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472 TRAVEL ANDTOURISMFUTURE BEHAVIOR IN TRAVEL
The following briefly summarizes some expectations for
the future role of the Internet in travel and tourism.
Travel will continue to be one of the most popular on-
line interests to consumers. This trend will increase in
magnitude as travel providers create more effective means
with which to communicate the nature of their offerings.
The Internet and alternate access devices are in-
creasing the number of electronic connections between
customers and the tourism industry. These new technolo-
gies will continue to provide an environment for creating
relationships, allowing consumers to access information
more efficiently, conducting transactions, and interacting
electronically with businesses and suppliers. Examples of
emerging technology in the travel industry include travel
recommendation systems, travel guidance systems and
virtual reality.
The changes in demographic profiles of Internet users
over the past decade suggest that the evolving Internet
and related systems will ultimately be adopted by the
large majority of the traveling public and, therefore, the
Internet will be considered the primary source for travel
information.
The demands of travelers, and in particular the
purchase process(es) they use, will continue to evolve
as consumers of travel products gain more experience
and confidence in product purchasing over the Internet.
Importantly, conversations among travelers (through
travel clubs, virtual communities, etc.) will continue to
grow and will increasingly be mediated through Internet
technologies.
Experience- and emotion-oriented Internet communi-
cations will grow in importance as human-centric com-
puting and emotionally intelligent interfaces are offered
on the Internet. These interfaces/systems will incorporate
a variety of interpreted information, enabling the systems
to recognize the information needs of the user within an
emotional-psychological need context, in order to provide
supportive interactions and suggestions.
The trends identified above set the stage for an inter-
esting and challenging future for the travel and tourism
industry. Following from Naisbitt (1994), the “global para-
dox” for travel organizations lies in having to compete at
the local level for individual travelers but also simultane-
ously at the national and international levels. The inno-
vative power of the Internet provides stimulating input
for new organizational strategies but at the same time
constrains the ability of current organizations to adjust
to the “new realities.” The rich informational environ-
ment the Internet provides and the availability of and
access to an “infinite” number of “experiential settings”
empower consumers in a variety of ways. The challenge
for tourism organizations is to set stages for experience
creation throughout their organizational structures and
to actively involve all employees in the design and market-
ing of experiences so that the full benefits of the Internet
can be realized.GLOSSARY
Brochureware A term used to refer to Web sites
or Web pages created by taking printed tourismbrochures and directly transferring their contents to
digital environments. Web sites designed as brochure-
ware represent the simplest form of Web design
as they display information in a static way and
provide only limited navigation and communication
functions.
Central reservation system (CRS) A system that pro-
vides access to information about airline, hotel, or
rental company inventories and is used for sales, mar-
keting, and ticketing purposes. The elements of a CRS
include a central processing unit, a central database,
and a communications network that links information
providers and users to the central information storage
and processing system.
Click stream A recorded path of the pages a user re-
quests in navigating through one or more Web sites.
Click stream information can help Web site owners and
advertisers understand how visitors use a site. More
specifically, it provides insights with respect to how the
site was found, how much time was spent on the site,
and what specific pages were accessed.
Customer relationship management (CRM) A set of
business principles employed with the aim of strength-
ening a tourism organization’s relationships with its
clients, optimizing customer service levels, and obtain-
ing customer information that can be used for market-
ing purposes.
Destination-management system (DMS) The infor-
mation technology infrastructure used by destination
marketing organizations to support a wide range of
promotion, sales, and advertising efforts. Typical ele-
ments of such systems are technologies to design and
produce printed materials, tourist information center
services (including information and reservation sys-
tems), call center services, kiosks, database marketing
applications, project/event management software, and
marketing research applications.
Destination marketing organization (DMO) is an or-
ganization with responsibility for marketing a specific
tourism destination to the travel trade and to individ-
ual travelers.
Distribution channel A set of interdependent organiza-
tions, such as tour operators or travel agents, involved
in the process of making tourism products or services
available to consumers.
En route information Information obtained while trav-
eling, as opposed to information collected before or af-
ter the trip; mainly used for navigational purposes or to
support short-term decision making during the actual
vacation.
Flow A seamless, intrinsically enjoyable, self-
reinforcing, and captivating psychological experience
occurring when there is an optimal match between
the challenge at hand and one’s skills.
Global distribution system (GDS) A system that links
several central reservation systems, thus providing a
much more global coverage than individual computer-
ized reservation systems.
Human-centric computing The process of designing,
developing, and implementing information technol-
ogy that reflects the needs and lifestyles of its human
users.