Tourism

Holiday and recreation has become a major part of family life during the recent years. Pressures in work environment and tough daily routines have made it necessary to take out some time from an individuals hectic life and plan holidays and vacations that are meant for recreation and relaxing. When visiting new places a main attraction is the exploration of the place and visits to its main markets and sight seeing areas. In many places, goods are bought and souvenirs are collected by tourist from different countries during their visit. Incomes for many families are generated by the consumption of goods and services by tourists. This has emerged into an industry which provides job opportunities and revenue for the country. Introduction of modern technology into the tourism industry has brought about great convenience in the otherwise patience testing processes of booking and reservations. Tourism organizations are incorporating modern technology into their existing system of working and normal travel agencies are being replaced by sophisticated online systems that allow customer inquiry and reservations.

Tourism Industry
Tourism is a recently emerged industry which has come into full bloom in a small period of time. People from all over the world have developed ideas of exotic holidays to far away places with sight seeing and shopping opportunities. This idea has given rise to a new way for government to generate revenue for their country. Almost every country is investing in their tourism industry and developing new and lavish hotels and sight seeing places which are an attraction for the tourists. Tourists spend a large sum of money over their accommodation, shopping and other expenses during their stay in a country. This has brought new job opportunities in many service industries related to tourism like transport industry which includes airlines, cruise ships and taxis, accommodation industries which include hotels and resorts and entertainment industry which include amusement parks, shopping malls, and other tourist attraction areas. These industries generate cash flow which is beneficial for the country. So all countries have entered into a race of providing more comfortable and exotic holiday schemes to the tourist in an effort to boost their commercial outcomes and generate revenue for the government. This has provided a competitive edge to the tourist and extensive surveys are made by the customer into the prices or airlines available, hotel bookings and various tourist attractions are explored in details before making their final decision.

United Nations classified 3 forms of tourism in 1994 in its Recommendations on Tourism Statistics as follows 1. Domestic tourism where residents of the country travel only within their own country 2. Inbound tourism involving non-residents traveling in the given country 3. Outbound tourism, involving residents traveling in another country.

UN also derived different categories of tourism by combining the 3 basic forms of tourism
1. Internal tourism, which comprises domestic tourism and inbound tourism 2. National tourism, which comprises domestic tourism and outbound tourism 3. International tourism, which consists of inbound tourism and outbound tourism.

Tourism organizations
To serve the purpose of promoting the tourism industry many tourism organizations have come into play. They have a hierarchical structure with the international organizations like World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) leading the front. World Tourism Organization is a specialized unit of United Nations and deals with promotion of tourism in the world. It serves as a global platform for tourism having its headquarters in Madrid, Spain. Then there are several regional organizations which promote tourism in specific regions like Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) and European Travel Commission which is a collaboration between thirty three British national tourism organizations and finally there are national tourism organizations of almost every country that promote the tourism industry in their country.

These national tourism organizations play vital role in the promotion and development of tourism related projects that help the tourist in spending quality time during their stay in the country. They plan and develop different amusement and entertainment points in the country to attract more tourists and generate income for their country.  The next step is proper publicity of several places of importance relating to history and culture of the country, so that tourist may be excited to visit. Tourists are specifically interested to gain information about history and background of the country they are visiting. Preparing attractive brochures highlighting the areas of specific interest of the tourist may result in greater number of tourist visiting the country which may be beneficial. On the basis of data collected through automated systems these organizations perform analysis and review of tourist feedback to gain insight in how to better their services to gain more popularity among tourists.

Application of modern technology in tourism organizations
The advent of modern technology has brought remarkable changes in the world where no field or industry has escaped its affect. Technology has provided means for making the travel of people easier and more comfortable. Day by day more organizations are making their work easier by incorporating modern technologies in their services. These technological changes help the organizations in maintaining their data more efficiently and publicizing their services more effectively.  More and more organizations are introducing the use of computer information systems to store tourist data which can later be used for reference and reporting services. Different presentation soft wares and data analysis soft wares are utilized to create dynamic and customized reports. Emerging technologies like web conferencing soft wares have become a part of organizations and are used for communication among employees over a distance and for other team work services like document sharing.

 The digital information environment has added a whole new dimension to the selection of sources and channels of tourist information, complicating even further the already complex information search process (Lehto, Kim  Morrison, 2006). The newest search options provided by the organizations employ modern technology like internet to facilitate their users by allowing them to access the organizations website through the internet and select their preferences to make their travel more comfortable. Help desk inquiries are being replaced by more technological recorded help lines that record and sometimes respond to tourist queries in an efficient manner.

In all industries related to tourism industries, modern technology is rapidly making its way and replacing tradition non technological methods. In the airline industry, the online reservation and booking systems have come into play and replaced the use of travel agencies where every tourist can make surveys and online reservations from the comfort of their homes. Same is the case for hotel industry, where online accommodation booking is available with prices and room facilities information available online for review of customer. Different tourist organizations publicize their services by uploading brochures of different tourist attractions like museums, shopping malls, casinos, amusement parks, beaches and other tourist points available for tourists entertainment and exploration.

Importance of modern technology in tourism organizations
As in all other fields and industries, modern technology has contributed to the efficiency and effectiveness of tourism industry. With the help of modern technology many software systems have come into the markets that are customizable to the requirements of different tourist organizations. These software products help store the tourist data in an efficient manner that can be processed later to provide customized reports and used for surveys by the tourism organization professional researchers like The Tourism Information Technology Center (TITC), who make inferences based on this data for further betterment of the organizational services and identify means to promote tourism in their country. Compared with the situation in 1997, the adoption of IT among hotels has substantially enhanced the areas of customer service and operational effectiveness, rather than merely replacing paper systems (Law  Jogaratnam, 2005).

The use of modern technology also facilitates the traveler in making suitable and convenient travel plans from the comfort of their homes by using many available websites on the internet that provide all updated information regarding the flights available, accommodation transport and holiday plans provided by different tourist organizations. These dynamic websites allows customer to interact with the system comparing rates among different airlines and hotel accommodation helping them make the best choice.

Consumers use IT extensively to evaluate alternative travel opportunities and to compare and contrast offerings. Using Meta Search Engines potential travelers can identify and evaluate products according to their preferences, filters, and requirements (Buhalis OConnor, 2005). An understanding of travelers information search behavior is for instance essential to the design of useful Internet-based technology (Pan  Fesenmaier, 2003). In the context of website usability evaluation, four studies have found that ease of use is one of the most important determinants of perceived website quality (Park, Gretzel,  Sirakaya- Turk, 2007). Rather than subjectively distinguishing the value of each attribute, automated software can provide a more convenient and objective way to evaluate websites (Chan  Law, 2006).

 Use of credit cards and online payments also help customer to make online reservations and do online shopping for his needs making his work easier and comfortable. The application of modern technology in all areas of tourism has made it an integral part of tourism industry. Technology has provided an aspect of accuracy and convenience to all services available to the tourists which travel to places far away from their homes depending on the use of technological products.  Singh and Kasavana (2005) predicted that future IT applications will probably rely on wireless infrastructure, and that online purchasing with cashless payments will become more commonplace. Providing services at the destination, now that mobile phones have become a necessity in this era of wireless communication (Langelund, 2007), cultural tourism has reacted by introducing multi-media museum guides that use mobile device screens to enhance the tourist experience (Alfaro, Nardon, Planesi, Stock,  Zancanaro, 2005). Mobile computers will
allow the personalization of services according to preferences, language skills, and depth
of information required. Hence, Buhalis and OConnor (2005) further suggested that E- tourism in the future will be focused on consumer-centric technologies, and that organizations need to adopt IT to be able to offer this level of service and remain competitive and innovative.

Modern technology is of great importance in running the tourism organizations in an effectual manner with secure handling and storage of customer data and providing efficient and timely service to the traveler. Modern technology is now employed in every industry relating to the tourism like the airline industry, hotel industry, entertainment industry and bus services.

Modern technology also plays a key role in a tourist organizations marketing campaign.
It is used by tourist organizations for marketing their services and advertising their special deals and reduced prices through the internet and other medium of publicity like brochures, banners and downloadable presentations designed on computers. IT can also assist in examining the tourist movement and in marketing research. Lau and McKercher (2006) used Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to track the tourists movement pattern within a destination. This technique can have great benefits for tourism marketers to understand consumer behavior while at the destination and to develop strategies for creating tourism experiences.

Law and Jogaratnam (2005) further suggested that IT can transform the nature of tourism and hospitality products, processes, businesses, and competition, and that tourism and
hospitality organizations that have failed to master the right IT systems would find
difficult to direct and manage their information- intensive business damaging their competitiveness.

Conclusion
Hence it is clearly evident from the above discussion that modern technology has made its place in the tourism industry and E-tourism plays a key role in facilitating the tourism organizations both for keeping their tourist data secure and in a maintainable format for future referencing and further research and for providing the tourist a comfortable and efficient travel service that help make their travel a memorable journey.

From point of view of travelers, E-tourism has provided many conveniences for the traveler in choosing their destination and making online surveys by comparing the rates and facilities available among different tourism organizations. From the planning of the journey to the actual departure and up to completion technology facilitates the traveler at all stages making it impossible to plan and undergo the journey with ease and convenience.