A challenging relationship. New York: Springer. WTO (2000). Public-Private Sector Cooperation: Enhancing tourism Competitiveness. World Tourism Organisation.

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Chapter 10

Creating Digital Heritage Content:

Bridging Communities and Mediating Perspectives Judith van der Elst University of New Mexico,USA Heather Richards-Rissetto University of New Mexico, USA Jorge Garcia Ibero-American Science and Technology Education, USA)

ABSTRACT In this chapter, the authors focus their attention on an often overlooked aspect of digital heritage content, namely by whom how, and with what purpose such content is created. The authors evaluate digital materials that are anthropological and archaeological in nature, both digitized archives and newly created materials. In their work and efforts to understand and represent different cultural perspectives, they have encountered differences in cultural knowledge systems that have shown the need for crosscultural consultation and communication as an essential first step in the creation of digital content for new systems of representation and knowledge transfer. Their efforts focus on developing a new educa-

INTRODUCTION The advancement of modern technologies has clearly revolutionized the way we do things, how we relate to one another, and the methods we use to preserve cultural heritage for future generations. Under this need to preserve culture, and DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61520-867-8.ch010

make it readily available for present and future generations, UNESCO defines cultural heritage as “our legacy from the past, what we live with today, and what we pass on to future generations” (UNESCO). Cultural preservation, in this context, is seen as an endowment for future generations. Even though everyone might agree that saving cultural vestiges using digital media is a positive step toward preserving a legacy for future genera-

Copyright © 2011, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

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tions; not everyone agrees on who really benefits from cultural heritage preservation or how to go about preserving culture. In the design of digital cultural heritage applications, the goal is often to provide content to a broad-based public. Because of this fact, content is often generalized and not focused on, or sensitive to, specific user groups; in other words, the creators of cultural content assume that the meanings are universal. Content is often tailored to a ‘public’ that is well aware of the importance of heritage preservation, protection, and outreach within a specific dominant paradigm. However, such a worldview is not always in concordance with the worldviews of specific cultural groups (Schmidt and Patterson 1995); that is, cross-cultural differences exist in the beliefs about the ways cultural material should be protected, represented, and communicated. Cultural histories of distinct groups are often incorporated into a larger universal heritage, (Cameron 2008; Srinivasan, Enote, Becvar, and Boast 2009; UNESCO), whereby specific knowledge systems and cultural ideas are often overlooked in favor of dominant views or representations. Digital technologies offer many opportunities to manage cultural heritage; however, in doing so they have also brought issues of differential access to the forefront. Even though more and more people have access to digital information, through personal computers, handheld devices, etc., the digital divide, originally defined as the difference between the have’s and have not’s, has not disappeared. Moreover, it is now clear that the issue of access is not merely a matter of who can acquire digital technologies, but it is also a matter of who creates digital content and who has access to such content. If digital heritage content serves primarily the needs of an affluent audience then based on a measure of ‘content relevance’, the gap may become wider instead of narrower (www.digitaldivide.org). If created content serves primarily the needs of the affluent, then, based on

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a measure of ‘content relevance’, the gap may become wider instead of narrower. However, when appropriately used digital technologies can provide many communities with essential tools for cultural continuation, communication and survival, and a number of innovative projects and research programs have been initiated over the last decade to bridge the information gap (Cristen). All of these projects involve community collaboration and seek to address specific community needs. We have broadly classified them into three categories (Figure 1). They include: 1) projects that are based on community involvement, this category provides community and its members tools to interact and/or comment on already existing content; 2) projects based on community co-creation, these type of projects create alternative systems of cultural context and content exchange based primarily on community characteristics; 3) community-based participatory projects, these projects are often initiated based on a specific community need, cultural, and/or sociopolitical. Within the background section of this paper we discuss these recent developments and identify a number of issues and problems related to current approaches of community collaboration, which will be used to frame the discussion of our proposed educational model. Our efforts are focused on how, by whom, and for what purpose digital heritage content is created (and maintained). Our goal is also to propose ways by which education and training can be used to reduce the digital divide. Along these lines, we propose an educational model that is multifaceted; focusing not only on information exchange and communication but also on providing communities with tools and resources that will allow them to create their own digital heritage content and systems. Our educational model brings together traditional university students and community members in order to encourage a change of attitude in the traditional paradigms in which local communities are seen as merely centers from where academics can gather data for research. By

Creating Digital Heritage Content

Figure 1. Chapter overview

creating an educational process in which students learn about community challenges and solutions, our contention is that it will help to develop a greater consciousness about community problems and the solutions that could emerge from academycommunity collaborations. This, we argue, shifts the ‘digital divide’ problem from a problem primarily for underserved communities to a broader problem of digital heritage, namely incorporate the training of the next generation of ‘heritage managers’ in collaborative projects. Our education model is derived from projectbased learning strategies that offer creative settings in which students and community members collaborate in order to facilitate knowledge exchange. We focus on geospatial technologies because they provide a means to understand socio-cultural phenomena. Additionally, they help students develop spatial/visual literacy, which is essential when creating alternative frameworks for digital heritage content (www.bie.org; www.csiss.org; Bransford, Brown and Cocking 2000, Forte 2007; Goodchild and Janelle 2004; Ware 2000). The objectives of this chapter are: (1) outline the problem of digital heritage in the context of

community-based projects, (2) provide an overview of the breadth of projects that are currently considered to be community oriented, (3) explore current issues and opportunities for digital heritage applications to incorporate multiple narratives, and (4) present a case study in which we outline an educational strategy that encourages ongoing dialogue in the creation of digital heritage content and the use of digital media.

BACKGROUND In the traditional paradigm of cultural heritage management, the stakeholders are typically representatives of government agencies and NGOs, academia and industry – as such these bodies become the determinants, or producers, of heritage content and the ‘public’ constitutes the consumer (Figure 1). Digital heritage, a relatively recent phenomenon is a growing part of cultural heritage management. According to UNESCO, “digital heritage is made up of computer-based materials of enduring value that should be kept for future generations” (UNESCO). The limitation

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Figure 2. Traditional paradigm of stakeholders in cultural heritage management

Table 1. Literature related to main issues Issue Critical Approaches in Digital Heritage

Spatial/visual Teaching and Learning

of such a generalized definition is that the focus is on preserving the material aspects of cultural heritage rather than on understanding cultures as dynamic and adaptive entities that constantly deal with and adjust to global circumstances. Given these circumstances, digital content cannot continue to be constructed by only the traditional stakeholders, but instead the concept of stakeholders must become more encompassing to include communities; otherwise the process of cultural heritage management becomes simply a reflection of colonial practices in which peoples’ histories and voices are not included. According to Cameron (2007:170) “digital heritage is a deeply political concept and practice” and thus current stakeholders must be careful to avoid superimposing their beliefs about what is worth preserving on others. Fortunately, digital heritage applications have the ability, or potential, to represent multiple narratives (Russo and Watkins 2007), and consequently can be a useful medium for democratizing access to information as well as a process of collaboration between academia and local communities. This is because digital media is a relatively low-cost method to preserve and disseminate materials that would otherwise only be available to a small audience.

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References

Main Contribution

Cameron, 2007 Kwan and Lee 2004

Critical GIS

Levinson, 2008

Spatial cognition, linguistic diversity

Srinivasan, 2009

Design of digital systems, community collaboration and ontologies

Goodchild & Janelle, 2004

Integrating spatial perspectives and technologies in social science

Forte

Informative and Communicational aspects of digital technologies

Recent efforts to include community perspectives focus on two concepts, which include the approaches of multiple narratives and mulitvocality. ‘Multiple narratives’ takes into account the existence of different perspectives and as such it contradicts the concept of a (single) Truth. The widespread adoption of digital technologies, such as social networking, allows for an increase in user feedback, enabling a dynamic interaction that diminishes the sharp distinction between creators (official interpreters) and consumers. The result is that user or visitor perspectives, i.e. multiple narratives, can be integrated into cultural heritage material (references). ‘Multivocality’, a related concept, is described as giving a voice to underrepresented groups to provide alternative interpretations (of the past) (Habu et.al. ed. 2008). These groups are often descendant communities, and their ‘alternative’interpretations are expected to provide depth to the accepted interpretation of the cultural material, instead of a mere personal experience. In this approach only specific groups are targeted to provide a contribution, and it is mostly about their history. Although people have begun to employ the concepts of multiple narratives and mulitvocality in their efforts to create alternative interpretations

Creating Digital Heritage Content

of cultural material, the frameworks for interpretation including the materials selected and how they are represented, are often determined by the same three stakeholders (Waters 2007, Smith 1999). Until communities (descendant and otherwise) become stakeholders on equal footing we believe that multiple narratives and multivocality will only provide superficial change in cross-cultural understanding. A community can be defined as a group a people with a common background or shared interest, and community oriented research generally indicates a research project that is initiated by experts in collaboration with a community focused on a specific shared component, whereby the nature and intensity of this collaboration can vary. Communities, however, are more often than not heterogeneous entities that may be defined as homogeneous only by outsiders. The preservation or perpetuity of community characteristics, values, and traditional knowledge from a community perspective should therefore be considered as a dynamic process of redefining relationships in an ever-changing world, instead of monolithic cultural entities, or worse, as relics. The next section discusses the three broad categories of community collaboration outlined in the introduction serve to provide a framework for discussion of current research from which future opportunities, issues, and problems for digital heritage can be distilled.

PROJECTS BASED ON COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT Although many organizations and institutions carry out projects based on community involvement, museums offer a good example. In the 1970s museums began to implement more outreach programs in order to provide information or services to groups in society who might otherwise be neglected. Today, many museum collections are not only being digitized to extend outreach via online collections, but the general public

and/or community members also have opportunities to interact and enhance the information through dynamic applications, for instance via social tagging (Trant 2006). Museums that hold archaeological and anthropological collections traditionally represent cultures of ‘the Other’, because they primarily hold objects obtained from non-western societies. Cameron (2008) posits that the pre-occupation with material remains is a distinct western epistemology. Western societies are often described as ‘object-centered’, whereas the majority of societies are concept-centered (Cameron 2007). The recognition of this fundamental difference has increasingly led to people realizing the importance of intangible heritage and other perspectives (Balenquah, 2008). The motivation for undertaking large-scale digitization projects is often driven by research interests and consultation with descendant communities is not necessarily a priority. Two New Mexico examples serve to demonstrate the range of attitudes toward the value of multivocality. The first example is a digital online archive of cultural objects and other research materials related to Chaco Canyon, a UNESCO cultural heritage site in northwest New Mexico (http://www. chacoarchive.org/index.html). The introductory text on the homepage reifies Chaco Canyon as universal heritage. The research efforts of the Anglo community are considered instrumental in recognizing the site as a “vivid symbol of the cultural resources of the United States”, and while the importance of Chaco to present day Puebloan communities in the region is acknowledged, their input seems secondary. The target audience for this archive is primarily the archaeological research community in an effort to address questions regarding the Chaco Phenomenon (Lekson 1999) that have remained unanswered. Even though feedback from descendant communities, through tribal consultants, is welcomed as a way to correct any misinterpretation of cultural materials, the objectives do not necessarily promote a different attitude toward

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cross-cultural communication (http://www.chacoarchive.org/contact.html). The second example, on the other hand, is a project based on a partnership between the A;shiwi A:wan Museum and Heritage Center (AAMHC) in Zuni, New Mexico, the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (MAA), and the University of California, Los Angeles. It provides a model to “explore the appropriateness and usefulness of emerging technologies in providing access to heritage objects held by distant institutions” (Srinivasan, Boast, Becvar, and Furner 2009). This project is based on innovative models of community collaboration and includes community as partners instead of subjects, seeks to develop culturally appropriate categories, and redefine large institutions from centers of dispossession to instruments of self –definition (ibidem). This collaborative effort involves providing the Zuni community with a digital database of objects that are culturally important to the community. This database is editable and extendable. An important component of this project, along with obtaining information on what the objects mean to different tribal members, is feedback regarding the usefulness of having access to these digital objects for providing knowledge within the community, i.e. what is its role in the larger framework of knowledge sharing and continuation. Results show that access to such digital objects can facilitate community solidarity and provide additional information for local teaching and research without the responsibility of physical curation, often impossible due to lack of funds or space (Brown 2007).

Community Co-Creation As mentioned above, digital heritage applications are valued because they can represent multiple narratives, through, but not limited to, dynamic audience interaction and community co-creation (Russo and Watkins 2007). Unfortunately institutions that hold cultural collections often employ

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frameworks that are underlain with epistemologies and ontologies that preclude multivocality. Community co-creation projects, on the other hand, are focused on creating culturally appropriate categories, are inward looking, and seek to serve the community. In his work, Srinivasan (2009) addresses the roles that digital media and web 2.0 technologies serve in community revitalization efforts and he investigates whether a digital space can provide community control over design and content. Srinivasan’s Village Voice project shows that media systems with ontology-based designs can facilitate the exchange of meaningful information within a community, in this case, an urban based Somali community. On a similar vein, Kimberly Cristen’s Wumpurrarni-kari Archive, a browser based application, provides tools for access and contribution based on the user’s gender, age, or social standing in the community (http:// www.mukurtuarchive.org/). These projects show how digital media for communities can be tailored to specific community needs. This approach is identified as inreach (Srinivasan 2009). The Digital Cultural Communication (DCC) framework proposes an additional step based on the belief that the role of cultural institutions as sole authority and ‘cultural gatekeepers’ needs to be reconsidered (Russo and Watkins 2007, Trant, Kenderdine). The DCC framework proposes making communities partners in creation and consumption, in this way “cultural institutions can take a proactive role in developing new literacy by enabling direct experience of content production and creating environments for community engagement.” (Russo and Watkins 2007: 151) In this model of community co-creation, cultural institutions would provide infrastructure and training programs, while communities would provide self-produced original content. Such changes do not mean that the roles of curator or cultural heritage manager will disappear, to the contrary, their responsibilities will be redefined and expanded (Russo and Watkins 2007). Community multi- media co-creation proj-

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ects have shown the potential for creating multiple narratives. Given the potential of such projects, Russo and Watkins (2007) suggest that the next step is to redefine the role of cultural institutions as facilitators instead of primary authors. However, such changes, we argue, necessitate innovative education and training programs for the next generation of heritage managers.

Participatory Research Based on the fact that communities are not static, and past, present, and future are integrated, the ‘preservation’ of cultural heritage cannot be separated from current socio-political issues. Participatory projects place cultural heritage within broader socio-political frameworks, for instance, to secure community rights and resources not just regarding the past, but for present and future purposes. Out of participatory approaches to planning and communication management the practice of Participatory GIS – Geographic Information Systems) has emerged. This practice, based on geospatial technologies, such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Global Positioning Systems (GPS), and Remote Sensing technologies, is geared toward community empowerment and has been used to support conservation efforts and sustainable (natural) resource management and property rights cases worldwide. Participatory approaches have become more established and methodologies defined. PPGIS approaches “integrate several tools and methods whilst often relying on the combination of ‘expert’ skills with socially differentiated local knowledge. It promotes interactive participation of stakeholders in generating and managing spatial information and it uses information about specific landscapes to facilitate broadly-based decision making processes that support effective communication and community advocacy. If appropriately utilized, the practice could exert profound impacts on community empowerment, innovation and social change. More importantly,

by placing control of access and use of culturally sensitive spatial information in the hands of those who generated them, PGIS practice could protect traditional knowledge and wisdom from external exploitation.” (http://www.ppgis.net/, http://www. crssa.rutgers.edu/ppgis/). Although not specifically geared toward heritage, the PPGIS approach provides specific guidelines that can be adapted for digital heritage projects.

ISSUES, CONTROVERSIES, AND PROBLEMS In the process of “digitizing information” we find several controversies and problems related to issues of cross-cultural communication, especially about the ways that cultural material should be protected, represented, and communicated. We believe that information that is inherited from the past is invaluable (Cameron 2008: 171) and in this respect local communities can greatly benefit from information that is preserved; however, they often do not. The role of the (western) museum as authority has led to the existence of a single curatorial voice, considering the current preservation practices as the only right way to manage cultural material (Srinivasan, Boast, Becavar, and Furner 2009). A fundamental difference, for instance between tribal museums and western museums is that tribal museums serve dual purposes – as curators of material objects and cultural centers. Based on the above discussion we have identified several problems and issues in creation of multiples narratives: The first major problem can be defined as the position of the community as secondary participant, this problem can also be defined in terms of ‘top-down’ research approach. Mulitvocality is not an objective fully incorporated in established heritage institutions, and it tends to perpetuate the ‘universality’ practice, with a narrow view of ‘public’. Second, is the problem of the fallacy of the homogenous community, diverging interests exist within communities

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along gender, age and other divisions. Finally, the problem of data inaccessibility and/or the inability to make use of these data persists. For example, an interest exists to incorporate new media in tribal/community museums and centers, but can be hindered by access to appropriate content and technology. However, when inaccessibility issues can be overcome, opportunities arise for communities to use these digital objects for educational purposes in community centers. Communities often do not have access to the information that they themselves helped provide. Sometimes this problem is due to a lack of access to the technologies required to access these cultural data; however, often this problem arises because in essence most digitized cultural information is stored by universities, museums, and government archives. These digital archives if not inaccessible are highly restricted making the process of acquiring access difficult and cumbersome. Moreover, if access can be defined as the inability to use the data in a meaningful way, related to, but not limited, to data conversion issues. Thus, the quest should be to ensure that local communities from where data emerges have “meaningful access” to these digital archives so they can inform their future generations about the cultural achievements of their ancestors.

SOLUTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS Cross-cultural dialogue can play an important role if digital heritage experts understand and are willing to understand the needs that emanate from local communication from which culture is borrowed to preserve a “universal culture” that in most cases is only accessed by a very limited number of people. To this effect, Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) and the development of human networks have proven to be efficient tools that provide a venue to communicate and collaborate in spite of geographical

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distances (Keck and Sikkink, 1998). To prove effective in digital heritage, the axis that control the information society (academia, industry, and government) should promote the development of formal network by which the “construction of a trans-community network” (Yashar, 1998:36) can serve as a vehicle to advance the preservation and advancement of local and “universal” cultures in a manner that is conducive to expand not just “western epistemology” but rather the epistemology of those cultures that are intended to be protected and preserved. In this way, the three dimensional experience that the digitalization of cultural heritage is intended to provide can be extended through the cross-cultural dialogue that can take place between technology experts, scientists, and community representatives. The question in this regard is what are the conditions and processes that need to exist for a formal network to become efficient and serve as a link or a node to an identified group of people who share the same goals and objectives? The answer to this question lies not just on assessing the roles that ICTs can play in facilitating processes, but rather in the importance that society in general puts in developing the know-how in how to create grass roots approaches to network development using the tools available. The importance in this regard is not the network per se, but rather the opportunities that it provides in analyzing and creating information, especially when to expand and identify cultural attributes enclosed within the notion of cultural self-determination as a basic human right to control and manage one’s own cultural attribute and the way that these cultural heritage can serve to future generations. This effort also requires that local communities become active participants in the process of ownership and appropriations of existing technologies, manage the development of specific content that exemplify the claim of ownership, ensure cultural and linguistic survival, and develop a process by which convergence and networking sustains the effort of preserving cultural digital, while ensuring the

Creating Digital Heritage Content

preservation and continuation of cultures in the verge of extinction (www.istec.org). There are many ways in which strategic alliances between different partners can be forged, but the most important alliance in terms of knowledge and information transfer is the connection between academia and local communities. A bridge between academia and surrounding communities can ensure that the critical mass needed to sustain a process of technology appropriation is developed to advance and support the notion of preserving cultural heritage through digital media. The next section describes a case study that models some of our solutions and recommendations to the three major problems cited above – Community as Secondary Participant, the Fallacy of the Homogeneous Community, and Data Inaccessibility. We suggest an educational framework to lessen disparities in the creation of digital heritage content, much in line with PPGIS objectives.

Case Study: An Education Framework for Co-Creating Digital Heritage Content We contend that academia can facilitate the cocreation of digital heritage content not solely by providing access advanced technologies, but by providing access to knowledge about how to use advanced technologies to record, map, and recreated social and cultural attributes. Many people view local communities as merely passive consumers of technology. In reality community members are active users of technology and as such can play a key role in digitizing knowledge; however, the tools and skills to digitize such knowledge need to be put in their hands. The case study is an example of how geospatial technologies including Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) can be used to augment the work of community leaders. To better understand the processes and protocols involved in transferring knowledge and

information to a local community. A Partnership between the Bernalillo County, the Iberoamerican Science Technology and Education Consortium (ISTEC), the Partners for Environmental Justice, Raza Planning in the Planning and Architecture department at the University of New Mexico, Central New Mexico College (CNM), USDA, the Ortiz Center in collaboration with the South Valley Acequia Association was created to support the existing need of ensuring the water currently used for irrigation. The acequia landscape, the intricate gravity based canal system that provides the livelihood for many New Mexican communities, is under continuous threat by urbanization and gentrification. This irrigation system has it origins in acequia system brought over by the Spanish and assimilated with existing indigenous water management system. Several forms of acequia systems are in existence, the New Mexico acequias are a communal system, requiring the collaboration from all parciantes (Rodriguez 2006). ‘Ethnographic landscapes’, such as the acequias, are significant as traditional cultural properties, because of their association with cultural practices or beliefs of a living community that are a) rooted in that community’s history, and b) are important in maintaining the continuing cultural identity of the community (Hardesty, 2000:182).

Case Study: Two New Mexico Acequia Communities In New Mexico, water has always been a scarce and precious resource. Demands to move water out of traditional communities to industry, sprawling cities, and commercial uses that are often viewed as ‘higher economic uses’ threaten the survival of traditional water management systems, and the water security of historic, agricultural communities in New Mexico. The culture and livelihood of many New Mexico communities are dependent upon acequias. The case studies that we worked on involved two New Mexico communities seeking to docu-

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ment their traditional water management systems using Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Although both community projects focused on acequias – historic communal irrigation systems based on water sharing practices, the goals of the two communities differed due to each community’s unique circumstances. Thus, despite the fact that both communities used GPS and GIS to document and map out their acequias, the cultural heritage content and end-products were tailored to fit the distinct needs of each community.

South Valley, New Mexico: An Urban Context According to the laws of the Indies, indigenous communities and acequia communities have the oldest and primary water-rights in the state. However, due to the commercial demand for water these rights are currently contested (Dumars, O’Leary and Utton 1984). Acequias have existed for centuries, most were implemented during the 17th and 18th century during Spanish and Mexican administration, immediately following the land grant establishments. During that time local courts resolved water disputes; the concept and process of general stream adjudication (in which the state literally sues residents to prove water rights) is relatively new, first appearing in the 1907 Water Code. The impact of the 1907 Water Code on traditional water use is that every person claiming ancient water rights needs to prove that he/she is indeed in need of water for beneficial use, at present, but more importantly that this was true in the past, tested at certain benchmark dates. Failure to provide the necessary documentation in this adjudication process can lead to loss of water-rights, rights that will subsequently go to the highest bidder. The South Valley, an unincorporated area comprising almost 40,000 people on the southern border of Albuquerque – New Mexico’s largest

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city, will soon begin the adjudication process in which valley residents must prove both historical and contemporaneous use of the acequias, in order to keep their water rights. Given that acequias are communal systems reliant on adequate water flow, the loss of water rights by even a small number of residents impacts the entire system as an insufficient number of users equates to inadequate water flow. The end-result is that water flow is staunched and the system fails – a system that is an integral part of the South Valley’s cultural heritage and an ancient system that evolved from Africa and eventually impacted water distribution in Mexico and the US Southwest. Thus, it is essential to not only collect data to prove water use, but it is also necessary to place these data in a cultural heritage context in order to preserve this legacy from the past. The use of technologies such as GPS and GIS offer a means to fulfill both of these needs. However, for their use to be effective we argue that community members must be involved in all phases of the project from developing research objectives to determining data types (attributes) to data collection to database design and to designing end-products that included web interfaces to manage the data collected. In order to fulfill these requirements the technology itself needs to be put in the hands of community members.

Embudo Valley, New Mexico: A Rural Context The residents of the Embudo Valley are not currently facing adjudication of their water rights (although the process is ultimately unavoidable); instead, their primary concern is loss of cultural knowledge, a large part of which revolves around acequias. This rural northern New Mexico community of about 1500 residents, many of whom trace their roots to early Hispanic settlers, wanted to GPS and GIS map the valley’s acequias and its features and then link/associate these maps to cultural heritage information. For example, many locals reference acequia features to the hu-

Creating Digital Heritage Content

man body, a conceptualizing of landscape that is widespread, but hardly integrated into GI systems (Levinson 2008, Majid et.al. 2006). It are these types of data, among others, that Embudo community members seek to link to GIS-based maps in an effort to help document their cultural heritage and the role it continues to play in everyday life.

community members, (3) involving community members in the creation of digital heritage from start to finish, (4) progress toward achieving community-defined goals, and (5) providing community-defined end-products. To achieve these goals, we organized the project into seven stages.

Achieving Common Goals via Collaborative Education

Project Stages

Despite the differences between the South Valley and the Embudo Valley, these two communities had three similar overarching goals. They included: (1) developing a community-based and community-run GIS that manages data related to local acequias, (2) collect GPS data to make maps of the acequias, and (3) initiate a training program to teach community members basic GPS and GIS skills to facilitate mapping efforts. Given these common goals, we worked with members from both communities to design an introductorylevel course to teach geospatial technologies, specifically GPS and GIS, to both traditional and non-traditional students. We assumed that students would have varying levels of expertise. The technical-geospatial knowledge of the CNM students served to complement the cultural heritage knowledge of the community participants. In this way, traditional and non-traditional students worked side-by-side learning from one another. This strategy proved very effective. The approach that we propose integrates aspects from the broad categories of community collaborative projects discussed earlier. However, in addition we incorporate these aspects within an educational framework to create digital heritage content. Given the integrative and educational nature of the approach, project goals must be multi-faceted. The case study goals included not only creating digital heritage content but also: (1) teaching and training traditional students, (2) teaching and training non-traditional students, i.e.

In retrospect and in order to provide a process that may be useful for others, we have organized our work into several stages, which are listed chronologically; however, in reality they acted as a feedback loop – one stage did not necessarily presuppose the next. The seven stages in the process included: 1. Identify Community Needs 2. Establish Strategic Alliances between Different Organizations 3. Conduct Field Visits and Create a Plan of Action 4. Organize/Attend Workshops and Community Meetings 5. Develop/Use a Range of Tools for Community Input 6. Intensive Short Course- Train Community Members in the Use of GPS/GIS 7. Evaluation Process: Student and Community

Stage 1: Identify Community Needs /Stage 2: Establish Strategic Alliances Typically academics and other cultural heritage managers approach digital heritage projects with specific interests/subjects in mind. In the case of our work, these two stages were somewhat indistinguishable as the project theme began from the onset with the community. In these two stages, we worked with community members to formulate goals, generate ideas for heritage content,

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and identify potential short-term and long-term end-products.

Stage 3: Conduct Field Visits and Create a Plan of Action / Stage 4: Organize and Attend Workshops/Community Meetings In the next stage of the project we scheduled field visits to the two project areas. These field visits allowed us to begin the initial phases of data collection, help us to understand potential issues associated with data collection ranging from logistical (e.g. transport, lodging, and community liaisons) to data types and formats to database design, and establish more community contacts. For example, we met with some of the mayordomos, ditch managers, who provided us with a wealth of information on both the physical and cultural aspects of the acequias. These field visits gave us the opportunity to talk with more community members and help us to realize that although we were attempting to include the voice of the community in the creation of cultural heritage content, we also had to be aware that these communities were not homogenous entities, but rather they were comprised of diverse and distinct groups whose needs were not always be convergent. In an effort to address such heterogeneity within communities we sponsored a workshop and attended community meetings.

Stage 5: Develop/Use a Range of Tools for Community Input / Stage 6: Intensive Short-Course Given community heterogeneity, we realized that it would be necessary to provide a range of tools to obtain community input about the project. Workshops and community meetings offer two venues to hear community suggestions, needs, and concerns; however, not everyone attends such events. Therefore, we worked with community members to develop additional ways to obtain

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community feedback. Given that the first phase of the project was focused on collecting GPS data on the acequias, we decided to make use of Google Earth (Figure 3). While many community members had access to the internet, we realize that people’s computer skills vary and therefore to fully make use of the tool a short training session at a community meeting is necessary. Despite our project’s emphasis on providing technical training to community members, this is something that we did not do, and in retrospect it was a shortcoming. In future work we plan to use a wider-range of tools for community input as well as provide better training/instruction for those tools. Although our project revolves around educating and training community members in geospatial technologies, it is important to keep in mind that community members play an equal role in the education process. In an attempt to collect balanced digital heritage content, we paired traditional students with technical experience with community members with cultural knowledge, i.e. knowledge about the historic and contemporary roles of the acequias in community life as well as the actual physical components of the acequias. The collaboration among students proved to be one of the most successful parts of the project. Another important point to keep in mind is that most community members were non-traditional students with jobs and obligations that made it difficult to attend semester-long classes. To surmount this problem we designed the course as an intensive short-course that took place over the course of two three-day weekends in the summer. The course itself contained two components: fieldwork and lab work. In addition to data collected in the field, students were trained in accessing and integrating existing data into the project. The available data differed for the two communities, but ranged from downloadable GIS files to historic paper maps, that needed to be scanned and georeferenced. Lab exercises and student projects were framed by the requirements dictated

Creating Digital Heritage Content

Figure 3. Community input tool

by community needs. In both cases, historical information was critical. Ultimately, the course served both academic and community needs and helped to co-create digital heritage content with a community-guided narrative.

Stage 7: Evaluation Process: Student and Community Evaluating the success of the project involves both short-term and long-term strategies. Shortterm evaluations focused on obtaining feedback

from students on the course and from community members (who did not attend the course) on the first set of end-products. Long-term evaluations will focus on asking community members questions about the usefulness of the community-based GIS. An important factor, and this is where the MOU becomes critical, is that the community is served only if continuation of collaboration is guaranteed. Long-term partnerships between community, academia and potential other partner, will not only be beneficial for the community, but will provide a different education model to academia,

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one in which social awareness is combined with innovative research

Project Outcomes The case study highlights several important points that we believe are useful in developing digital heritage applications that invite non-traditional stakeholders to co-create digital heritage content. First, by co-educating and co-training community members and traditional students, multiple narratives become a reality as people with different perspectives work side-by-side. Second, as community members become versed in digital technologies, they have the skills to develop and/ to maintain digital systems to house communityowned heritage data. Third, MOUs as standard practice help create sustainable partnerships between establish strategic alliances between the academy and communities. Fourth, community members play an equal role in the education process because they provide insight that helps to expand traditional paradigms.

FUTURE TRENDS The success of academic-community partnerships necessitates a paradigm expansion. We see this expansion as a future trend that will help solve the issues, controversies, and problems surrounding who creates digital heritage content, who has access to it, and for what purposes. Novel ways of learning, teaching, and knowledge creation, within academia and through community involvement are essential and will enrich digital heritage networks and break down old, knowledge, (and power) structures. New structures and collaboration efforts will not only benefit and expand the way knowledge is created and managed, but it will also create critical lines of communication and collaboration between academia and local communities. Strategic alliances, under the social construct of the information society, have been

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created based on the triple helix paradigm (Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff 1997). The triple helix paradigm is a socio-linguistic paradigm that promotes and allows sharing of information, resources, and knowledge between industry, academia, and government. This paradigm has been propitious to develop the information society and the advancement of the information communication technologies that now make possible the connection of millions of people throughout the globe. Even though this paradigm has been instrumental to develop the information society, it has not been able to level social differences, and in turn we still experience major disparities between those who have meaningful access to ICT’s and those who do not. In order to change this disparity, our argument is that we need to expand the social paradigm from a triple helix of development to a quadruple helix (Figure 4). The major difference in these paradigms is that the triple helix establishes communication between tree entities on a two dimensional axis; in contrast, the quadruple helix uses a multidimensional axis in which industry, academia, government and international NGO/multilateral organizations are connected to the core of the formation and as the parts support the development of the core (our society) – the result is that the entire formation grows in unison. The reason why we advocate for a paradigm change is because the development of existing projects and the use of digital media cannot be disassociated from the production of culture and those who produce it, which in most cases are local communities and their continuous use of the cultural precepts attached to their local histories and cosmovision about the world. In indigenous and local communities these histories and their cultural precepts are vestiges of the cultures that projects, such as the digital heritage initiative, tries to save for future generations. If culture is not static, but its rather evolving then a need to train and support the digitalization of local customs and cultures should also be part of archiving and

Creating Digital Heritage Content

Figure 4. Expanding the paradigm from triple to quadruple helix

safeguarding those cultural attributes that are emerging and that are being preserved at the local level. The university can and should be instrumental in serving as a bridge and a conduit to pass on the know-how needed to train communities in using geospatial technologies for community mapping, develop effective databases, promote the use of open source systems, create user friendly web based interfaces, train and support the creation of local technology hubs that can serves as information repositories to ensure that

information is collected, analyzed, and processes in a way that it can be stored and used by communities to promote local social and economic development. In addition, the effective use of digital media can also support local communities to claim, protect, and manage their natural resources, create educational content based on their own culture and traditions, and exercise their right for self-determination through social and economic development.

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CONCLUSION New media offer a number of opportunities to redefine community involvement and cross-cultural collaboration and several innovate projects demonstrate such possibilities (see Christen; DiazKommonen 2002; Kenderdine 2008; McCarthy 2007; Srinivasan 2009). We build on such work in two distinct ways. First, we focus on who makes digital content and for what purpose taking into account heterogeneity. Second, we focus on developing a new educational framework that helps to restructure the existing hierarchical relationships between community and experts. To illustrate these two points, we provide a case study that exemplifies how educational programs that combine teaching of students from different background and expertise, in a project-based learning strategy is effective in stimulating dialogue and crosscultural understanding. It also elicits the need for sustainable collaborative projects that ensures the community continuation of practice, grounded in agreements that provide clear understanding of ownership, sharing, and responsibilities.

Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L., & Cocking, R. R. (2000). How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press. Brown, D. (2007). Te Ahu Hiko: Digital Cultural Heritage and Indigenous Objects, People, and Environments. In Cameron, F., & Kenderdine, S. (Eds.), Theorizing Digital Cultural Heritage, A Critical Discourse (pp. 77–92). London: The MIT Press. Buck Institution for Education Project-Based Learning Handbook. retrieved June 1, 2009 http:// www.bie.org Cameron, F. (2007). Beyond the Cult of the Replicant – Museums and Historical Digital Objects: Traditional Concerns, New Discourses. In Cameron, F., & Kenderdine, S. (Eds.), Theorizing Digital Cultural Heritage, A Critical Discourse (pp. 49–76). London: The MIT Press. Center for Spatially Integrated Social Science. (CSISS), Spatial Resources for the Social Sciences. retrieved June 1, 2009 from http://www. csiss.org

POSSIBLE PAPER TITLES/ESSAYS

Chakrabathy, D. (2002). Museums in Late Democracies. Humanities Report, IX(1), 5–12.



Cristen, K. (n.d.). The Long Road retrieved June 1, 2009, from http://www.kimberlychristen.com/



Multiple Narratives: Redefining Cultural Heritage Paradigms The Fallacy of the Homogenous Community Critical GIS: New Approaches to Digital Heritage Forging Strategic Alliances: Bridging the Academy-Community Gap

REFERENCES Balenqua, L. J. (2008). Beyond Stone and Mortar, A Hopi Perspective on the Preservation of Ruins (and Culture). Heritage Management, 1(2), 145–162.

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Diaz- Kommonen. L. (2002). Art, Fact, and Artifact Production, Design Research and Multidisciplinary Collaboration., Helsinki, Publication Series of the University of Art and Design A 37. Dumars, C. T., O’Leary, M., & Utton, A. E, (1984), Pueblo Indian Water Rights, Struggle for a Precious Resource. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press. Etzkowitz, H., & Leydesdorff, L. (1997). Universities and the Global Knowledge Economy: A Triple Helix of University-Industry-Government Relation. London: Continuum.

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Forte, M. (2007). Ecological Cybernetics, Virtual Reality, and Virtual Heritage. In Cameron, F., & Kenderdine, S. (Eds.), Theorizing Digital Cultural Heritage, A Critical Discourse (pp. 245–260). Cambridge, London: The MIT Press. Goodchild, Michael F., & Janelle, D.G. (Eds.) (2004 a) Spatially Integrated Social Science, New York: Oxford University Press

Kwan, M., & Lee, J. (2004). Geovisualization of Human Activity Patterns Using 3D GIS: A Time Geographic Approach. In Goodchild, M., & Janelle, D. (Eds.), Socially Integrated Social Science (pp. 48–66). New York: Oxford University Press. Lekson, S. H. (1999). The Chaco Meridian. Walnut Creek: Alta Mira Press.

Goodchild, M. F., & Janelle, D. G. (2004b). Thinking Spatially in the Social Sciences. In Spatially Integrated Social Science (pp. 3–22). New York: Oxford University Press.

Levinson, S. C. (2008). Landscape, seascape and the ontology of places on Rossel Island, Papua New Guinea. Language Sciences, 30, 256–290. doi:10.1016/j.langsci.2006.12.032

Habu, J., Fawcett, C., & Matsunaga, J. M. (Eds.). (2008). Evaluating Multiple Narratives: Beyond Nationalist, Colonialist, Imperialist Archaeologies. New York: Springer.

Majid, A., Enfield, N. J., & van Staden, M. (2006). Cross-Linguistic Categorization of the Body. Language Sciences, 28.

Hardesty, D. L. (2000). Ethnographic Landscapes. In Alanen, A. R., & Melnick, R. Z. (Eds.), Preserving Cultural Landscapes in America (pp. 169–185). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

McCarthy, G. (2007). Finding a Future for Digital Cultural Heritage Resources Using Contextual Information Frameworks. In Cameron, F., & Kenderdine, S. (Eds.), Theorizing Digital Cultural Heritage, A Critical Discourse (pp. 245–260). Cambridge, London: The MIT Press.

Hayden, D. (1995). The Power of Place: Urban Landscapes as Public History. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Rodriguez, S. (2006). Acequia, Water Sharing, Sanctity, and Place. Santa Fe: School for Advanced Research Press.

Kalay, Y. E. (2008). Introduction: Preserving cultural heritage through digital media. In Kalay, Y. E., Kvan, T., & Affleck, J. (Eds.), New Heritage: New Media and Cultural Heritage (pp. 1–10). London, New York: Routledge.

Russo, A., & Watkins, J. (2007). Digital Cultural Communication: Audience and Remediation. In Cameron, F., & Kenderdine, S. (Eds.), Theorizing Digital Cultural Heritage, A Critical Discourse (pp. 149–164). Cambridge, London: The MIT Press.

Keck, M. E., & Sikkink, K. (1998). Activists beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics. New York: Cornell University Press. Kenderdine, S., Shaw, J., Del Favero, D., & Brown, N. (2008) ‘Place-Hampi: Co-evolutionary narrative and augmented stereographic panoramas, Vijayanagara, India’, in in Y.E. Kalay, T. Kvan, & J. Affleck, (Eds), New Heritage, New Media and Cultural Heritage, (pp 275-293) London and New York: Routledge.

Schmidt, P. R., & Patterson, T. C. (Eds.). (1995). Making Alternative Histories, the Practice of Archaeology and History in Non-Western Settings. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press. Smith, L. Tuhiwai, (1999), Decolonizing Methodologies, Research and Indigenous Peoples, London, New York: Zed Books,Ltd.

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Srinivasan, R., Boast, R., Becvar, K., & Furner, J. (2009). (in press). Digital Museums and Diverse Cultural Knowledge: Moving past the Traditional Catalog. The Information Society. doi:10.1080/01972240903028714 Srinivasan, R., Enote, J., Becvar, K. M., & Boast, R. (2009). Critical and Reflective Uses of New Media Technologies in Tribal Museums. Museum Management and Curatorship, 24(2), 169–189. doi:10.1080/09647770902857901 2008The Politics of Heritage AuthorshipKalay, Y., Kvan, T., & Affleck, J. (Eds.), New Heritage, New Media and Cultural Heritage (pp. 170–184). London, New York: Routledge. Trant, J. (2006). Exploring the Potential for Social Tagging and Folsonomy in Art Museums: Proof of Concept. New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia, 12(1), 83–105. doi:10.1080/13614560600802940 UNESCO. (2007) Concept of Digital Heritage Internet. Retrieved June 1, 2009 from http://portal. unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=24268&URL_ DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html Ware, C. (2000). Information Visualization: Perception for Design. San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc., Academic Press. Waters, A. (Ed.). (2004). American Indian Thought. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. Yashar, D. J. (1998). Contesting Citizenship: Indigenous Movements and Democracy in Latin America. Comparative Politics, 31(2), 25–26.

ADDITIONAL READING A UNESCO-supported Andaman Sea Pilot Project has been launched to bridge the cultural and communication gap between the Park authority, the Moken, and other stakeholders. http://www. unesco.org/csi/act/thailand/surin.htm

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A:shiwi A:wan Museum and Heritage Center(n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.ashiwi-museum.org/ Breure., et al. (2008). A Museum Portal for Cultural Landscapes: Museums and the Web Proceedings. Quebec, Canada: Archives and Museum Informatics. Retrieved from http://conference.archimuse. com/biblio/museum_portal_cultural_landscapes Center for Spatially Integrated Social Science. (2001).Retrieved from http://www.csiss.org Chaco Digital Initiative.(n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.chacoarchive.org/ Concepción, C. M. (2004). The Use of Computerized GIS mapping Systems in the Struggle for Environmental Justice. In Eglash, R., Croissant, J. L., Di Chiro, G., & Fouché, R. (Eds.), Appropriating Technology: Vernacular Science and Social Power. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Divide, D. (2010).Retrieved from http://www. digitaldivide.org: accessed May 28, 2009 Eglash, R. (2004). Appropriating Technology, In R. Eglash, J.L. Croissant, G. Di Chiro, & R. Fouché (, Appropriating Technology: Vernacular Science and Social Power. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Haas, A. M. (n.d.). Making online spaces more Native to American Indians: A Digital Diversity Project. Retrieved from http://www.bgsu.edu/ cconline/Haas/index.htm Ibero American Science & Technology Education Consortium. (2010.)Retrieved from http:// www.istec.org/ Kansa, E. (n.d.). Finding Common Ground in the Digital. Retrieved from http://www.icommons. org/articles/finding-common-ground-in-thedigital-commons

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Mann, S., & Russell, K. (2007). Worlds colliding: participatory storytelling and indigenous culture in building interactive games. ICHIM, Retrieved from http://www.archimuse.com/ichim07/abstracts/prg_335001533.html National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis. (1988). Retrieved from http://www. ncgia.ucsb.edu/ New Mexico Acequia Association. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.lasacequias.org/ New Mexico Digital History Project(n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.newmexicohistory.org/ Ngaachi, K. (2003-10). Retrieved from http:// www.kaanjungaachi.com.au/

PPgis.net. Open Forum on Participatory Geographic Information Systems and Technologies,(2004).Retrieved from http://www.ppgis.net/ Public Participation GIS: watching and exploring as PPGIS emerges as a practice and a science(n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.crssa.rutgers.edu/ ppgis/ Schuurman, N. (2006). Formalization Matters: Critical GIS and Ontology Research. Annals of the Association of American Geographers. Association of American Geographers, 96(4), 726–739. Retrieved from http://www.citeulike.org/user/ kangrex/article/960154. doi:10.1111/j.14678306.2006.00513.x The Mukurtu Archive, and Indigenous Archive Tool(n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.mukurtuarchive.org/

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Chapter 11

The Role of Architecture on the Tourism Industry:

The Problem of (Mis)use of Building Technology and Language of Heritage Murat Çetin King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals, Saudi Arabia

ABSTRACT This chapter aims to shed light on the nature of architecture, its technological and cultural ramifications on tourism industry. It elucidates the background of issues regarding the interaction between the fields of cultural production (architecture) and cultural consumption (tourism). The chapter argues that power of tourism industry has reached, under the pressure of global economics, to a capacity to turn even daily architecture into instruments of touristic show. In this context, technology is utilized as an instrument to produce such iconography only as a surface articulation. Thus, architecture becomes a commodity of touristic consumption in this current socio-economic and cultural context. The pressure of tourism industry seems to create a significant split between the architecture and its location in terms of specific cultural roots. This tendency is discussed as a potential threat to sustainability of tourism industry itself since it damages its own very source, that is to say, richness of cultural differences.

INTRODUCTION Within the framework of the relationships among tourism management, approaches, global tourism trends and technology, this chapter aims to cast light on the status of architecture and its technological as well as cultural ramifications on the ongoing tendencies in tourism industry (Adorno, 1991). The main focus of this chapter is on the

use of global building technologies at the peril of local architecture which is a cultural asset for tourism (Bourdieu, 1993). In other words, building technology is tackled as a means which interferes in between tourism and heritage, and disturbs their natural, or rather, organic relationship (Fowler, 1993). Along this purpose, the economic, social, cultural and philiosophical background of this disturbance is elucidated with specific reference to the field of architecture (Lasansky, 2004).

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61520-867-8.ch011 Copyright © 2011, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

The Role of Architecture on the Tourism Industry

Tourism, as one of the most rapidly growing sectors in the world in regard to economical, technological and social transformations, facilitates significant interactions and transactions among different countries (MacCannell, 1999). After various successive stages of evolution and self-criticism in regard to the issues of excessive consumption (Slater, 1999) and thus loss of natural and cultural resources, targets of tourism has started to be shifted from an industry that was developed along the axis of 3S (sun, sand, sea) mass tourism which has been isolated from the culture and economy of the loci, towards one that is organized along the axis of 3E (education, entertainment, environment) under the influence of increasing concern for issues such as sustainability, conservation of both heritage and nature, etc. (Ellul, 1997). Thus, impact of tourism on tangible and intangible assets of cultural heritage has been placed to the center of tourism industry (Chambers, 1997; Pickard, 2001). In that regard, relationships between tourism, city planning, heritage conservation, restoration and architecture (Baud-Bovy & Lawson, 1998; Var & Gunn, 2002) have gained utmost importance particularly from the viewpoint of sociological impacts of tourism activity on the cities it is performed (Ockman, 2005). On another yet parallel line, architecture has taken the lead in tourism as the main object of touristic activity and has recently generated a specialized type called architecture tourism whereby specialist trips are organized around the cities worldwide to visit contemporary buildings designed by well-known architects as well as historically important or traditionally characteristic buildings (Kahvecioglu & Ciravoglu, 2007). Tourism movement, which boomed particularly during 1980s, introduced a very dense and over urbanization causing; not only major damages to coastal zones via massive constructions, but also to local life by means of conversion of local economies for only tourists, which gradually resulting in the decline of these towns during off-seasons, and eventually destroying

both local economy and social life. Nonetheless, despite many negative consequences, tourism activity continued its growth and became the center of global social, cultural and economic life. Therefore, the phenomenon of tourism, in which diverse parameters play complex roles, necessitates an intense interaction among sectors and disciplines. Among these disciplines, architecture stands out as a leading actor since it not only facilitates investments, synthesizes the requirements of comfort and entertainment or organizes activities, technologies and spaces, but also creates identities and produces the imagery and iconography associated with branding of the tourism investors. Today, hence, tourism industry and architecture are in a comprehensive and very close interaction. As a matter of fact, authentically historical architectural edifices have always triggered tourism (Stoller, 1989) by their values as either being witnesses to historical events, or representing various phenomena, or merely by their monumentality, originality or other assets. These unique masterpieces or contexts used to render certain destinations more advenageous over the others. Thus, relatively disadventageous locations in terms of touristic attractions have developed various strategies to overcome their position by the utilization of architecture again (Donald, 2007) due to its representation capacity. One of these strategies has been to create their own iconic symbols through contemporary architecture and its new forms by well-known designers, who are promoted as celebrities, while the other strategy being to simulate unique buildings and cities in these inopportune places which has no relevance to the location of the original. Recently, tourism industry seems to be promoting not only fake copies of historically important or well-known buildings, cities but also their kitsch and eclectic collage, such as monuments, pyramids, palaces, urban plazas and even the whole city of Venice in resorts. The consequences of this trend, which is referred as ‘Las Vegas effect’ or ‘WoW effect’,

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will be discussed below. Regarding the other, and relatively more ethical strategy, such contemporary architectural edifice itself can transform its location into a magnet of touristic attraction by its own very existence. The most typical example og this sort is the town of Bilbao in Spain becoming a touristic place by the construction of Guggenheim Museum building by Frank Gehry and radically transforming town’s economy, which is defined in literature as ‘Bilbao effect’ (Zulaika, 2003). As a result of this strong connection and interaction between architecture and tourism, tourism industry gained a remarkable power over architecture. In this context, having gone way beyond the reasonable touristic demand to experience architecture in its original location, this power has reached to a capacity to be able to turn daily architecture into instruments of touristic show. More precisely, tourism, when reached to the required level of demand, can have the power to transform buildings totally or partially. That is to say, touristic demand can easily force developers, owners, local administrators, governers and finally architects to convert, for instance, religious buildings to art galleries, parliament buildings to recreation areas, skyscrapers to panoramic towers, private houses to museums etc. Doubtlessly, such phenomena could easily be explained by material aspects. From economical viewpoint, to start with, one may suggest that although demand is assumed to create the supply according to classical economics, demand can be artificially created and stimulated in order to maximize the profitability of the capital. Space and time appear as two major obstacles for the circulation of global capital (Yirtici, 2005). Space and time, in conventional terms, are bounded by local context, that is to say, by geography and its specific spatial characteristics and own rhythm of time. Nevertheless, global economy requires such a local resistance to be eliminated simply because homogeneity will increase the fluidity of of global capital (Bauman, 1997). Therefore, the currently dominating economic system seeks various ways not only

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to break the links with locality, time and space but also to reconstruct them in an abstract level. Along this goal, it utilizes building technology to materialize this deconstruction and reconstruction of space-time relationship. Manifestations and ramifications of these radical transformations will be discussed below. Therefore, this section will address the issue of technology in tourism, and particularly that of building technology, as a socio-cultural issue. The argument developed in this section is centered on the notion of authenticity, its vitality for sustainability of local economy, and thus, local everyday life.

TOURISM, CULTURE & ARCHITECTURE Tourism has originally stemmed from the human need to other cultures, to experience heterogeneity of life and the diversity of its cultural products, artefacts on earth (Giddens, 1991). Thus, the travels, which used to be real adventures due to problems regarding transportation difficulties, safety and cost issues, had gradually started to be encouraged by technological advances particularly in transportation during 19th century. In other words, tourism, which started as a cultural enterprise, still places cultural activity onto its center no matter how much it is also associated with disciplines such as economis, logistics, etc. Franklin (2003) defines tourism not only as a cultural activity but also as a part of the phenomenon of globalization. The difference of tourism, today, is its homogenizing effect which occurs in two mutually interacting channels. Firstly, tourism industry supply tourists everywhere with more or less similar services, uniform catering, hosting, and even the same artificial climate as well as standard packages to the extent that they provide them even with similar physical and spatial settings. The aforementioned ‘Vegas’ or ‘WoW’ effects are polarized manifestations of

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such homogenization of the globe through tourism. Secondly, tourists, in return, develop a behavior in which they are interested more in the artificial experiences, simulations and pseudo-local gift items (that are mostly produced in China) than the genuine, authentic and salient features of the place and its people. Holiday villages are typical examples of this where guests, whose only contact with local culture is gift shops either pre-arranged by the tour agency if not another in the duty-free just before they leave the place at the end of their vacation, are isolated from the everyday, real surrounding of their destination. In an age of violence, crime and terror, the underlying fears of people yield in such a degree of isolation and artificialization even in vacations, which defeats its initial purpose of tourism that was to discover, encounter and interact with the ‘other’ (Giddens, 1991). Thus, this homogenizing behavioural cycle and the superficial interest in local culture develop a state-of-mind of their own. In other words, ‘being tourist’ becomes an (ephemeral, distancing, superficial) attitude towards life in general. Eventually, everyday life and touristic life becomes inseperable (Erkal, 2007). The border which seperates them first blurs, then finally collapses. Thus, the global world envisaged by those who favoured its homogenization becomes merely touristic; entertaining on short-term basis yet monotonous in the long run. On a similar note, Hannerz (2006) suggests that tourists are becoming a significantly influential social group to shape the city social life and public realm due to increasing mobility in the age of fast travel, information technology and global economy. Referring to Culler (1989)’s studies on semiology of tourism, he emphasizes the point that tourist as people staying in a place too short to assess their environment through neither function nor context but rather throughtheir guidebooks, cameras, and thus, images, icons and associated events. This type of short-term perception and assessment which eventually exerts power on the city to turn everything into a spectacular

show for tourists through signs (Barthes, 1977) including spaces they experience. In other words, for tourists, sign value of an architectural edifice merits more than its use value. Thus, function, as one of the essentials of architecture, becomes suspended and reduced to the level of an object that is consumed visually (Alsayyad, 2001). How architectural product looks for a tourist gains more importance than what it is produced for and what it contains. In this context, architecture inevitably becomes a part of the whole tour package disposed for pleasure and entertainment. Consequently, it is no longer part of its local culture although tourism is based on the idea of selling ‘culture’ a significant part of which is characterized by its unique architecture that is conditioned by local social dynamics. Nonetheless, contemporary architecture with its new technologies and new language seems to be replacing the authentic local products of architecture. Thus, ‘tourism of architecture’, which has a siginificant shares in the global tourism activity, is overemphasized so much that ‘architecture of tourism’ is considered as a field of specialization within the discipline of architectural design. Particularly, considerable amount of tourism in developed countries is oriented towards products of architecture, some of which create attraction due to their historical value whereas most of which attract due to their capacity to represent contemporary architecture. Architecture, particularly for tourism, becomes a commodity of consumption (Appadurai, 1988). By the same token, architecture is considered as a global asset in a world of intense communication through help of technology. So, administrations and developers compete with eachother to create their own architectural assets for increasing their share from the tourism market if they do not already have their own existing architectural stock to be marketed through tourism sector. In this process, the use and value of architecture as tourism object are reduced to temporary stage sets for being replaced with new icons (Hughes, 1991) to surprise

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the spectator and signs for every new show that is to be staged to satisfy the demands of rapidly growing tourism industry. Such a consciousness and desire to produce architecture as show eventually result in an inflation of iconic buildings and promotion of kitsch buildings against the real value of genuine architectural products that reflect the true culture of a loci. At this point, the issues of heritage conservation and renewal arise as mechanisms of safeguarding the sustainability of local cultures. Having repeated that building technology is discussed here as a cultural issue, this chapter argues that concepts of technology and language are mis-interpreted in architecture, particularly when its relation to tourism industry is considered. While the language is conceived as a mere iconography devoid of its cultural components; from its production processes, from social, geographical or climatic factors, the technology is conceived as an instrument to produce this iconography as if it is merely a surface surface articulation like a stage set for a show. That is why the architectural literature takes a critical stance towards what is called Vegas Effect. As a matter of fact, tourism cannot sustain even itself, not only local life, by relying purely on creating shows and temporary settings unless some effort is made to revive the culture through conservation and rehabilitation. In regard to the relationship between tourism and architecture, technology could only be judiciously and critically applied to serve the rehabilitation of the disturbed balance between tectonics and skin, building and facade, real and fake, actual and virtual, signified and signifier, content and form, meaning and icon, in sum, between architecture and show. Therefore, the issue of misinterpretation is tackled on two fronts; visual language and building technology. The following successive sections address these two interrelated issues respectively.

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MIS-INTERPRETATION OF CULTURE AND ITS ARCHITECTURAL LANGUAGE This section argues that pressure of tourism industry and consumerist misinterpretation of local cultures (Slater, 1999) and their architectural languages seem to have created a peculiar type of urban-architectural forgery that is usually reduced to skin-deep façade mimicry of local architectural features which results in distorted eclecticism of Disney Architecture or Las Vegas Strip Architecture, background, sources, roots and aims of which are different from socio-cultural context of cities at stake. Therefore, the ‘city of collective memory’ (Boyer, 1996) seems to have been replaced by the postmodern condition (Lyotard, 1984; Jameson, 1991; Harvey, 1991) of ‘city becoming a place of show and display’ (Debord, 1967). The architecture as show and display can so easily and quickly be consumed that global cities which are in competition to attract more tourists have to produce new shows, new signs and icons new buildings serve for that purpose (Urry, 1995). Thus, seductive outlook of their new icons have to fascinate the minds of the new tourist population. Although monuments gradually lose their power on the collective memory, the demand for new icon buildings does not decrease. That is the reason why bigger buildings, with strange sculptural forms as ‘enigmatic signifiers’ (Jencks, 1995) are still being built by stararchitects (as celebrities and even superheroes) as remedies (Figure 1) for all the ills of the contemporary city that is rapidly losing its past, heritage and thus character. After economic success of ‘Bilbao effect’, developers’ demand has profoundly increased for iconic despite various socio-cultural concerns and drawbacks. Thus, these iconic buildings multiply through mimetic processes (Blackmore, 1999). In a world and time dominated by technology and media; the ambiguity and speculations created by iconic architecture has gradually been

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Figure 1. Buildings for tourism as enigmatic icons and star architects as superheroes; A collage of Guggenheim Museum building silhouette in Bilbao - Spain guarded by architects Frank Gehry and Zaha Hadid (© 2010 Murat Cetin)

accepted as a means of being mediatic. Not only ambigous sculptural forms (Gelernter, 1995) but also language produced by techniques of ‘copy and collage’ turns into architecture a spectacular show and display. These techniques are implemented in such an exaggerated and distorted manner to make the show more interesting for tourists that the end product is not more than kitsch. This trend not only affects the exterior image but gradually space program and content of the building as well. Thus, architecture loses its grounds by becoming a skin (Semper, 1989), a mask or a cover rather than what it exists for. Consequently, a process which turns office skyscrapers to watchtowers or worship spaces to galleries is being witnessed. Architectural product accommodates two types of values; use and meaning (Guzer, 2007). While premodern era was characterized by the fact that meaning was collectively produced by the society (Rapoport, 1982) modernity defined the meaning value over its use value (Perez-Gomez, 1983). In other words, a rational link or correlation between the tectonic existence of an architectural edifice and its formal and artistic expression was inquired until the end of the twentieth century. However, together with post-modern consumption society, these two values are divorced and new value judgements started to influence architectural products, too, as in all channels of consumption

objects. Consequently, aspects of meaning and identity have started to compete and challenge the functional aspects of buildings. Thus, today, aspects of meaning and identity, which once was the contribution of architect, directly became a program input defined clearly by developers, investors, corporate institutions or governments particularly in tourism industry to boost up the economy of a city. The manifestations of refunctioning of architecture as an instrument of prestige and economic generator could be observed in a wide spectrum ranging from’ Mitterand’s Paris Effect’ in Europe to ‘Dubai Effect’ on the Middle East region. Doubtlessly, functional flexibilities brought by technological advances and the resulting physical and spatial transformations have an accelerating impact on the process of the divorce between use and meaning values. Therefore, the next section will elucidate the advances of technology that paved the way for such a radical cultural transformation in the way we built our environment.

MIS-INTERPRETATION OF BUILDING TECHNOLOGY In addition to obvious and direct relation between building and technology, there is a very subtle and indirect relation between tourism and technology.

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The advances in technology profoundly change not only the way people live but also how they perceive. This gradual transformation may eventually shift human cognitive schemata which would lead to a new phase, and thus, state of human existance. No matter how far and distant such a phase may seem, consequences of abrupt leaps in this transformation process that are implemented through our fascination with technology might de destructive since our biological and mental ties with reality, nature, location, culture and tradition have not yet been totally removed. Therefore the relation between these strong ties and evolving technology should be re-considered particularly in the fields of cultural production (architecture) and cultural consumption (tourism). This section will address the issue of technological advances and their impact on architecture on two channels; first one is IT based technologies the other is construction technologies. Both types of technologies are discussed from the viewpoint of their pressure on the transformation of culture and architecture as one of its subsets.

Impact of IT and Media on the Reality of Architecture As a matter of fact, all commodities (including space) needed continuously changing faces in Post-Fordist production systems. Technology is utilized to enable commodities to change very quickly. Particularly, IT based technologies and media technologies were favoured to overcome the sheer physicality and materialty of real life which stand as major obstacles in this context of rapid and frequent changes occurring in high-speed (Virilio, 1998). Thus, simulation and virtual reality found their ground to flourish in such a context (Baudrillard, 1994). They served the demands of economic system so well that they have finally become an addiction today. Most aspects of life are shifting towards simulated spaces in todays’s post – information society. Within the current euphoria of information technologies such as 4G

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telecommunication, worldwide web, electronic trade, electronic state, virtual social networks etc., our living and perception have been significantly altered since the 19th century, particularly in the last few decades. Architecture is not an exception to this transformation; and neither is tourism industry (Pease et al., 2007). Ucar (2007) draws attention to a 19th century invention and comments on its influence of the development of tourism; La Nature á coup d’œil”, or widely known as ‘Panorama’ by Robert Barker (Parcell, 1996). He suggests that although they disappeared in 20th century, it can be considered as an evolution because they are still in our daily lives as a notion of virtual reality. Interactive cameras and web-based programs to combine our photographs provide us with panoramic images with 360 degrees views. In fact, panorama in the 19th century was more than a device to provide 360 degree images, but was more of a studiously choreographed magical stage performance to puzzle the viewer (Oettermann, 1997). The techniques developed by panorama had paved the way for advances in photography and movies. Similar to present times, the rising demand for knowledge in an age of information boom following the widespread dissemination of books had created an intellectual aura of experiencing this new information about ‘others’. No matter how difficult, expensive and dangerous the travel was, the demand to see other places, people, cultures, landscapes, buildings, food, artifacts etc. was met by bringing those locations to the people through this new technological initiative what is later called in North America as Cyclorama. This need was intended to be satisfied with a unique technology based on providing virtually realistic images. It was achieved by applying principles carefully derived from the disciplines of painting, optics, theatre and architecture with the available technology of the time. So, first seeds of today’s architecture as a mediatic show or icon were planted by invention of panorama in the 19th century.

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Under the pressure of the demand for continuously changing faces in the current economic system, architecture, thus, is in a difficult position between the masses as its consumer and corporate sector as its financer. Therefore, architecture seems to have developed a double-faced attitude with the help of image-oriented cultural infrastructureand technological superstructure in order to overcome this paradox caused by the sudden and radical shift in capital ownership. The new power (of the corporate capital) and her (artistic and spatial) weapons should be disguised in a seducing new skin (Till, 1999). Market demand for such disguise seems to have reached almost to a level of fetishist obsession with newer forms (Pietz, 1993). Hence, architecture has recently started to serve as a new package in order to market the products of corporate building sector. Marketing through a new package necessitated the use of a new media (Ramonet, 2002). In a society which has dogmatic belief in media, the arts have also been pumped-up by the media and its related technologies. What is unfamiliar, interesting (no matter how strange it could be), has become the most wanted feature in this tv/video/internet oriented media (McLuhan et al., 1989). Hence, new types of spaces have been emerging with the strangest possible forms and iconographic language. Radical leaps in technological advances, profoundly transform the way people conceive art (Mitchell, 1994). The concept of simulation (Baudrillard, 1994) with the help of increased ability of computation seems to have enabled the creation of a marketable imagery of space (Foucault, 1973). Although this new visual revolution is welcomed by the profession, the real problem was the possibility of realising this abstract image in concrete with the current building technologies. Moreover, further production, re-production and re-presentation of this new space unavoidably (yet magically) blurred the borders between real and virtual (Mitchell, 1996). Inevitable consequences of this phenomenon were manifold. It was meant to weaken the tectonic conditions and traditions

in which architecture is evolved. Its seductive nature was meant to cause one to discard its true assets simply because of its market value. Its popular merits seem to have pushed its social responsibilities aside. The question is whether it is architecture any longer.

Impact of Building Technology on the Materiality of Architecture Another channel in which technological advances make significant impact on architectureof tourism is the building technology. Traditionally, building activity and architectural language as its cultural expression were conditioned by the limitations of material, available workmanship, principles of economy, and conventions of construction techniques that were lenient with forces of nature. Currently, on the contrary, construction technology has been usuriously pushed in a direction to enable architects and enginners producing images to satisfy this aforementioned demand of touristic consumption. Production of steel in vast amounts as well as advances in steel construction has initially started the process of a reform in architecture starting from the 19th century onwards. During the 20th century, developments in glass technology enabled to go beyond the existing limitations of construction. Recently, glass technology is developed into such a level that it is no longer merely a material that provides transparency, view and light through windows, but an intelligent environmental control shell, and moreover, a structural component of buildings. In parallel to these developments, inventions and advances in material science engouraged the use of various alloys, compositions, chemicals, plastics and special fabrics in building industry. The increasing use of these materials in combination with various forms of steel structures also initiated a shift from load bearing systems to tensile systems in construction of buildings. Furthermore, the remarkable progress in the field of electronics, nano technology, artificial intel-

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ligence, remote communication systems paved the way for the age of smart buildings (Seltzer, 1992). Consequently, conventional tectonics of building was replaced by the tectonics of ‘skin architecture’ largely determined by the use of a wide variety of curtain wall façades. All of these developments have rapidly and totally altered the very nature of architecture as a functional and aesthetic shelter into a display shell. Like the billboards of Las Vegas strip, the tourism architecture has turned into a circus where jugglers of archirtecture perform their skills of acrobacy of forms and images with buildings in shape of; for instance, boats, transatlantics, spaceships, burgers, cakes, toys, animals, plants, fruits, hills, rocks, clouds, daily devices, instruments, iPods, tv screens or buildings as replicas of Topkapi Palace, Kremlin Palace, or of Venice with its water canals, or Moscow with its plazas etc. In sum, architecture has turned into artistic creation of interesting objects that also accommodates human functions, that is to say, buildings that look like anything but architecture. In this context, emergent building technology encourages creation of fake facades which may look like traditional architecture. Moreover, contemporary materials and techniques allow architects to produce mimicry of history through forms and figures borrowed arbitrarily from past without any reference to its context or constituent conditions. Nonetheless, this anachronistic attitude as well as flattening of whole history and its associated aspects into a skin-deep cosmetic surface treatment will serve nothing but to terminate the existing weak ties and connections of humans to their roots in nature, place and culture. By the same token, this will, soon, result in tourism industry to sabotage its own resources that are mainly embedded in the cultural content of localities unless an alternative strategy is established regarding the relationship between culture and tourism. Development of strategies for sustainability of local cultures requires an emphasis on the thorough and rigorous study of genuine cultures, their multi-faceted aspects and contexts

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rather than its visual replication. Therefore, at this point, the emphasis must be given to the issue of architectural heritage and its conservation.

GENUINE CULTURAL ASSETS AND CONSERVATION OF ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE Although tourism industry may invest on other assets to increase its profit, historical and traditional context is the most valuable and sustainable asset for tourism industry (Maciocco & Serreli, 2009; Ulled Merino et al., 1986). The first and the most important salient feature of this asset, that is to say, traditional context is its originality. The priority of tourism industry must not only to provide a certain level of comfort to its customers but also assure the sustainability of this vulnerable cultural asset both as a means of protecting its own investment as well as a social responsibility. Genuinely traditional architecture is the main element in the manifestation of this cultural asset (Singh 2007). Authentic architectural heritage should not be sacrificed for the artificial architecture of theme hotels via kitsch replication of the genuine in irrelevant locations and contexts with fake materials and false proportions. The objectives of tourism industry to generate new virtual environments to stimulate tourists’ fantasy world through these theme hotels seem to have followed the easiest path and inevitably ended up with production of very cheap and non-creative images via various packages. The profits accumulated through this populist initiative can neither justify the damage given to cultural assets nor legitimize the extra cost paid by communities have to pay to sustain their everday lives and cultural existence (Lefebvre, 1991). Furthermore, the enormous cost that will be required for these buildings to be removed or replaced once their fake imagery is outdated must not be forgotten. Similar to the damages tourism investments caused during 1980s via the destruction of nature, forests and coasts, the cur-

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rent developments will create damages that are not only very hard and costly to compensate but also irreversible in terms of socio-cultural ramifications. Thus, any investment that is intended to serve tourism industry should discourage the production of this fake history through ‘WoW effect’ created by these theme hotel chains. The objective of tourism industry should focus on contributing to local culture by architecture whether it is a restoration or conservation of a product of authentic culture or a construction of a new product of ‘Bilbao Effect’, but definitely not by promotion of replicas which will degrade the originals. Architectural edifices, particularly masterpieces have always attracted attention. Therefore, they play a major role in the tourism income of their region as well as their country. The importance of Eiffel Tower or Louvre Palace for Paris, Big Ben Clock Tower and Buckingham Palace for London, Hagia Sophia Museum, Suleymaniye Mosque and Topkapi Palace for Istanbul is crucial for their tourism potential. Nevertheless, none of these edifices stand out individually, on the contrary, as an integral part of the pattern constituted by the cultural assets of the city in which they are located. Moreover, they acquire their value through time as a historical asset whereas the current buildings are immediately put into the center of attention via marketing strategies right after the moment after their production if not during their planning and production phases. Unfortunately, new architecture, when conceived as a tool for tourism, has become a part of a process which homogenizes and monotonizes the environment at the peril of genuine qualities. Therefore, tourism industry should seek ways of collaborating with the discipline of conservation of architectural heritage in addition to sponsoring and managing the restoration of cultural heritage that is under the threat of deterioration (Orbasli, 2000). Nonetheless, conservation merely for tourist is not a favourable or sustainable solution either. Instead, local communities must be supported

to maintain their living and producing to enable them sustaining themselves without the help of tourism during off-seasons. Therefore, tourism industry should take initiatives in boosting local economies and take measures against sweeping effects of global economy simply to ensure the continuity its base of existence. Along this path, ties with local history, local nature, local materials, local arts and crafts and local rituals should be enhanced with integrated strategies. Only then, the devastating effects of tourism on culture could not only be prevented but on the contrary be reversed towards serving the local communities and sustainability of cultures around the globe so that tourism could sustain itself without inventing and investing on new shows forever.

CONCLUSION This chapter elucidates the impact of tourism on social and cultural values and assets with specific reference to its strong mutual interaction with architecture. This interaction is tackled from the perspective of the conservation of cultural heritage and its sustainable development. It is argued that this interaction is threatened by economic and technological pressures and needs for an urgent shift from the current reduction of cultural assets and traditional features into superficial icons or surface articulations towards conservation of authentic character and genuine products to assure its own sustainability. As discussed above in detail, tourism industry is undergoing a rapid expansion causing the breakage of its link between space, time under pressure of capitalist economics to either create or stimulate the demand (Harvey, 1985). Along this line of homogenizing action, it utilizes architecture as a means to globally create artificial and exaggerated settings for its spectacular shows legitimizing the promotion of populist and kitsch culture at the peril of locality and genuinity. Misplacement of place-specific assets or features to create these

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new spatial settings causes cultural confusions. The fact that genuine urban-architectural language which reflects this harmony of space and time is very attractive for tourist seems to be usually subdued in favour of architecture that looks like Disneyworld or Las Vegas Strip, which too, might attract tourists in specific context since they are the authentic products of the (space-time) context they are formed within. However, other cities should avoid replicating this type of populist products. They rather should keep them in a distance to highlight their own assets. Particularly, this difference is blurred in societies where critical culture is not very well established (Guzer, 2007). In other words, buildings that are pumped up with exaggerated scale, material and formal expressions as well as naively direct references to history could easily be confused with avant-garde architectural experiments. Such an attitude not only creates a conflict between the real functional or tectonic values of building and its sign values (Baudrillard, 1981) but also renders architecture as an exaggerated product of fashion or daily values of taste(lessness) rather than a product of special design process. The major difference, however, lies in the following distinction; between creating an attractive architecture and using architecture to attract people, or between turning architectural product into a sign and using existing signs to make architecture. Doubtlessly, the use of architecture as an instrument of prestige can and should be considered as a positive ground for architecture. However, productive use of this ground for architecture is only possible through widespread establishment of the critical culture, that is to say, through not only a certain distance from easily consumable direct references to history but also a process of abstraction and interpretation of existing knowledge rather than that of instant products made up of popular signs and icons. Hence, space is essentially a public commodity, and therefore, it can be monopolised neither by the capital nor

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by the architect. On the other hand, a new vision and understanding the ontological transformation that architecture is undergoing is also needed for the discipline of architecture (Yirtici, 2007). For architecture to become the subject rather than object of the current social reality in which architecture exists, architecture has to develop its own tactics that are critical yet not exclusive of the global economic logic which shakes all known phenomena so far. Consequently, tourism industry should develop ways to heal the severe split between the architecture and its location in terms of cultural roots specific to location caused by the pressures exerted by mechanisms of global economy.

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Semper, G. (1989). The Four Elements of Architecture And Other Writings. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP. Singh, R. (2007). Jaisalmer: Art, Architecture and Tourism. New Dehli, India: Shubhi Publications. Slater, D. (1999). Consumer Culture and Modernity. New York: Polity. Stoller, P. (1989). The Taste of Ethnographic Things: The Senses in Anthropology. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Tafuri, M. (1973). Architecture and Utopia; Design and Capitalist Development. Cambridge: MAL MIT Press. Till, J. (1999). The Vanity of Form. The J o u r n a l o f A rc h i t e c t u re , 4 , 4 7 – 5 4 . doi:10.1080/136023699373990 Ucar, E., (2007). Bir Bakista Kent, Mimarlik, 336 Urry, J. (1995). Consuming Places. Boca Raton, FL: Routledge. Var, T., & Gunn, C. (2002). Tourism Planning: Basics, Concepts, Cases. Boca Raton, FL: Routledge. Virilio, P. (1998). Speed and Politics; An Essay on Dromology, Semiotext(e). New York: Columbia University Press.

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Chapter 12

Advanced Technologies and Tourism Behaviour:

The Case of Pervasive Environments Eleonora Pantano University of Calabria, Italy Rocco Servidio University of Calabria, Italy

ABSTRACT The current chapter provides an overview of the most advanced technologies for tourism sector, with emphasis on pervasive environments, which represent innovative systems based on an efficient integration of Virtual Reality (VR) and affective world. The aim is to show how tourism industry might exploit the current advances in Information and Communication Technology (ICT), such as VR, web-based technologies, mobile devices, etc., to catch tourists’ attention and gain competitive advantages over competitors. In particular, these technologies are capable of promoting touristic destination in a global perspective and affect potential tourist decision-making process, by investigating the main characteristics and possible integrations. Moreover, especially pervasive environments are efficient tools to entertain and attract tourists’ interest, by showing potential destinations in an innovative and exciting way capable of influencing users’ decision-making process. In addition, this chapter outlines the possible implications for both marketers and tourists.

INTRODUCTION The increasing competition among territories forces the tourism industry to develop new marketing strategies capable of spreading the touristic potentiality of the territory, in order to attract more touristic flows (Dwyer et al., 2009; Zhang et al., 2009; Pantano & Naccarato, 2010). DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61520-867-8.ch012

Form a tourists point of view, the industry tries to develop the offer which best fits consumers’ needs, whereas from a managerial standpoint, the industry tries to develop new strategies capable of maximizing the profitability of local business, of optimizing the impact of tourism by ensuring a sustainable balance between economic benefits and socio-cultural and environments effects, of improving the quality of life of the local population (Buhalis, 2000).

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Advanced Technologies and Tourism Behaviour

In recent years the innovation in the touristic sector, in terms of new kinds of tourism (i.e., gastronomic tourism, beer tourism, etc.) and innovative technological tools (i.e., recommendation systems, virtual reality, etc.) has reduced the cost of products/services delivering (Shaw & Williams, 2009) and modified the traditional components of the marketing mix in order to gain competitive advantages. In this scenario, innovative strategies must take into account the communication potentiality of the advanced technologies with the purpose to maintain existing visitors and attract new ones. Therefore, the key issue is the identification of the most performing tools for promoting and revaluating the territories. To achieve this goal, it is possible to exploit the current advances in Information and Communication Technology (ICT). In fact, previous studies has showed the relationships between tourism and advanced technologies from different standpoints (Buhalis & Law, 2008), as mobile devices (Cutrì et al., 2008; Kemperman et al., 2009), virtual reality (Guttentag, 2010), adaptive museum guides (Pianesi et al., 2009) and latest as pervasive environments (Pantano & Servidio, 2009). In one hand, these tools offer an innovative and effective way for communicating touristic products to consumers and, as a consequence, for influencing their final choice; on the other one, they offer to managers the possibility to both monitoring the tourists’behaviour and preferences, and exploit it for the development of new efficient communication strategies. The first part of the chapter focuses on the most advanced technologies for tourism sector, by investigating on one hand the state of the art of the current ones used in the field (i.e., Virtual Reality, web- based tools, etc) for attracting new touristic flows, on the other one on the previous studies on tourists acceptance of these technologies, as well as on their emotional response; whereas the second part focused on the analysis of pervasive environments and on their application to a particular territory (Calabria Region, Southern Italy),

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with emphasis on the promotion of its historical resources thought this technology, in order to point out the effectiveness of the pervasive environments and their usage scenario, as well as their implications for both marketers and tourists.

BACKGROUND Virtual Reality A large deal of research highlighted the new advances in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) might affect the tourism sector (Buhalis & Law, 2008; Buhalis & Molinaroli, 2003), in terms of enhancing the collaboration between tourist operator and traveller, by involving tourists in the product creation process (Ingvar et al., 2007), and providing more detailed information about the destinations offer. In this context, the most used tools are web-based communities and portals, and mobile devices. Especially the web tools play an important role on the diffusion of tourist information to wide targets (UNWTO, 2001). Since there is a rapid increasing of ICT in tourism, new technologies would be utilized to extend the current business models. These technologies are mainly based on the Virtual Reality (VR) applications in order to offer virtual reconstructions of the real destinations capable of improving the human “feeling of presence”. In fact, these reconstructions provide a more realistic representation of the environments, by focusing on the integration of virtual agents (Gutiérrez et al., 2008; Brunetti & Servidio, 2010). Furthermore, the reconstruction may refer to a single object, a building, a landscape and it becomes very effective in the case of archaeological ruins. In this case the reconstruction allows to both compare a virtual view of the original state of the object and the current one, and virtual touch and manipulate the object without damaging it, as well as it allows to achieve more information on the ancient use, involved materials and so on

Advanced Technologies and Tourism Behaviour

Figure 1. A finding from the Hera Lacinia treasure (on the left), and its virtual reconstruction (on the right)

(Alfano & Pantano, 2010; Cutrì et al., 2008). Figure 1 shows a meaningful example of comparison between the real object and the reconstructed one, available though the web site: http://www. virtualmg.net. The left part of the image shows a picture of a gold crown founded in the zone of Crotone (Southern Italy), belonging of the treasure of the goddess Hera Lacinia (IV cent. B. D.). It is currently preserved in a reliquary in the Museum of Crotone (Southern Italy). Instead, the right part represents the crown virtual reconstruction. In this way, users may play the crown as in a videogame and, as a consequence, understand better its meaning, thus they are able to exploit the potentiality of the game as useful learning tool (Ke, 2008; Paraskeva et al., 2010). Accordingly, archaeological parks and findings can be promoted in a global perspective and are capable of catching the interest of a wider part of population (Fritz et al., 2005; Pantano & Naccarato, 2010). According to Pantano and Servidio (2009), virtual reality promotes tourism by supporting: •

The creation of an innovative customized touristic product. Virtual reality tools support the developing of new digital environments, such as interactive scenarios, where humans may find interactive and useful information about the destinations. These environments consist of landscapes, particular areas such as museums, parks, and other places. The interaction with the en-

•

•

vironments allows tourists to ease achieve the needed information in an entertaining and fast way, improving the touristic communication process. The visitors’ experience. The high level of interactivity of the virtual environments improves the link between entertainment and education, by providing a more engaging touristic and educational experience. In fact, visitors are exposed to different attraction stimuli together, capable of catching their interest and influencing their expectations. The design of new approaches to promote touristic landscapes. The virtual scenarios are detailed and rich of information, available for a large part of users though ease and useful tools. Hence, virtual reality introduces new tools capable of both supporting tourists during the decision-making process, by providing high customized information, and involving them emotionally during the digital exploration of the reconstructed scenarios.

In this way, VR tools enrich the users’ consciousness of the touristic destination, due to their ease diffusion via web and users mobile devices. Although VR offers important issues for the tourism sector, there are some limitations which should be taken into account. For instance, some researches demonstrated that VR might reduce the need for travelling (Williams & Hobson, 1995),

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Figure 2. Example of visualization of virtual reconstructions though mobile devices

due to the offer of digital electronic experiences, whereas other one maintain that this technology is capable of better communicating the touristic destinations and, as consequences, of motivating individuals to really discover the place (Arnold, 2005).

Web-Based Tools and Mobile Devices Concerning the online context, web communities and web portals dedicated to promotion of tourism attractiveness or local heritage offer to users the possibility to browse in the virtual scenarios (Figure 2), play the virtual reconstruction, enjoy the enhanced learning experience, as well as share experience and ask for suggestions to other users of the web site. In fact, users can access to the archaeological sites through an Internet connection, and discover the potential destination by their own place. Furthermore, integrated online recommendations system support users in the choice of the best touristic package, by focusing on his/her own profile. Especially in the field of cultural heritage, museums, arts galleries, archaeological parks are exploiting these tools to catch potential visitors’ interests, by developing new web sites which makes an extensive use of the VR technologies. For instance, the National Museum of Science and Industry (London, UK), has created a web site (http://www.ingenious.org.uk/), which collects images and texts of cultural significance and allows users to create their web galleries or their

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favorite visiting tours. Other noteworthy examples are the British Museum (http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/explore_introduction.aspx) and the Louvre (http://www.louvre.fr/llv/dossiers/ liste_ei.jsp?bmLocale=en), which realized an eversion of the offline museums, with the aim of diffusing cultural contents by allowing the 3D online exploration of museum collections. In fact, users might choose their preferred objects, virtually play them, ask for more information, as well as create their own digital tour. Therefore, online destination discovering becomes an entertaining and interactive experience, and the users feel involved in the creation on the best package for their own requests. As opposed to the web- based tools, the mobile devices promote the destination in situ. In fact, tourist may really access to the place of interest and ask for more information through his/her own mobile by using particular applications (Cutrì et al., 2008) (Figure 2). Figure 2 shows an example of mobile application for the archaeological park of Lokroi (Southern Italy). Visitor accesses to the archaeological site (left), runs the mobile applications, focuses the camera on his/her location and visualize the virtual reconstruction of the original state of the current ruin (right). Since the difficult contextualization of current ruins in a historical scenario, these applications become very efficient for the promotion of archaeological heritage. In fact, in the case of archaeological parks, several applications allow tourist who accesses to the historical site to point the mobile camera on an object and visualize its

Advanced Technologies and Tourism Behaviour

virtual reconstruction on the display, as well as the integrated Global Positioning System (GPS) identifies automatically user’ position and display information related to that place based on these information. Furthermore, tourists can download podcasts (file directories for iPhone, iPad, iPod), and use the mobile devices as a touristic guide, which provides explanatory audio and video on the potential touristic tours. Hence, consumers follow their own mobile as it was a personal traveller guide. Meaningful examples are the MoMa (Museum of Modern Art, New York) and the Chateau de Versailles (France) which allow to free download though both the web site (http.//www. moma.org for MoMa; http://en.chateauversailles. fr/application-iphone-en for Versailles) and iTunes Store applications for iPod with all information capable of supporting and helping tourists during the visit to the museum. The available contents for MoMa are related to collections (paintings, photos), design, architecture, temporary and permanent exhibitions. Concerning Chateau de Versailles, the application supports tourists during their visit of the famous gardens. In fact, it has been developed especially to be used remotely or while in the gardens. During the remote virtual visit, the application offer several videos, rich of details on the décor, hidden parts of the chateau, different perspectives and so on. Furthermore, a satellite view zoom in linked to a commentary related to the objects (fountains, statues, etc.) provide an interesting virtual visit of the place; whereas the interactive tour of the gardens allows users to find the favourite path through the geopositioning system and get customized information. In particular, the system identifies the user’s position and the most interesting object close to him, thus it starts a film which explains in details the history, the functioning, etc. of the object. In addition, the application Vision+ allows user to insert the world of enhanced reality in order to start filming what’s around him/herself. Especially the rapid diffusion of iPad might rapidly become the most used mobiles for delivering

touristic information and overview of the possible packages, due to their high quality of display and computational efficiency. Hence, the benefits for territories which developed similar mobile applications are numerous: •

• •

The interactivity of the application is capable of enhancing the visiting experience, becoming more completing and enjoying if compared to the traditional touristic guides. Discovering and learning processes in situ become more exiting and amusing. The innovativeness of these technologies is capable of attracting also that part of population usually not interested in cultural heritage nor in archaeology field.

Furthermore, the availability of these applications for a limited number of destinations might influence consumer’s decision making, who may prefer a destination which offers these innovative services. For this reason, many territories are developing this kind of application in order to gain a competitive advantage over their competitors.

Tourist’s Acceptance of New Technologies Most of the current studies on tourism behaviour are focused on the use of the web tools to buy touristic products, by investigating the consumers loyalty and trust in the shopping online of a touristic package (Kim et al., 2009; Wang & Wang, in press; Kim et al., in press). In particular, they are aimed at the investigation of user’s evaluation of web sites in terms of usability (Law & Buhalis, 2010, Morosan & Jeong, 2008, Servidio et al., 2009). To date, only few researches direct their awareness on the real tourist’ intention of using the most advanced technologies like adaptive museum guides (Pianesi et al., 2009) or on the effect that VR might have on their behaviour (Wang et al., 2008). These studies outline the importance

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of involvement in the service creation for the acceptance of the technology, as well as the weak influence of tourists’ attitude towards art on the choice of using the technology. Virtual environments promoted via web make the memorization of touristic information easier (Wang et al., 2008) as a consequence this process affects their expectations. Indeed, these systems present the visual information of the touristic place in a more efficient way, so that consumers can prefer these ones rather than the traditional touristic guides (Chiou et al., 2008). Buhalis and O’Connor (2005) outlined how the use of Internetbased VR applications is capable of enhancing tourist’s experience, as well as of becoming a practical tool for gaining a competitive advantage for territories. Most of the researches focused on the user’s acceptance of a technology make an extensive use of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) mainly devoted to the tourist’s acceptance to use web tools to achieve more information on a touristic destination, which involves a quantitative analysis with final users. This model is based mainly on four variables (Davies, 1989): perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, attitude and behavioral intention. Its aim is to investigate the users’ attitude towards a new technology, as well as their acceptance in terms of intention of use and affective use (Hossian & de Silva, 2009; Hsu & Lin, 2008; Kwon & Wen, 2010). In fact, the model is based on the previous Theory of Reasoned Action and Theory of Planned Behavior (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975). In particular, perceived ease of use represents the degree to which users believe that the use of the technology requires no effort (Chung & Tan, 2004; Davis, 1989); whereas perceived usefulness represents the degree to which users believe that the use of the technology enhances their performance (Chung & Tan, 2004; Davis, 1989). Despite the large numbers of researches on user’s acceptance of technologies, there is still a lack of study concerning how the tourist accept

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the new technologies like virtual environments, and how these technologies supports decisionmaking of a destination.

Tourist Computer Interaction Several studies connected to the application of advanced technologies to tourism focused on the development of new tools capable of improving user’s interaction, with emphasis on the best user’s interface. In fact, in the virtual scenarios the design of a correct interface plays a key role, due to the cognitive aspects related the communication modalities between user and computer involved. The Human-Computer-Interaction (HCI) field provides the framework of this research (Hewett et al., 2009). HCI is a multidisciplinary approach which enables new technologies to consist of an ease and pleasant design. It requires a creative design of new products, as well as knowledge related to how the new technological solutions might improve the potential users’ life style (Carroll, 2000; Sears & Jacko, 2009). HCI provides correlations among the field of Industrial Engineering and Cognitive Psychology, with the purpose to develop user-friendly graphical interfaces, which can exploit the advances in the vision, speech recognition, 3D graphics fields (Thompson & Azvine, 2006). At beginning, the research in HCI was more focused on the analysis of the technological aspects of these correlations, by mainly focusing on computer interfaces. Moreover, recent studies propose more approaches, focused also on the organizational, social and cognitive aspects which aim is to support and facilitate the interaction between user and machine (Cairns & Cox, 2008). Since many travellers use Internet to search information or explore touristic destination, HCI has become an interesting topic also for tourism researches focused on the development of best web systems capable of influencing tourists’ choice, with consequences on the emerging of new interdisciplinary sectors like the eTourism

Advanced Technologies and Tourism Behaviour

(Buhalis & Law, 2008; Buhalis & O’Connor, 2006). Hence, the high spread of the ICT services has been influenced by the increasing availability to share traditional user interfaces with other systems like mobile devices. The new technologies offer innovative and entertaining way to deliver touristic information. For instance, the quality of the images becomes an influencing factor in the decision-making process, due to their key role on the emotional aspects involved in the tourist’s behaviour. Furthermore, an important field of research connected to the HCI is related to the development of efficient Graphical User Interface (GUI), which aim is to design the best system for interacting with a computer though graphic manipulation of virtual objects. In fact, it focuses on the basic manipulation idea, which enables user to ease interact with the displayed contents. VR aims to facilitate the user-to-user communication making the visualization of the touristic scenario more realistic. Concerning the virtual reality technique, it might be better understood as broad framework including a computer-mediated and multisensory experience, which facilitates the access to the information in a different way. More in detail, virtual reality refers to “a computer simulation that creates an image of a world that appears to our senses in much the same way we perceive the real world, or “physical reality” (Craig, Sherman, & Will, 2009). Moreover, the development of innovative interactive virtual environments includes new tourist-computer interaction modalities, which combine latest communication ways more efficient in catching visitors’ attention. In this scenario, several researches showed how the object rotation improves the perception quality of the interface, with influence on the subsequent purchasing behaviour. The object rotation allows consumers to perceive the properties of the product affecting the three types of responses (Park, Stoel, & Lennon, 2008): (1) cognitive (how the consumer perceives the information related to the product), (2) affective (mood involved in the

emotional responses), and (3) conative (personal attitude which influences the consumer behavioural intention).

MAIN FOCUS OF THE CHAPTER The focus of this chapter is to describe how advanced technologies, with emphasis on pervasive environments, might influence tourist’s behaviour. In fact, the current advanced in technology aim at fulfils tourists’ curiosity by giving them the opportunity to see a realistic preview of the destination place. Consequently, the visual representation of the touristic places plays a significant role in aiding decision-making process, by influencing individual’s beliefs. Understanding the most effective tools for attracting tourists is an emerging issue. To achieve this goal, advanced technologies propose new successful tools based on the idea to create a strong territorial image capable of influencing tourist’s destination choice. These ones support tourists in creation of a cognitive image of the territory attractiveness. This chapter show a comparison among the most used technologies tourism sector, by underlying their main characteristics. Furthermore, the chapter highlights how the pervasive environments have the potentiality to catch more tourists, due to their innovativeness. In addition, it is important to outline the main implications for both tourists, in terms of influences on their behaviour, and marketers, in order to develop new efficient destination marketing strategies.

THE FOCUS ON CALABRIA REGION We chose the case of Calabria region (Southern Italy) due to its particular attractiveness in a touristic perspective. In particular, the region possess an enormous inheritance from the point of view of art, culture, nature, history and archaeology,

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which has the potentialities to catch the attention of an international audience but which is not fully known. For instance, the resources of major interest and importance are those dating from the period of Greek colonisation, which has come to be known as Magna Graecia. In fact, many products and artefacts recall ancient Greek traditions and often reflect the finds in the region from the ancient Greek era which ran from the VIII Century B.C. to the 1st Century A.D.. Nevertheless, Calabria has a very strong arts and crafts tradition involved in the production of local food specialties (such as salami and other pork products, various kinds of cheese, liqueurs made from locally grown plants and herbs) as well as gold jewelry and musical instruments, while there is a strong growth in the production of cultural goods and services led by local museums and the universities. In fact, it is possible to exploit Calabrian strengths, due to the particular attention shown by foreign tourists: indeed, according to a recent research carried out by the Tourism Observatory for the Calabria Region, Calabria is perceived by foreign tourists as a place where it is still possible to enjoy the flavors of different local traditions; moreover the research carried out that the 24.7% of the people interviewed associated Calabria with gastronomy and local products and this figure was even higher concerning the Japanese tourists at 31.8%. Despite these elements, Calabria region needs to be presented in a touristic perspective capable of attracting different touristic target and promote its resources in a global perspective. Therefore, especially the pervasive environments are capable of presenting the region as an interesting and fascinating for Italian and foreign tourists, in order to outline unique characteristics capable of attracting several audiences and give them the tool for deeply understanding the territory.

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THE ROLE OF PERVASIVE ENVIRONMENTS Pervasive Environments Architecture Currently, the most advanced technologies can be represented by the pervasive environments. These systems are based on a decentralized computing landscape (Hansmann et al., 2003), and consist of a digital world (a virtual reconstruction of objects, scenarios, etc.) and the real users who have the feeling of immersion in the digital context by the ad hoc interface (Steventon & Wright, 2006). The systems can be applied successfully to several fields (Steventon & Wright, 2006): •

•

•

•

•

•

•

Supply chain, through the use of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), which consists of tags attached to the goods, which allows ease monitoring the good movements, with many advantages for the supply chain management. Environmental monitoring, through a continuous monitoring of the environmental variables, in order to evaluate environmental changes. They are especially used in the monitoring of costal erosion. Leisure experiences. Pervasive environments can be exploited to develop more interactive and exciting museum or traveler guides, as well as to create new leisure experiences such as situated games. Healthcare in order to ease and fast monitoring the health of patients for diagnostic and preventive aims. Emergency response, in emergency situations which require rapid and detailed information; Intelligent car to support drivers (parking, drive in dangerous situations such as in bad weather, etc.). Design. These system support designer in the developing of new products (i.e. cars,

Advanced Technologies and Tourism Behaviour

Figure 3. Stereoscopic system for visualization of 3D environments

Figure 4. Stereoscopic visualization of Bronzes of Riace

buildings, etc.), as well as to virtual evaluate their impact in the environment.

timodal interactions improve the level of interactivity, and as consequence it may affect the users’ satisfaction. In fact, these interactions provide an immersive experience in the virtual environments, by both supporting the visualization of 3D objects and scenarios, and allowing them to manipulate the scene, by simulating a real context. Hence, they have the possibility to explore virtually the attractiveness of the touristic place simulating a real experience. These powerful interactions are capable of affecting tourist’s decision-making process, by influencing the creation of a detailed mental model of the destination. Moreover, current researches in the tourism sector are focusing on the developing of more realistic virtual environments based on the use of intelligent agents and systems capable of improving the touristic experience. For instance, these systems can be very effective for the promotion of territories characterized by a high archaeological value. A meaningful example is the Calabria region. Previous studies (Pantano & Naccarato, 2010; Pantano & Servidio, 2009) outlined the usage of these tools for promotion of Calabrian archaeological heritage. Figure 4 shows a meaningful example of reconstruction of the two ancient statues Bronzes of Riace (V cent. B.D.), which represent the symbol of the region itself (Pantano & Servidio, 2009).

Efficient pervasive environments can be realized by exploiting the stereoscopic tools, which consist of a special screen connected to a computer which allows the combination of two images of the same object from two different points of view, which creates the 3D effect. In this way, tourists visualize 3D images through the use of glasses with polarized lens. Figure 3 shows a scheme of the stereoscopic system for visualization of 3D environments. From a touristic point of view, pervasive environments provide users the possibility to virtually discover the touristic destination, by exploiting the VR tools and integrating in an efficient way several input and output devices, in order to make the user-computer interaction more comfortable and improve their usefulness and ease of use perception. In particular, tourists may explore the environment and interact with the 3D objects and scenarios by living a realistic experience capable of enhancing their visit. The system might recognize their position and movements by identifying the shadow or the body direction through a camera, and so on. Based on these data, system modifies the displayed images by giving users a more realistic “feeling of presence”. These mul-

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Table 1. Most used technologies and related characteristics Mobile devices

Web portals

Web-based communities

Pervasive environments

Virtual reconstructions

X

X

X

X

Interactivity

X

X

X

X

Recommendations systems

-

X

-

-

Customized information

X

X

X

X

Personalized tours

X

X

-

X

Recognition of tourist’s geographical position

X

-

-

-

Multimodal interaction

-

-

-

X

Supporting decision making

X

X

X

X

Supporting learning

X

X

X

X

The results of these preliminary studies highlighted the tourist’s interest on these environments, in terms of quality of delivered information, possibility to taste in advance the destination, innovative way for achieving useful information on the destination. In particular, users may be more attracted by these tools than a traditional touristic guide.

Main Characteristics The purposes of the application of pervasive environments to a territory are several. They can be summarized as follows: •

•

•

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The pervasive environments solicit an original and global vision of the territory as an attractive touristic destination, with many consequences for the local economy. The pervasive environments allow to deeply understanding the territory from several points of view, by proposing the most exciting local amenities and places. The pervasive environments provide useful knowledge on the history and culture of a territory, in an ease and interactive way, with consequences for the learning process.

•

•

The pervasive environments allow tourists to live a new and engaging experience, which can motivate them to force others to live the same one. Furthermore, the targets can be several. In fact, these system can be attractive for segments of population with different interests, due to the characteristic of providing a wide range of information (archaeology, landscapes, museums, etc.), furthermore their innovativeness of the environments become an attractive elements for the young part of population more interested in new technologies.

In conclusion, it is possible to summarize the main new technologies adopted in the sector with the related characteristics (Table 1). Mobile devices, web-based systems and pervasive environments have the common characteristic to provide virtual reconstruction in a fast and ease way. In fact, though these technologies user can explore, interact and play with the virtual reconstructions of objects, environments, buildings, by accessing to the needed information in an interactive and innovative way, by exploring the environment though a personalized tour. Hence, users might achieve high customized information, enhancing the searching process.

Advanced Technologies and Tourism Behaviour

Furthermore, in the case of mobile devices, a Global Positioning System (GPS) allows the mobile applications to propose different tours or new information on the users current location, whereas the web portals are capable of suggesting possible tours or touristic packages on the base of users profiles (in terms of past behaviours, needs and preferences, and so on). In opposite with these systems, pervasive environments provide also a multimodal interaction capable of improving the realism of the visited scenario, though several input devices and modalities. Consequently, all these systems provide useful information for tourist’s destination choice, capable of both influencing the decision-making and learning process, though the innovativeness and quality of information displaying. As a consequence, pervasive environments provide several options for the choice of the best alternative, though innovative and more attractive tourism contents.

Accordingly, the introduction of advanced technologies such as pervasive environments might affect the traditional decision-making process based on five steps: need recognition (1), search for information (2), pre-purchase evaluation (3), purchase/consumption (4), post-consumption evaluation (5) (Blackwell et al., 2006; Solomon, 2010). In particular, it is possible to analyse how these innovative technologies influence the different steps in order to understand their possible influence on tourists’ behaviour.

Impact on Tourists’ Behaviour

2. Search for information.

Advanced technologies, and especially pervasive environments might affect tourists’ perception of destination. In particular, they might affect the three main aspects of the process (Solomon, 2010):

Pervasive environments provide fast and useful information on destinations, by allowing users to focus on the one which best fits their interests. Furthermore, they provide the possibility to ease make a comparison among territories;

•

•

•

Exposure. The technologies present the product in an innovative way, by giving users the possibility to focus on some details or to make comparisons. Perceptive selection. Potential tourist pays attention to some stimuli rather than others, the technologies can influence this aspect by catching user’s attention on some particulars rather than others. Interpretation. On the basis of information provided, users attribute a particular meaning to the stimuli, which are influenced by various associations made by tourists during the experience.

1. Need recognition. Pervasive environments support potential tourists in the virtual discovering of the possible destinations, by showing the main attractions and characteristics. As a consequence, they propose alternatives capable of stimulating the emerging of new needs;

3. Pre-purchase evaluation. On the basis of the achieved information, tourists have sufficient elements to make the choice. In this way, pervasive environments support consumers’ decision making process. 4. Purchase/consumption. To date, pervasive environments do not support the payment, nor the possibility to automatically calculate the total amount of the touristic package or to choose among different payments options. However, further development might integrate

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these functions in the pervasive systems, in order to improve the consumers’ shopping experience and the subsequent satisfaction. 5. Post-consumption evaluation. The provided information on the destinations reduce the risk related to the choice and, as a consequence, improves both the quality of the immersive experience, and the loyalty to the supplier who provided the service (i.e. travel agencies, archaeological park, Public Administrations, etc.) and to the region. Since the users active participation in the production of the touristic package and information service (Bharadwaj et al., 2009; Grant et al., 2010) the total service quality improves. In fact, the high level of interactivity which characterizes the pervasive environments, as well as the multimodal interaction allows users to ease interact with both the objects and the provided information in order to get a more customized service. Furthermore, the speed, the quality, and the richness of the service allow users to save time. Therefore, the decision-making process becomes an entertaining experience with positive influences on tourists’ buying behaviour. Furthermore, there are some issues which should be taken into account: tourists may choose to exploit or not the available pervasive environments. Indeed, this option might generate positive attitudes towards both this technology and the suppliers who provide this system (Reinders et al., 2008).

IMPLICATIONS Implications for Tourists The results of our study provide several implications for both the applications of pervasive environments to promote territorial assets and to direct subject’s attention towards a particular destination. Since the competition among ter-

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ritories is growing, tourism industry is forced to design and develop innovative tools to make more attractive the touristic experience. New electronic devices and virtual environments devoted to the promotion of a positive territorial image are more focused on to emphasize the authenticity of the touristic place. In fact, they allow to the potential tourist to reveal the users intention to visit the place and to return again there. In this way, these services improve territorial image and authenticity formation, tourist’s satisfaction, by providing several detailed information in an innovative way. Since these advanced technologies provide new and high customized information, increasing the probability to purchase the best touristic package by reducing the risk connected to the purchase. Hence, tourist’ expectations regarding the destination reflect both the virtual experience and the promotional messages provided by suppliers through this channel. Since the choice of a particular destination depends on the attractiveness of the provided messages likely to be drawn, the suppliers’ inferences on these technologies are capable of affecting tourists’ behaviour. In fact, positive expectations may represent indicators of a positive image of certain destination (Kolar & Zabkar, 2009). Hence, these analyses can be considered as an emerging attempt to investigate empirically the influence of advanced technologies on tourist’s decision-making process and tourist mobility. Despite several researches carried out a negative effect of an excess of the information amount (Sicilia & Ruiz, 2010), the fun provided by these technologies might mediate this effect. So, tourists can live new engaging experience which can be available also for people with disabilities, in order to make destinations more accessible also for this part of population.

Implications for Marketers Managers can use these results in order to develop new efficient strategies based on the use of ad-

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vanced technologies for promotion of territories, as well as tour operators and touristic agencies might take into account the potentialities of these ones to catch tourist’s attention and interests. Managers should take into account the key role played by the fun provided by these interactive media which are capable of influencing user’s evaluation of touristic product. Furthermore, due to the strict link between the attractiveness of the messages and the choice of that product, they should focus on the development of new technologies for the best communication and interaction modality. In fact, these findings are important to design new interactive technologies where managers might exploit the opportunities to involve users in the touristic package creation process. They need to consider the effect of a high level of interactivity and innovativeness on the possibility to add much more advertising to the touristic information promoted by these technologies, which are capable of moderating the negative effects caused by an excess of information. In fact, managers should identify the best messages to be promoted via these technologies and the territories which can achieve more advantages, by exploiting also the tools offered by the new advances in 3D computer graphics. Territories can be promoted in a global perspective, and easy catch the attention of foreign potential tourists’. Hence, the territories which exploit the use of advanced technologies could achieve competitive advantages and a larger market segment.

FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS Although there is a large deal of research in the users’ acceptance of advanced technologies for achieving touristic information, there is still a lack concerning the best integration of different technologies for the creation of a new one which best satisfies consumers needs and capable of better influencing their choice of destination.

Further researches might focus on the comparison of the use of the same technology for different territories in order to deeply understand how the most efficient for each kind of territory. Different quantitative analysis might be based on sample of different ages, in order to understand which target is most influenced by one technologies and how the is more efficient for a particular range of age. Moreover, the use of pervasive environments related hotel booking promotion is still underdeveloped. Many studies carried out the influence of e-word-of mouth communication through virtual communities, social networking systems, blogs, etc. (Xiang & Gretzel, 2010; Ye et al., 2010), but the effect of virtual exploration on tourists’ choice is not totally investigated yet. Hotel managers could take into account the possibility to create virtual tour, iPad/iPhone applications related to the rooms and facilities, in order to give users the possibility to discover the hotel attraction before the booking and reduce the risk involved in the choice. With the same purposes, it is possible to give travel agencies already equipped with systems for stereoscopic visualization virtual reconstruction of rooms and amenities in order to allow users to discover and test the hotel offer through an immersive and interesting experience. In addition, touristic consumption of virtual destination might become a social experience, hence consumer could prefer creating and consuming their favourite touristic package in the virtual scenario than a traditional one, thus marketers should identify how exploit pervasive environments also in loci, in order to understand how tourists make use of these systems and which factors affect their participation to the virtual scenarios.

CONCLUSION The advanced technologies like VR, web-based technologies, mobile applications, and pervasive environments provide new effective tools to communicate touristic products in an innovative and 183

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interacting way. Since these technologies offer interactive, ease of use, useful tools for searching information related to the touristic destination, the tourist’ choice might be influenced by these elements. Tourists have the possibility to achieve fast and customized information, as well as a virtual exploration of the destination offer to reduce the perceived risk toward the choice of the final destination. Hence, in one hand these technologies are powerful tools for tourists’ decision-making process; on the other one provide information on user’s preferences and need which managers can exploit to develop new efficient strategies for better communicating the territory. Noteworthy characteristics of these systems are they capacity of preserve, promote, diffuse, and personalize touristic contents, by exploiting digital technologies. In particular, pervasive environments allow to: •

•

•

Create a powerful network between different actors (potential tourists, tour operators, travel agencies, marketers, suppliers, etc.), by supporting the development of a common network of knowledge. This network might increase the visibility of touristic contents, promoting the knowledge sharing among actors. These resources can be exploited to create innovative application for delivering touristic information. Create a touristic repository of digital contents. The current technological infrastructure provides a good level of innovation capable of managing an enormous amount of information. Design experimental research by using these contents. In other words, these tools might supply the creation of a common touristic system, which manages different collections of cultural assets and objects.

In conclusion, the purpose of the pervasive environments is to increase the destination attractiveness by providing informative contents in

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an exciting and innovative way. In this process, both quality of the images and interactive functionalities influence the service quality of delivered touristic contents. Indeed, pervasive environments represent an innovative way to communicate touristic contents, attract new touristic flows, and develop tourists’ loyalty towards destinations, by improving both. Hence, tourism industry needs to identify alternative way to communicate the enormous amount of authenticity and attractiveness of the touristic places.

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Sears, A., & Jacko, A. J. (2009). Human-Computer Interaction. Development process. London: Taylor & Francis. Servidio, R., Feraco, A., & Pantano, E. (2009). Usability Evaluation of a Calabrian tourist Visitor Information Centre website. Information Technology & Tourism, 11(2), 95–110. doi:10.3727/109830509789994766 Shaw, G., & Williams, A. (2009). Knowledge transfer and management in tourism organisations: An emerging research agenda. Tourism Management, 30(3), 325–335. doi:10.1016/j.tourman.2008.02.023 Sicilia, M., & Ruiz, S. (2010). The Effect of Web-Based Information Availability on Consumers’ Processing and Attitudes. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 24, 31–41. doi:10.1016/j. intmar.2009.10.001 Solomon, M. R. (2010). Consumer Behavior 9/E. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Steventon, S., & Wright, A. (2006). Intelligent Spaces. The Application of Pervasive ICT. Berlin: Springer. Thompson, S. G., & Azvine, B. (2006). No Pervasive Computing Without Intelligent Systems . In Steventon, A., & Wright, S. (Eds.), Intelligent Spaces. The Application of Pervasive ICT (pp. 37–54). Berlin: Springer.

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ADDITIONAL READING Adamo, A., Bertacchini, P. A., Bilotta, E., Pantano, P., & Tavernise, A. (2010). (in press). Connecting Art and Science for Education: Learning through an Advanced Virtual Theater with “Talking Heads”. Leonardo Journal, 43(5). Arthur, E. J., & Hancock, P. A. (2001). Navigation Training in Virtual Environments. International Journal of Cognitive Ergonomics, 5(4), 387–400. doi:10.1207/S15327566IJCE0504_2

UNWTO. (2001). eBusiness for tourism: Practical guidelines for destinations and businesses. Madrid: World Tourism Organization.

Barlow, T. (2001). Acquisition of Route Knowledge Through Navigation in a Virtual Environment. International Journal of Cognitive Ergonomics, 5(3), 279–295. doi:10.1207/ S15327566IJCE0503_9

Wang, C.-C., & Yang, H.-W. (2008). Passion for online shopping: The influence of personality and compulsive buying. Social Behavior and Personality, 36, 693–706. doi:10.2224/sbp.2008.36.5.693

Braun, K. A. (1999). Postexperience advertising effects on consumer memory. The Journal of Consumer Research, 25, 319–334. doi:10.1086/209542

Wang, H.-Y., & Wang, S.-H. (in press). Predicting mobile hotel reservation adoption: Insight from a perceived value standpoint. [in press]. International Journal of Hospitality Management.

Ghiani, G., Paternò, F., Santoro, C., & Spano, L. D. (2009). (in press). UbiCicero: a Location-Aware, Multi-Device Museum Guide. Interacting with Computers. doi:10.1016/j.intcom.2009.06.001

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Gibson, J. J. (1979). The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin. Kanellopoulos, D. N. (2008). An ontology-based system for intelligent matching of travellers’ needs for Group Package Tours. International Journal of Digital Culture and Electronic Tourism, 1(1), 76–99. doi:10.1504/IJDCET.2008.020136 Kjeldskov, J., & Paay, J. (2005). Understanding and modelling built environments for mobile guide interface design. Behaviour & Information Technology, 24(1), 21–35. doi:10.1080/0144929 0512331319012

Norman, D. A. (2004). Emotional design: why we love (or hate) everyday things. New York: Basic Books. Oviatt, S. L. (2008), Multimodal Interface. In Jacko JA, Sears A (eds), The Human-Computer Interaction Handbook: Fundamentals, Evolving Technologies, and Emerging Applications. CRC Press (413-433). Pantano, E. (2010). New technologies and retailing: Trends and directions. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 17(3), 171–172. doi:10.1016/j.jretconser.2010.03.004

Lazarinis, F., Kanellopoulos, D., & Lalos, P. (2008). Heuristically Evaluating of Greek e-Tourism and e-Museum Websites. Electronic Journal of Information Systems Evaluation, 11(1), 17–26.

Pantano, E. (2010). New Technologies and Retailing: trends and directions. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 17(3), 171–172. doi:10.1016/j.jretconser.2010.03.004

Lepouras, G., & Vassilakis, C. (2005). Virtual museums for all: employing game technology. Virtual Reality (Waltham Cross), 8, 96–106. doi:10.1007/s10055-004-0141-1

Tonta, Y. (2008). Libraries and museums in the flat world: Are they becoming virtual destinations? Library Collections, Acquisitions & Technical Services, 31(1), 1–9. doi:10.1016/j.lcats.2008.05.002

Lin, Y., Xu, C., Pan, Z., & Pan, Y. (2006). Semantic modeling for ancient architecture of digital heritage. Computers & Graphics, 30, 800–814. doi:10.1016/j.cag.2006.07.008 Mason, D. D., & McCarthy, C. (2006). The feeling of exclusion: Young peoples’ perception of art galleries. Museum Management and Curatorship, 21, 20–31. Naccarato, G., Pantano, E., & Tavernise, A. (in press). Educational personalized contents in a Web environment: Virtual Museum Net of Magna Graecia . In Styliaras, G., Koukopoulos, D., & Lazarinis, F. (Eds.), Handbook of Research on Technologies and Cultural Heritage: Applications and Environments. IGI Global. Nielsen, J. (1999). Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity. Indianapolis: New Riders.

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KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS Destination Marketing: Particular kind of marketing which considers the destination as the product to be promoted, in order to promote the territory, attract more touristic flows and gain advantages for the local economic development. Graphical User Interface (GUI): It allows people to interact with computer programs by using visual modalities. Human-Computer Interaction (HCI): It concerns the study of design, evaluation and implementation of interactive systems for human use (Hewett et al., 2009), by exploiting the advances in the vision, speech recognition, 3D graphics fields (Thompson & Azvine, 2006). Pervasive Environments: Systems based on a decentralized computing landscape, consist of a digital world (a virtual reconstruction of objects,

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scenarios, etc.) and the real users who has the feeling of immersion in the digital context by ad hoc interface. Tourism Behaviour: Study of the human behaviour from a touristic perspective. In particular, it investigates the motivational mechanism connected with the desire to travel and the particular behaviour showed with travelling. Tourist Technology Acceptance: The degree of which a tourist accept to use the particular technology. It can be evaluated through the Technology

Acceptance Model (Davis, 1989), mainly based on the variables: perceived ease of use (how users think the use of the technology enhance the job performance), perceived usefulness (how users think the use of the technology doesn’t require a mental effort) of the technology, attitude (user’s feeling related to the technology), behavioral intention (by the use of technology). Virtual Reality: Technique which allows to digital reproduces and display objects and scenarios, by exploiting computer graphic tools.

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Chapter 13

A Study on Tourist Management in China Based on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Technology Aliana M. W. Leong Macau University of Science and Technology, Macao SAR Xi Li Macau University of Science and Technology, Macao SAR

ABSTRACT In recent years, tourism in China developed into a massive industry. According to the statistics from the National Tourism Administration of the People’s Republic of China, the number of travelers has reached 16.1 billion in 2007 alone. On public holidays, most of the popular tourist attractions are filled to capacity, receiving 100% or even reaching 300% capacity. This was reported during the celebration of the May 1 golden week in 2006. Another report said that Beijing’s Forbidden City accommodated more than twice its maximum capacity on May 2, 2006. The Wutai Mountain, Jiuhua Mountain, Pingyao ancient town, Tongli ancient town, Mo Kao Grotto at Dunhuang, the Potala Palace and other famous scenic spots also peaked at 100% full capacity from May 2 to May 5 (Xinjing Newspaper, May 8, 2006). The huge number of tourists resulted to a somewhat negative feedback as their quality of experience and interest had substantially diminished because of overcrowding. In addition, tourist attractions faced a serious challenge in service quality, security andsustainable usage of resources during high tourist season. Faced with these challenges, a prediction system for tourist reception during high season has been adopted by the National Tourism Administration of the People’s Republic of China. The system is helpful for regulating the flow of tourists. However, from the microscopic point of view, it is necessary to conduct management and instruction for travelers before and after their arrival. Recently, RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology has been considered by tourist attraction managers. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a non-contact, automatic identification technology. Through its radio frequency signal, RFID offers automatic target recognition and access to relevant and without human DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61520-867-8.ch013 Copyright © 2011, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.

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intervention identification of work is made. RFID can work in various environments. It can identify fast moving objects and is capable of identifying multiple tags, in a rapid and convenient operation. Since the 1990s, RFID technology has been widely used in commercial, logistics, property management and other fields, but interest towards potential application to the needs of the tourism industry only began in recent years.

THE CONNOTATION OF TOURIST MANAGEMENT A tourist attraction mainly targets travelers who are its consumers. From the consumers’ point of view, the behavior and needs of tourists should be highly valued by tourist attraction managers. However, there is a feature that renders inseparable the process of tourist production and consumption. Travelers play not only the role of consumers but also the key point of tourist attraction service. Thus, managers of tourist attractions should pay attention on the role of travelers along with bringing travelers’ supervision into scenic spots management. In countries where a tourism economy is highly developed, traveler management is widely accepted. ‘Traveler management’ mainly refers to trying to meet the needs of travelers on the premise of maintaining the sustainable environment and resource development, which use the manner of technology, education, economy, administration, and law to manage travelers (Zhang Wen and Li Na, 2007). According to existing research, theories and practices are mainly focused on the following six aspects of traveler management: demand and preference, behavior, capacity, safety, experience and impact.

The Management of Traveler Demand and Preference ‘Management of Traveler Demand and Preference’ refers to consumer preferences for particular products and services of different tourists. Understanding and analyzing the needs and prefer-

ences of tourists in different aspects will help in the provision of appropriate services to tourists. Consequently, tourist demands and preferences in the scenic area of product management and marketing optimization, as well as tourism planning and tourism industry, were all of great significance(Bill Bramwell,1998). Scholars from other countries had conducted in-depth studies of this topic. Um S.(1992)studied the decision process of tourism destination and believes there is a process of change passive to active on tourists perceived needs. Stephen W.Li Win(2001)suggests that there are significant differences in preferences between the first time travelers and returning costumers concerning the demand for tourism products. Noam Shoval(2004) analyzed the attraction preference towards travelers from different cities and found out that there is a distinct impact between ‘the length of stay, the times of travel and consumer behavior. Meanwhile, Alison J.McIntosh(2004) categorized tourism product preferences into five types: seek novelty, to understand the local lifestyle, cultural authenticity, communication with locals and exchange pleasure of learning opportunities with locals. All these research results are expected to assist managers understand the law of tourist attractions and behavior patterns of consumption in order to further provide better services and products, thereby enhancing the quality of travel experience.

The Management of Traveler Behavior In tourist behavior management, current major overseas research focuses on describing tourists visiting the scenic spots in order to tap the law of

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tourists visiting. The common used research technology and method includes: GIS (A geographic information system). H. Randy Gimblett(1998) combined location map and GIS data to use the techniques and methods to track visitor behavior monitoring and modeling to analyze tourist activities with the environment as well as the interactions between scenic spots and visitors. In addition, Martin Opperman (1997)conducted a study on the behaviour difference between first-time travelers and returning customers which showed that the stay period and travel scale is more focused for returning travelers.

The Management of Traveler Capacity The contradiction between the capacity and limitation of tourist attraction resource and the large amount needed from travelers sparked people’s concern on the management capacity of tourism attractions. In order to better coordinate the relationship between travelers and scenic spots capacity, scholars conducted researches mainly focused on traveler flow forecast and capacity forecast. J. Alan Wagar et al(1964) and proposed the improved Recreation Carrying Capacity Theory(RCC). This theory proposes that the limitation of traveler capacity exists universally, which includes ecological, social, philosophy and management. Meanwhile, the United States National Forest proposed Recreation Opportunity Spectrum (ROS) Theory towards the application model of tourist resource. The theory of tourism resources conservation in accordance with the demand for travel is divided into the following six major types: the original area, no motor vehicle traffic in half the original area, with motor vehicle traffic in half the original area, with roads in natural areas, rural and urban areas. Different types of regions have their own characteristics of determining tourist capacity.

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The Management of Traveler Safety Visitor safety management major deals with the safety of tourists in tourist areas regarding various elements of response analysis and research, such as natural disasters and accidents and tourism crimes. On the aspect of safety factors in the identification, Mieczkowski (1995) divided safety-effect factors into two types: natural threats and human threats. Tsaur, et al (1997) targeted traffic, public order and law, health care, housing, weather, attractions and medical facilities, and analyzed the eight scenic spots of tourists’ safety. Furthermore, in the face of worsening global terrorist attacks in recent years, many scholars conducted studies on terrorism and security issues of tourists. Further, crime has also an important impact on the safety of tourists. Although scholars have conducted researches on this issue, details on this will not be dealt with because these studies focus more on specific areas of crime in tourism.

The Management of Traveler Experience Visitors’ experience is a subjective feeling involved in the tourism process. Tourism products and services based on tourists’ perception are related to situational factors: personal characteristics, personality characteristics, surrounding environment, tourism (Graefe AR, 1987). Therefore, the existing studies on visitor management experience involving some of the concerns of tourists are mainly towards psychological, sociological or anthropological point of view of the tourist experience to enhance the quality of visitor experience as references. M. S. Jackson (1996) studied the impact of visitors through the experience of the factor structure. M. Goossen et al. (2000) divided the quality of recreational experience into functional quality (Utilisation Quality) and the perceived quality (Perception Quality). These studies provide useful references

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to understanding the visitor experience for further enhancing the degree of tourists’ satisfaction.

The Management of Traveler Impact Tourism behaviour is one of the central issues on tourism management studies. Current researches focus on the scenic tourist behavior and the ecological impacts of economic and social impact analysis and assessments. Impact of the ecological environment for tourists, usually starts from the behavioral characteristics of tourists and evaluates the negative impact. Meiczkowski (1995) listed the negative impact of tourism in the following areas: overcrowding, over-exploitation, no rules, recreation activities, waste pollution, car activities, and effects on soil and vegetation. However, the socio-economic impact, needs anthropology and sociology with socio-economic theory as the basis for analysis. Nicholas Haralamboulos, et al (1996) indicated that negative impacts from visitors on economic and social aspect are mainly: rising prices, drug abuse, damaged public facilities: noisier environment, sexual harassment and all kinds of crimes. In addition, scholars analyzed cultural integration and religion from the perspective of the tourists on the negative social impact of tourism destinations. It is obvious that the Western visitor management research has largely formed and established frameworks and systems and provides a good platform for visitor management practice and innovation.

CURRENT SITUATION AND CHALLENGES OF CHINA’S TOURIST MANAGEMENT From the content and target point of view, China’s tourist attractions management can be divided into two types: one is tourist attractions of resource and environmental management-oriented form, also commonly known as tourism object manage-

ment; the other is tourist attractions to tourists as the main focus of the form, therefore, also known as the main tourism management (Cao Xia, Wu Chengzhao, 2006). China has long been focusing attention on the management of resources and the environmental tourism attractions, whereas visitor management is relatively insufficient.

The Focal Point of China’s Tourist Management According to several researches conducted by Chinese scholars, China domestic tourism management content is similar to those in other countries, however, the target in each specific case is slightly different. Liu Yanfeng, et al (2006) and Guo Hongyan (2008) divided the focal point of China’s Domestic Tourism Management into seven aspects: quantity management, diversion measures, queue management, team management, complaint management, interpretation system construction and behavior management. Quantity management aims to control and run the number of tourists. Flow diversion measure is under temporal and spatial rules of conduct for tourists’ sightseeing behavior to reduce traffic within local scenic spots in the temporal and spatial concentration, as well as reduce the crowding of local attractions to tourists. Queue management establishes queuing efficiency to reduce or avoid boring monotonous environment, further improving the ultimate service experience of tourist attractions. Team management is about scenic spots in the light of team interaction, the size of the team, and travel arrangements for the purpose of enhancing the tourists’ experience. Complaint management is for the establishment of effective channels to solve complaints efficiently. The main purpose of interpretation system is formed through various media to provide information services at the same time, to divert visitors, safety tips, and behavior management tips. A shift from direct management into indirect man-

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agement undeniably reflects the characteristics of visitor management services. Tourist behavior management is a process that constrains visitors’ code of conduct and management. The above description of domestic tourism management has some parallels to the aforementioned Western visitors’ needs and preferences on management, behavior management, capacity management, security management, experience management, and visitor impact management, but also features Chinese management characteristics. The above-mentioned seven areas compose the main content of the current China domestic tourism management.

The Characteristic of China’s Tourist Management China has successfully transformed tourism resources and environmental management as the equally important models of visitor and management, however, on the aspect of visitor management, the improvement. China’s domestic tourism management embodies the following five features: •

Protective tourism is the main implementation of visitor management

The implementation of China’s domestic tourism management resources and environmental protection in view of the natural and cultural heritage tourist attractions and tourist resources is relatively fragile (He Fangyong, 2007). Highly popular and attractive international tourist attractions that particularly need better management, such as Huangshan, the Forbidden City, the Dunhuang Grottoes and many others have gradually established a visitor management system. •

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Resource management, environmental protection as the main purpose of tourists

Tourists inevitably cause negative impact on the environment. For this reason, China’s visitor management of tourist attractions mainly focuses on the protection of the environment and resources, while trying to control the behavior of visitors and manage to achieve its resource protection objectives. Due to the considerable attention given to environmental protection, facing the visitor management, visitor experience and environmental protection, most the tourist attractions choose to neglect the tourists’ scenic environment experience. •

Tourists behavior management is the main aspect

Presently, the main form of China domestic tourism management is behavior management, such as coaching tourists on their environmental responsibility and the behavior of tourists on the appropriate constraints. Wu Bihu (2001) classified China’s tourist scenic spot management into two types: direct management and indirect management. Directly management deals with the will and behavior of tourists, such as restrictions on utilization and limiting certain types of activities. Indirect management is affected by changes in the factors that tourists will and act to change the behavior of their visitors, such as strengthening tourist promotion. Ma Yong, Li Xi (2006) divided the current visitor management of scenic spots in China’s into excitement-based management and constraint management. The excitement-based management is a flexible management, mainly through communication and exchange, the full capacity to stimulate self-restraint of tourists, including education, demonstration and guidance; whereas constraint management is also known as mandatory management conducted through the development of relevant rules of behavior and using coercive power to protect the rule to be observed.

A Study on Tourist Management in China Based on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Technology

Therefore, active and passive visitor behavior management is the conventional method of the current tourism attraction management. •

Tourists Management Practice Has Strong Time Characteristics

Because of the unique vacations and travel consumption patterns in China, the number of tourist attractions shows obvious fluctuation characteristics. For example, in 2009, China’s annual May 1, October 1, the Spring Festival and other holiday period, the major number of tourists to scenic spots dramatically increased. For example, numerous tourist attractions are too overcrowded, such as receiving 100% accommodation or even reached over 300% tourists per day during the May 1 golden week of 2006. Another report said that the Beijing Forbidden City accommodation was more than twice its maximum capacity on May 2, 2006. Wutai Mountain, Jiuhua Mountain, Pingyao ancient town, Tongli ancient town, Mo Kao Grotto at Dunhuang, the Potala Palace and other famous scenic spots showed “full” situations from May 2 to May 5 (Xinjing Newspaper, May 8, 2006). The over-crowding has led to a negative impact to travelers because of large numbers of tourists in one place. The quality of experience and interests declined because of serious overcrowding. Consequently, tourist attractions faced a serious challenge in service quality, security and sustainable usage of resources during high seasons. Therefore, China’s tourist attractions management reflects a relatively concentrated feature: the visitor management emphasis is different at different times, with some temporary and response characteristics. •

The method of tourist management is singular

Tourists’ management of China scenic spots in specific manner is relatively singular,. He Fangyong (2007) summarized ‘China tourist at-

tractions’ management approach’ as two methods: “soft” and “hard”. The hard way includes restrictions of visitors to certain parts of activities, such as closing or restricting the number of tourists’ attractions or taking economic measures such as charging high priced tickets. The soft method includes marketing strategies, explanations, and guidance of the planning and coordination of measures. In example of the rigid management method is the every day reception at the Potala Palace where there is a 2300-person maximum limit; but a rapid growth in the number of visitors was seen since the opening of the Qinghai-Tibet railway. The Tibet Autonomous Region Cultural Relics Bureau adopted winter and summer tickets floating system for unique winter visitors, and summer overcrowding conditions were imposed at the Potala Palace (Haoying Cheng, 2010). In the soft management method, the China National Tourism Administration and the mass media established strategic partnership on forecast of traveler numbers during the Golden Week holidays. The visitor forecast system in the accommodation informed the mass media of the numbers approaching the cordon. Through the media, the public received tourists’ reception conditions, and tourists also made decisions based on existing conditions, thus improving the efficiency and quality of the reception area of the scenic attraction. The management of Chinese tourists is relatively singular and lacks technical content. In the future, tourists’ management of China should make use of modern technology to increase the effectiveness of visitor management.

The Challenges of China’s Tourist Management Although the managers of scenic areas have considered visitor management as an important part of business management, the development of visitor management has been in a relatively short

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period and now is faced with a series challenges in three aspects: •

Less awareness, neglects tourist management, only paying attention to economic benefits

As mentioned above, visitor management philosophy has yet to be known to all managers’ attractions and accreditation. In majority of scenic spots, there are conflicts and contradictions between strict management and the short-term interests of scenic spots. Implementation of modern management strategies may reduce the number of tourists and increase the input of scenic spots. To this end, the economic interests of the scenic spots are prioritized at the expense of the number of visitors. In particular, the growth focuses on sustainable contemporary development, this ‘kill the goose that lays the golden eggs’ style can be considered detrimental to profits. For this reason, strengthening the training of managers and enhancing management awareness and capability is urgent. •

The number of visitors for the emergency control of multi-mode, lack of prior forecasts and ex-post control

The tourist quantity control is the core element of tourist managers as well as those of scenic area directors. However, from the standpoint of overseas tourists, this should be taken as a whole. Not only should there be a correct vision on tourism management, but it also it should start right at the planning stage of construction of the scenic areas. For example, behavior characteristic needs to be considered fully from the servicing facility design. Not only that the Chinese scenic area tourist management often lacks the unification on the plan and the management, but also majority of temporary emergency processing pattern are absent. The only started the related mechanism on the tourist quantity during the gold

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week celebrations. Thus, it can be seen that one of the challenges of the tour is how to promote the strategic management stratification plan, carry out efficient management, as well as the entire process in reverse afterwards. •

Independent of each other, the need for systematic and urgent integration

As mentioned above, both the international and domestic meaning of tourist management is recognized. These contents can be divided into several modules. The existence of these modules is to coordinate the protection of scenic resources and the environment in the improvement of the quality of tourist experience, as well as the relationship between the correlations. However, China’s tourist attractions in tourist management appear to be relatively independent, more with a lack of integrity and relevance, such as the number of tourists attractions in building control systems, guided systems, behavior and security management system, the management tools and technical methods of relevance, lack of effective integration. As a scenic area manager, only through the integration of certain visitor management in the various modules with the technical means can we really expect to play out its effectiveness. •

Interdisciplinary research to deepen visitor management, the program still lacks a workable scheme

In recent years, with the continuous development of visitor management, more and more scholars in other disciplines began to get involved in tourism attractions’ management fields, such as cross-disciplinary approach with the tourists on the scenic area management issues research, and had achieved certain results and progress. Qiu yanqing, et al (2010) analysed passenger traffic within the scenic tourist season spatial and temporal variations; built sites for load balancing mathematical programming model; and from dynamic forecast-

A Study on Tourist Management in China Based on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Technology

ing scheduling provides the analysis of tourists streaming ideas in the Jiuzhaigou scenic spot in Sichuan province. Zhang Jianhua, et al (2007) analyzed the environmental impact of tourists based on the environmental impact of building a tourist function, and explored the function based on the environmental impact of tourist attractions visitors control measures. Researchers on Chinese tourism will undoubtedly enrich the management theory and methodology, but the research is still in its theoritical stages and lacks maneuverability. Evidently, some scholars had put forward a view on the technical part of the visitor management system. Ma Bin, et al (2009) proposed the design and implementation of programs based on radio frequency identification (RFID) and ARM Intelligent Visitor Management System (IVMS). The program mainly targeted tourists’ behavior and safety management, with the update of visitor information, automatic division, and left behind alarm functions. An Wenkui, et al (2005) directed against tourists in the visitor team management, a form-based RF transceiver solutions for wireless communication systems, equipped with suitable identification, automatic division, start to remind, left behind and other tips of alarm functions. The design of these systems has a certain role in promoting China’s tourist attractions innovation management. However, these studies are only for certain specific groups of tourists whereas taking the tourists in the management module as a whole research and technical analysis has not yet been successfully conducted.

POTENTIAL ANALYSIS OF RFID TECHNOLOGY AND ITS USAGE IN SCENIC SPOTS MANAGEMENT RFID Technology RFID ( Radio Frequency Identification technology) is the use of an object (typically referred to as an RFID tag) applied to or incorporated

into a product or document for the purpose of identification and tracking using radio waves. It is through the radio frequency signal that RFID automatically recognizes a target and accesses relevant data. Through the use of RFID technology, the identification of the work without human intervention can be conducted in a variety of harsh environments. The first application of this technology can be traced back to identifying the enemy during World War II, but because the application of the technology was expensive, it was not immediately applied to other areas (China Ministry of Science, 2006). Since RFID has a non-contact feature and can simultaneously identify multiple objects in the operation, it can provide a variety of management service functions, such as identity recognition, traceability and other functions. Specifically, based on RFID technology, the following main functions can be achieved: Identity recognition function- acceptance of service for each object or item to set a unique identification code, therefore, in the radio frequency identification systems, object-related goods and services can be automatically identified so as to provide personalized service. The uses of electronic tickets at hotels and scenic spots as well as in biological research field of animal identification are typical examples. Track back trajectory function - the radio frequency identification technology has the unique identification of properties. Thus, reading the device with a range of information can describe relevant goods and services to clients in the process of receiving the flow path and travel status. Such feature is more for the food safety control and management as well as document tracking management. Space positioning function - when RFID technology and geographic information system GIS technologies are combined, a more precise spatial orientation function can be achieved. This means while waiting for a clear identification of each individual’s specific spatial location information,

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Figure 1. Module structure of RFID technology hardware

a better organization of services and resources is possible.

Hardware-Based RFID Technology The RFID technology system structure is divided into hardware and software. Software is the use of RFID technology related management applications, such as logistics management information system and hotel access control system. The hardware is composed of two parts, namely, read-write unit and the electronic transceiver. In practical applications, the read-write unit electromagnetic pulse is sent through the antenna while the electronic transceiver receives the electromagnetic pulse is stored in the transceiver unit of information sent to the reader response, shown in Figure 1. Reading and writing in the electronic transceiver module interaction, the relevant information was recorded, and passed through the information network to the main control unit. In fact, the process is on the non-contact data memory read, write, or delete processing operation. From specific technical terms, RFID technology is mainly used for electronic transceiver main body identification. Its two parts: one is for the RFID radio frequency, and the second is for an ultra-thin RFID chip antenna loop. RF parts as the only identification code, and the antenna is used in the electronic transceiver and the transmission of information between the reader units. Based on RFID technology, using transceiver frequency and power supply electronics, RFID

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technology can be divided into low frequency, high frequency and ultrahigh frequency (UHF) and other types. The different types have different performance characteristics, such as in ultra high frequency RFID technology the distance of its read-write characteristics can be 10 meters, as well as the exchange of data. For electronic transceiver, can be divided into passive and active type according to its power supply. Compared with bar code technology, magnetic stripe and other ID technology, the advantages of transceiver technology and the transceiver to read between the wireless links are: read-write unit and transceiver do not require contacts between the visual. It can be completely integrated into the interior of the product. The electronic transceivers on the net and mechanical impact of environmental factors are not sensitive to a very high reading reliability with fast data acquisition capability. In comparison with the global positioning system GPS, RFID technology has the added advantage of being relatively low-cost.

Potential Analysis on RFID Technology on the Scenic Spots Management RFID application has been gradually understood and valued in the tourism industry. In accordance with technology usage, it can be generally applied and shaped to the scope of conventional application. The conventional transceiver is an electronic application form for card-shaped objects, usually a credit card. The profiled application is an electronic transceiver can be integrated in other forms of goods. Conventional applications such as access control system in a hotel, has been used on RFID technology, like RFID access control cards and the electronic transceiver modules together. In addition to the conventional card-type RFID technology, many countries in the tourism industry have also introduced a special form of radio frequency identification technology. The Great Wolf Resorts Inc. is the largest indoor family-

A Study on Tourist Management in China Based on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Technology

oriented entertainment company that provides holiday events services. The RFID wrist band system was been used in Pennsylvania Pocono Mountains resort area in 2006. Customers wearing RFID wrist bands do not need to carry cash and keys to open the door of their lodging cottages or rooms. They can purchase food and souvenirs and can pay for game activities. The wrist strap is also for customer identification (Zhao Yunhui, 2008). On the usage of RFID technology in tourist attractions’management in China, with continuous deepening of digital services and items, the most commonly used electronic access control system or intelligent ticket management system is the construction of scenic areas. In addition, visitors in guided tours and team management using the RFID application have been developed. Ma Bin, et al (2009) tested a group of tourists in the management process. The team introduced visitors with RFID technology identification and provided each guide a handheld PDA reader, which uses radio frequency identification technology. The visitors were held on the non-contact characteristics in the implementation of specific services and management. Based on RFID technology, An Wenkui, et al (2005) designed an intelligent guide system for tour guides and team interaction between visitors provided identification. It included left behind alarm, reminder and auto-start functions by name. It may be inferred that in the current RFID applications in China tourist attractions management: electronic ticket is the manner most commonly used. There are more theoretical studies on density control in personnel and it can be traced back to food safety, whereas management of tourist attractions is rarely involved (Zhao Yunhui, 2008). With the management concept of tourist attractions and visitor management, the attention of modern information technology and radio frequency identification technologies, radio frequency identification technology will provide a wider range of applications.

SCENIC SPOTS MANAGEMENT MODULE CONSTRUCTION BASED ON RFID TECHNOLOGY The main purpose of ‘resources environment’ and ‘scenic tourist management experience’ is to coordinate the specific content of foreign tourists’ management. In general, it can be summarized in the following areas: control and management of environmental capacity, visitor behavior management, line up and demand management, and visitor safety management. As the visitor management characteristics of the object is an independent individual tourist, RFID technology is used in the management of scenic spots. Visitors can fill the existing management system for their own matrix, relatively independent of defects. This research will have as a basis the RFID technology which is the proposed tourist management system model for the management of technological innovation. It is expected to provide reference and inspiration to a scenic area. Tourists’ management with reference to the content management system can be classified into the following main modules: electronic ticket function module, the scenic area of capacity monitoring and adjustment module, tourist spending behavior characterization module, and intelligent queue management module.

Electronic Ticket Function Module ‘Electronic ticket function module’ is the basic component for the function of RFID technology, which assists visitors to access entrance information. Whether visitors choose to purchase tickets on the network or the ticket office, they can collect the basic information that can be identified with the RFID system. This enables visitors the exact corresponding information of travelers and their behavior. In addition, the module should be able to connect to the scenic spots within the external marketing system, and settlement systems to exchange data effectively. Usually, on building

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Figure 2. Electronic ticket function module

blocks of electronic ticket system, the transceiver will be integrated in the scenic area of electronic tickets, and the main entrance in the scenic area setting up the appropriate read and write devices unit, to monitor visitors in and out within a state scenic area. Please refer to Figure 2.

The Capacity Monitoring And Adjustment Module Of A Scenic Area The main function of monitoring spot capability aims to coordinate ‘the number of visitors’ and the ‘scenic space capacity.’ As visitors tour the scenic area, the position in space is constantly changing which gives challenges on ‘volume control’ and ‘management of tourist attractions.’ Spatial location information is usually collected for the global positioning system approach (GPS), however, the corresponding technical equipment is expensive and difficult to spread universally in the scenic area. To this end, using geographic information system (GIS) and radio frequency identification technology (RFID) can give the number of space tourists information processing (Fu Rong, etc., 2007).

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Its main principles are: first, to build a scenic area of geographic information system, make digital major attractions based on scenic spots of the different districts. Next, in the different regional and major scenic spots, set the UHF radio frequency identification reader unit so the entrance statistics of tourists’ numbers can be summarized. In the end, the capacity threshold of the scenic environment of prior studies and a real-time evaluation of the number of tourists from different regions, is more objectively accounted for with the relationship between space capacity. With some management tools, the behavior of tourists and sightseeing activities are dynamically adjusted.

Tourist Consumer Behavior Characterization Module As the RFID system can invisibly record action work completed, along with the information back function, the system can assist in understanding consumer preferences and behavior of tourists. In turn, this will optimize product features and improve management as well as enhance the tourism experience. Specifically, the overall number

A Study on Tourist Management in China Based on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Technology

Figure 3. Inner structure diagram of capacity monitoring and adjustment module

of scenic spots by construction, the shopping and leisure outlets, the tourist attractions and other places to set the RFID reader modules, the different tourist attractions in the scenic area within the parameters of lodging, consumption and other data in real-time acquisition, combined with tourism would give information on a relatively complete database of behavior characteristics of tourist spending. With the establishment of the database, the system will provide a more accurate and comprehensive record of all visitors in the scenic area and can help managers understand the tourist attractions and a variety of products and services needed than the traditional survey (Zhang Xilin, 2009).

Intelligent Queue Management Module Following the development of mass tourism, more and more scenic spots began to face the problem of queue management. Fairness and effectiveness of queue management will directly affect the visitors’ experience in the scenic area. Hence, with the help of high technology, improving the scenic RFID smart queuing system will be the main function of queue management module. With RFID technology, the uniqueness of visitor identity offers the possibility of a practical and smart queue management. Visitors only

need to have their personal information in the electronic ticket. That information can be passed to the database of its visitors queuing system, which can be fed back out of the waiting time for tourists that offers visitors more time flexibility and avoid waiting time. Therefore, in the scenic area of visitor management, RFID technology can fully integrate tourists’ information and tourist attractions for the delivery of visitor management solutions more effectively. However, achieving the scenic area management system depends on the number of building support, while hardware and software will also demand higher requirements. For that reason, tourist attractions, first need to properly recognize and manage the content and objectives, then the basis of long-term planning, system layout-related hardware, and ultimately achieve a systematic information management experience. This will finally result to the achievement of the purpose of tourist attractions.

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Jackson, M. S., White, G. N., & Schmierer, C. L. (1996). Tourism Experiences within an Attributional Framework. Annals of Tourism Research, 23(4), 798–810. doi:10.1016/01607383(96)00003-5 Kui, An Wen, & Wang Chang ming. (2005). The Implementation of Tourist Management in Intelligent Electronic Tour Guiding System. Electron Technology, (010): 2–5. Litvin, S. W., & Ling, N. S. (2001). The Destination Attribute Management Model: An Empirical Application to Bintan, Indonesia. Tourism Management, 22(5), 481–492. doi:10.1016/S02615177(01)00003-6 Liu Ya feng, & Jiao Li. (2006). A Study on Visitor Management of Tourist Attractions. Journal of Xin Jiang Normal University (Natural Sciences Edition), 25(003), 259-262. McIntosh, A. J. (2004). Tourists’ Appreciation of Maori Culture in New Zealand. Tourism Management, 25(1), 1–15. doi:10.1016/S02615177(03)00058-X Mieczkowski, Z. (1995). Environmental Issues of Tourism and Recreation. University Press of America Landham. Oppermann, M. (1997). First-Time and Repeat Visitors to New Zealand. Tourism Management, 18(3), 177–181. doi:10.1016/S02615177(96)00119-7 Qiu Yan qing, Ge Peng, & Ren Pei yu. (2010). A Study on Temporal and Spatial Navigation Based on the Load-Balance of Tourists in Jiuzhaigou Valley. Resources Science, 32(1),25-29. Shoval, N., & Raveh, A. (2004). Categorization of Tourist Attractions and the Modeling of Tourist Cities: Based on The Co-Plot Method of Multivariate Analysis. Tourism Management, 25(6), 741–750. doi:10.1016/j.tourman.2003.09.005

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Stankey, G. H. (1971). The Perception of Wilderness Recreation Carrying Capacity: A Geographic Study in Natural Resources Management. Unpublished Ph.D.Dissertation.East Lansing, Mich.: Michigan State University, Tsaur, S. H. (1997). Evaluating Tourist Risks from Fuzzy Perspectives. Annals of Tourism Research, 24(4), 796-812. Um, S., & Crompton, J. L. (1992). The Roles of Perceived Inhibitors and Facilitators in Pleasure Travel Destination Decisions. Journal of Travel Research, 30(3), 18. doi:10.1177/004728759203000303 Wagar, J. A. (1964). The Carrying Capacity of Wild Lands for Recreation. Forest Science, 10(Supplement 7), a0001-24. Fu Rong, Zhang Xi lin, & Wang Bin. (2007). A study on RFID-based realtime monitoring system on tourism environment capacity state. Market Modernization, (03X), 6-7. Zhang Wen, & Li Na. (2007). The Experience and Inspiration of Tourist Management Overseas. Business Times, (027), 89-91.

Wu Bi hu. (2001). Regional Tourism Planning. Beijing: China Tourism Press. Xia, Cao, & Wu Cheng zhao. (2006). A Study Summary of Visitor Management in Tourist Destinations Abroad. Human Geography, 21(002), 17–23. Yong, M., & Xi, L. (2006). Tourist Attraction Management. Beijing: China tourism Press,125-127. Zhang Jian hua, & Yu Jian hui. (2007). The Study on the Technology of Controlling the Visitor’s Quantity in Tourist Attractions. Technology Economics, 26(002), 110-114. Zhang Xi lin, Fu Rong, & Wang Bin. (2009). On Accurate Visitor Management in Scenic Spots Based on RFID Technique. Scientific and Technological Management of Land and Resources, 26(002), 89-93. Zhao Yun hui. (2008). A Probe on RFID Used in Tourism Industry. CHINA Auto-ID, (006), 92-94.

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Chapter 14

Virtual Tourism:

Functions, Profit Modes and Practices in China Jingyuan Zhao Harbin Institute of Technology, China Patricia Ordóñez de Pablos Universidad de Oviedo, Spain Robert Tenysson University of Minnesota, USA

ABSTRACT Although the research on virtual tourism made great progress in China, there is still a gap compared with international research on virtual tourism. With the promotion of virtual reality technology and the development of tourism industries, virtual tourism will effectively meet the needs of tourists. This study focuses on functions and profit models of virtual tourism in China, and also discusses on the application of virtual tourism in China.

INTRODUCTION As the rapid development of information and Internet technology, the industries of tourism, hotel and entertainment are constantly introducing the content of experience economy (Cooper, 2003), and the virtual tourism focusing on the attractions comes into being. The content of travel channel of Travelocity, Expedia, Yahoo Online and other websites becomes much richer. A vast virtual travel market based on e-commerce and online travel purchase is promoting the industries of tourism and DOI: 10.4018/978-1-61520-867-8.ch014

hospitality in the US with an increase of economic scale from 180 billion US dollars in 2002 to 64 billion US dollars in 2007 (Law, Cheung, 2005). Currently, more and more websites of travel have been established so as to develop rapidly virtual tourism (Frew, 2000; Lu, 2009). China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) pointed out, in the 23rd China Internet Development Report, that in the end of 2008, China’s netizens had reached 298 million, and the coverage had reached 22.6% beyond the global average; the growth of Internet users was 88 million more than that in 2007 with an annual growth rate of 41.9%. The network permeates into the life,

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Virtual Tourism

work and leisure of people through a variety of ways. 69.3% of Internet users think Internet saves the time that people spend on visit in person, 59.1% of Internet users would be monotonous without the Internet, 82.5% of Internet users believe that Internet strengthens the ties with friends, 27.6% of Internet users believe that online transactions are safe. In this context, the virtual technology, which is a good media between tourism activities and tourist, quickly joins the tourism field, and has a huge impact on tourism industries. Yang, Chen (2010) claimed that virtual tourism of China is divided into two phases: the initial period from 1999 to2004, and the period of rapid development from 2005 to present. From 1999 to 2004, the virtual reality technology was combined with the tourism industries, and virtual tourism emerged. Considering imperfect virtual reality technology in China, the development of virtual tourism is not in-depth studied, scholars mainly focus on basic theories, construction of virtual travel system, tourism planning. From 2005 to now is the rapid development period of virtual tourism in China. With the promotion of Virtual Reality (VR) technology, more and more tourism enterprises, government departments and universities begin to play the advantages of virtual technology to promote the development of tourism. Although the research on virtual tourism made great progress in China, there is still a gap compared with the international research on virtual tourism as well as the research on other tourism products (Za, 2005). Moreover, virtual tourism is a new subject relatively, the study of domestic scholars focuses on the application and implementation of virtual tourism from a rather narrow perspective and scope, while international scholars have paid a wide attention on virtual tourism from 1990s on (Xue, 2005). In addition, the study on virtual tourism has the same problems as the other study on tourism, such as uniform definition of concept, lack of systematic theoretical system, less innovation, few case studies combined with practice, and so on. With the promotion of virtual

reality technology and the development of tourism industries, related research is necessary to explore theory and practice so that virtual tourism effectively meets the needs of tourists. This study focuses on the function and profit models of virtual tourism, and also discusses on the application of virtual tourism in China.

RESEARCH REVIEW Review of International Studies The current international research on virtual tourism mainly focuses on three areas: definition and extension of virtual tourism levels, key factors of virtual tourism and relationship between variables, and interaction between impact variables of virtual tourism.

Definition and Extension of Virtual Tourism Levels Law, Bai (2006) claimed that people concerned about not only the access to information from travel websites, but also the construction of travel websites because it impacts the experience of virtual tourism, and the levels of virtual tourism were defined from cognitive, functional, emotional perspectives based on different degree of involvement. First, from the perspective of information search and recommendations, Kim B. D., Kim S.O. (2001), Barwise, Hammond, Elberse (2002) claimed that virtual tourism was linear and textbased, and it was a process of online browse and provision of travel information. Second, from the perspective of network reservation and functional service, Oppenheim, Shelby (1999), Lewis, Kaluber (2002) and Maeda et al. (2004) proposed that virtual tourism and web design should try to improve the format of image display instead of text so as to increase the service quality of online travel. Third, from the spiritual experience perspective of virtual tourism, Siegal (1997), Senecal, Nantal

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Virtual Tourism

(2004), Hennig-Thurau et al. (2004), Blackshaw, Nazzaro (2005) claimed that images and visual design should be integrated to provide complete experience for virtual tourism through creative design so that visitors have access to convenient site navigation, familiar environment, high-quality information content, and product value.

Key Factors of Virtual Tourism and Relationship Between Variables Lu (2009) summarized the features of virtual tourism, namely usability, playfulness, and complexity. Law, Bai (2006) made use of involvement theory, and considered impact factors of virtual tourism and key variables of evaluation under circumstances of two cases - involvement and non- involvement. Many scholars summarize the critical factors that ensure the success of virtual tourism, and claim that the most important factors are convenience of websites, safety and perceived risk, price level, and friendly user interface.

Interaction between Impact Variables of Virtual Tourism Han, Mills(2007) claimed that virtual tourism was impacted by the factors of push and pull, the former includes the price of virtual tourism, distribution channels, websites performance, promotions, direct mail and advertising; the latter includes the differentiation of virtual tourism, perceived value, and perceived quality. In addition, Schegg, Steiner, Gherissi-Labben, Murphy(2006) researched on the role elements of virtual tourism, and emphasized on the promotion roles of elements including website content, service environment, function of network transaction, and technology of virtual tourism.

Review of Domestic Studies Yang, Chen (2010) made a systematic summary on virtual tourism of China, and claimed that the study

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of virtual tourism mainly focused on three areas: technology systems of virtual tourism, sceneries of virtual tourism, and teaching of virtual tourism.

Technology Systems of Virtual Tourism From the beginning of virtual tourism study to present, scholars still pay attention to the relevant technology systems of virtual tourism because the virtual tourism results from the rapid development of information technology, the combination of tourism and information technology results in a new form of tourism, and virtual tourism will not exist with no information technology. Some scholars discuss on how to build a reality system of virtual tourism from the perspective of key technologies and specific content (Xu, Wei, Yang, 2001; Feng, Su, 2001; Lu, Wang, Gou, Du, 2005; Wang, Wei, 2005; Zhang, Liu, Mu, 2008). Regarding the construction of virtual sceneries and the choice of roaming mode, scholars put forward different views from different perspectives. Liu and Jia (2008) discuss on the direction of virtual tourism, and claim that the development of grid computing provides an ideal solution for largescale virtual tour environment, the lightweight modeling tools are also a key research direction based on virtual landscape of images, and the interactive mode between virtual guide and virtual tourist groups is more intelligent, which will be next research topic.

Sceneries of Virtual Tourism Regarding the study of virtual sceneries, scholars focus on the changes brought by the application of virtual reality technology in the marketing and planning of sceneries. Zhang, Li, Wang (2000) claimed that virtual tourism of existing attractions not only plays a role of pre-promotion, and expand its influence and attraction to tourists, but also to a certain extent meet the needs of tourism and aesthetic appreciation for people who have never been to the sceneries or can not visit in per-

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son. Yuan (2008) integrated sceneries into game context by means of virtual reality technology, as a scene of network game, the impact of sceneries is increased through the spread of network game, thereby achieve the marketing of sceneries. Feng, Su (2001) claimed that in tourism planning, virtual reality technology had more obvious advantages than traditional planning method, for example, it shows dynamical tourism planning and design to the life to give people a sense of immersion, so that tourism planning and design can be modified easily to stimulate creative inspiration and ideas, and make planning more innovative. Wang (2003) summarized the application of Cyberspace technology in the virtual tourism planning from four aspects, that is, provide virtual technology platform for tour planning, design new virtual attractions and tourism products, formulate marketing planning of virtual tour product, make policy of virtual tourism planning, and build the security system of Cyberspace. Wu, Wang (2004) proposed the concept of GIServices based on the thinking of Geo-information services to deal with the network data storage and sharing, establish virtual tourism planning program through independent platform GeoEye3D, and achieve the roaming in the virtual landscape through Java.

Teaching of Virtual Tourism Yan (2008) claimed that experiment systems of virtual reality improved teaching modes, enriched teaching methods, broke the constraints of risk, cost and time, and achieved the integration of teaching and test. Chen (2007; 2008) summarized the application of virtual reality technology in the experiment teaching of tourism from three aspects: virtual systems of learning established by virtual reality technology, virtual experiment teaching systems, and teaching systems of virtual training. Wei (2007) discussed on the support role of virtual reality technology in the teaching of tourism from the perspective of practical teaching of tourism, and compared the effects in the teaching between

virtual reality technology and multimedia. Zhang (2008) pointed out that conventional teaching methods that most teachers used had problems between teachers and students, which could be solved through virtual reality technology by means of its acceptability, interaction, immersion and sensibility that could meet the requirements of teaching experiment, such as situated learning interface, and human-computer interaction, therefore virtual reality technology in practical education systems of tourism would play a series of roles to improve the experimental environment, optimize the teaching process, enhance experimental results, and cultivate innovative talents.

FUNCTIONS OF VIRTUAL TOURISM Comparison between Travel Experience and Mirror Image Experience Travel experience is a versatile leisure activity including entertainment and learning (Li, 2008). Tourists gain travel experience through paths of realization, such as sightseeing, contact, imitation and game (Xie, 2005). Travel experience is finished in the real travel while mirror image experience is conducted in the virtual reality (Zheng, Ma, Li, 2010). Figure 1 shows the corresponding relationship between travel experience and mirror image experience. The dotted line in the middle of Figure 1 likes a mirror that separates the real world and virtual world of tourism, and also achieves the corresponding relationship of experience paths. Real tourism and virtual reality have similar audio-visual senses, the formation of expression, by which tourists feel the contexts of tourism, is same, both real tour and virtual attractions can have psychological effects on tourists. Virtual tourism is present in a specific spacetime framework. In the world of virtual reality, visitors can have access to the similar experience as real travel does through audio-visual way. In

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Figure 1. Comparison of travel experience and mirror image experience

addition, the social nature of human results in tourists’ exchange with local residents and management personnel of attractions. In the virtual world, the boundaries of social roles are eliminated since the identities of people are virtual, so that tourists have equal exchange and communication with other online tourists. Zheng, Ma, Li (2010) claimed that travel experience and mirror image experience had the similarity in terms of realization paths and perception effects. According to survey, most of consumers are satisfied to virtual tour experience.

Features of Virtual Tourism Virtual tourism has the following characteristics.

Transcend Time and Space Virtual tourism can present the world beyond time and space for visitors whenever necessary.

Interactivity In virtual tourism, the interaction means communication between people and computers. Virtual 208

tourism uses a variety of sensors to interact with the multi-dimensional information space.

High-Technology Virtual tourism is based on virtual reality technology and information technology, which core is Internet. With no high-technology, virtual tourism can not be generated.

Economy Virtual tourism is out of objective constraints, it reduces costs, avoids the constraints of a variety of force majeure, and makes travel cheaper.

Multi-Sensation Virtual tour environment can give visitors multisensation of image, sound, touch, experience and other perception. Zhang, Ma, Zhang (2009) claimed that travel demands of most people are difficult to meet fully because of objective factors, such as time, space, economy, and so on. Virtual tourism characterized by multi-dimensional interactive visualiza-

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tion based on computer network is flexible and convenient for people.

Functional Structure of Virtual Tourism Virtual tour website is an intelligent system that integrates virtual travel experience, exchange of visitors, tour information and online booking service, and mainly includes following functional modules.

Virtual Tour of Scenic Spots Virtual tour system represents scenarios in Network, which is a core component of virtual tourism. With navigation module and electronic guide system, visitors can follow a preset route system to roam, also can select line, not only can watch scenic spots through the display, but also can participate in game plot, have dinner, and go shopping through gestures and password so as to understand the cultural and historical attractions and gain experience.

Travel Information and Planning The development of virtual tourism has definite relationship with real tourism, and virtual tourism often plays a role of pre- experience. Therefore, virtual tourism becomes a channel for potential tourists to obtain various tourism-related information, and provides a service platform of network applications to plan the itinerary.

Travel E-Commerce Virtual landscapes and virtual community is an important platform of travel e-commerce for tourists to understand, purchase and book travel-related goods and services.

Virtual Travel Community Virtual travel community is a living space around the topic of tour life through the Internet. Community members widely communicate with each other via text, voice and video, on the one hand, they can share travel experiences with other members, on the other hand, they can have access to a variety of tourism knowledge to prepare for real travel.

PROFIT MODES OF VIRTUAL TOURISM Zhang, Ma, Zhang (2009) claimed that the virtual world is an emerging field of Internet, how to achieve profits in the virtual tourism is still an important issue to explore. Based on the basic structure of virtual tourism system, at present profit models of virtual tourism are following sections.

Marketing of Tourism Destination Virtual tour system plays a role of tangible show for people before they have real travel of destinations. In the mode of marketing, websites of virtual tourism can receive a lot of advertising. This is the main income of virtual tourism websites.

Product Placement When a website of virtual travel with high popularity and a certain scale of members, it can get advertising revenue through commercial advertising, such as customer brand hotels, restaurants, tea houses, shopping malls as well as corporate logo, mascot and product advertising board in a virtual landscape of virtual system.

Virtual Currencies and Items for Sale Virtual tourism can be combined with online games to gain profits through sales of virtual currencies and goods, and other ways in the game. Tourists

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Figure 2. Functional structure and profit modes of virtual tourism

can induct transactions of virtual travel equipments through the exchange of virtual currencies, and create own villa and hotel in the travel destination.

Tourism Revenue-Sharing By means of functions of information services and route planning, websites of virtual travel not only can help visitors with design and implementation of tourism projects, but also can recommend customers to scenic spots, hotels, travel agencies, airlines, car rental companies and other tourism enterprises, and share tourism revenues with these tourism enterprises.

Online Shopping and Booking Virtual tourism is closely related to real tourism. In the e-commerce of tourism, when visitors in virtual tourism have interest in corresponding landscapes and articles, online shopping and online reservation will generate profits.

Collection of Subscriptions In the virtual travel community, people form different groups according to different interests of travel, obtain highly social identity through interpersonal interaction, find the sense of attribu-

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tion psychologically and emotionally, and design self-image and space environment. Websites of virtual travel can charge membership fees, and develop advanced services for members. The corresponding relationship between functional structure and profit modes of virtual tourism is shown in Figure 2, which shows the sources of profits.

PRACTICES OF VIRTUAL TOURISM IN CHINA Tourism Websites of China China’s websites of tourism emerged in 1991, in addition, portal sites also have information about travel. These sites can provide more comprehensive online counseling service including tourism-related food, shelter, transportation, travel, entertainment, shopping and other aspects (Li, Yao, Di, Li, 2009). According to the statistics of Google’s Page Rank (PR), PR value of 60 tourist websites is greater than or equal to 6, in which PR value of 3 websites is 8, namely official website of Beijing Tourism Administration, official website of National Tourism Administration, and eLong. PR value of 7 websites is 7, PR value of 50 websites

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Table 1. Typical applications of virtual tourism on websites National Tourism Ctrip China Panorama Virtual Forbidden City Administration

Content Scenic spots

Global assessment Choiceness Scenic spots view Single scenic spots

Hotel

Global assessment Reservation system Hotel view -

Traffic

- Reservation system Traffic view -

Entertainment

- - Entertainment view Participatory project

Shopping

----

Others

Government affairs Tips Pictures Freestyle exchange

is 6. Among 60 websites, the number of local travel websites is 31 while the rest of websites is involved in nationwide business. Yu, Zheng (2009) divided domestic travel websites into four categories: government-based websites, store-based websites, network-based websites and comprehensive websites. Government-based websites of travel are official websites of tourism bureaus focusing local tourism. Among them, the National Tourism Administration is the most authoritative website of travel. Store-based websites of travel primarily rely on store to operate product marketing of tourism. Although they have own e-commerce, but they don’t pay attention to online sales. Wang (2008) claimed that China Travel Service and CYTS line are representatives of this type. Network-based websites of travel mainly rely on sales of tourism products through websites, including ticket booking, hotel booking service, such as Ctrip, eLong. Comprehensive travel websites cover the advantages of above two travel websites, namely tourism marketing both in stores and online, Shanghai Spring Travel is a typical representative.

Application of Virtual Tourism on Websites of Travel Yu (2008) summarizes five presentation ways of virtual tour system: text, 2-D images, 2.5-D virtual scene, 3-D virtual scene and Multi-D virtual scene, which are the development path of virtual tourism,

also the application paths of virtual technology in the field of tourism. Different types of travel websites have different demands and applications in terms of virtual tourism. This study selects samples of travel websites to introduce their applications of virtual tourism. First, the official website of the National Tourism Administration is selected as a government-based website of tourism. Second, the type of e-commerce websites, created by tour enterprises for marketing, will be represented by Ctrip. Third, the travel websites specializing in the introduction of attractions, are professional network of virtual tourism, such as China Panorama network. Finally, a very representative website of virtual travel is Virtual Forbidden City, and is described as a separate type. As shown in Table 1, the government website is still in the lower level in terms of the application of virtual tour technology, the government website focuses on the introduction of government policies on tourism and the status of development, and text description with graphic display about travel agencies, hotels, transportation, entertainment to give tourists an platform of intuitive, graphic information display. Ctrip and other business websites focus on ticketing, hotel reservations, and have no breakthrough in terms of the application of virtual technology. China Panorama and Virtual Forbidden City are at the highest level of the application of virtual

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technology. China Panorama provides virtual tourism of attractions around the country with 360 degree 3-D realistic display of high definition. The Palace Museum developed virtual Forbidden City, it officially started in October 10, 2008. This is the first virtual world in China to show important historical and cultural attractions on the Internet. But China Panorama and Virtual Forbidden City still don’t focus on the role of direct business, but the role of potential tourists.

CONCLUSION The main conclusions of this study are as follows. •

•

•

•

Virtual tourism characterized by multi-dimensional interactive visualization based on computer network is flexible and convenient for people. Virtual tourism has the following characteristics: transcend time and space, interactivity, high-technology, economy and multi-sensation. The functions of virtual tourism websites mainly include virtual tour of scenic spots, travel information and planning, travel ecommerce, and virtual travel community. At present virtual tourism profits mainly through marketing of tourism destinations, product placement, virtual currencies and items for sale, revenue sharing of tourism, online shopping and booking, and collection of subscriptions. In China, according to PR value, there are 60 tour websites with greater than or equal 6 PR value, and different travel websites have different demands and applications in terms of virtual tourism.

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