“Innovative ICT applications to support the tourism sector of Ionian Islands”
Catherine Christodoulopoulou, John Garofalakis, Theodoula Giannakoudi, Andreas Koskeris
Research Academic Computer Technology Institute –RACTI- (www.cti.gr) – Telematics Center department (www.westgate.gr)
Contact person: Andreas Koskeris ()
Keywords: Information and communication technologies (ICT), information systems, travel, tourism, internet, world wide web (WWW), competitive advantage, e-services, m-services.
Summarization Abstract
Overview
The presented work investigates how innovative Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) can be used so as to boost tourism economy development and support regional tourism entrepreneurs. We present the case of the Region of Ionian Islands in Greece, which is a territory economically based on tourism activities. We explore the actual situation concerning tourism economy growth and potentials and we describe an innovative “umbrella” of ICT applications which has been designed, developed and applied, within the last year, in order to boost regional tourism economy through the support of local entrepreneurs to effectively use new ICT. The results of this application and the proposed further work is finally considered in order to present the impact and potential of such innovative activities.
Background
On March 2000 in Lisbon, the European Council set out Lisbon Strategy which aim is to make Europe “the most competitive and dynamic knowledge – driven economy by 2010". Under this perspective, EU regions need to focus on improving their competitiveness by creating opportunities for employment and increasing productivity. The Greek Region of Ionian Islands has as its main strategy, to include Ionian Islands into the new era of economy while protecting the traditional business practices and retain the strong region’s identity and distinctive cultural characteristics.
Following the above leads and under the framework of the Innovative Actions Program the Regional Authority of Ionian Islands designed and developed a specialised set of activities (Program) called: “Innovation in the Ionian Islands–3I”. An activity within this Program is the so called “Digital Ionian Islands” which has been developed from RACTI (in collaboration with the Ionian Tourism Corporation). It refers to the creation of an advanced technological platform for the promotion of Region’s tourism and cultural product and for the provision of services to the tourism sector. Such actions are recognised as very important ones within the last years after the spread of World Wide Web. Information fuels the new economy and plays an essential role in developing and maintaining a sustainable competitive advantage. Organisations that are the most successful at collecting, evaluating and applying information are consistently the leaders in their respective industries.
Based on the current work, world widely, in the field of ICT for tourism, the derived direction is to combine technologies and systems in order to: - Provide effective information to potential travellers, - Assist tourism entrepreneurs in the promotion of their offerings, - Provide useful and updated information to entrepreneurs. “Digital Ionian Islands” is trying to follow this direction providing a regional tool having as its main objectives, to:
q Create an advanced technological platform for the promotion of Region’s tourism and cultural product and for the provision of services to the tourism sector
q Set the base for a regional asset which will be used for the creation of innovative services in the tourism sector.
The “Digital Ionian Islands” information system
The developed information system, includes several functionalities which are differentiated, depending on the type of user. There exist three user groups having access to the system: Tourism entrepreneurs, Content responsibles and General public (tourists)
For each of the user groups the following functionalities are provided:
A. General Public (tourists)
q Search for cultural information (e.g. monuments, theatres etc)
q Search for tourism information (e.g. hotels, restaurants, beaches etc)
q Search for historical information
q Search for thematic tourism possibilities (e.g. offerings and possibilities for agrotourism, mari-tourism etc)
q Advanced search functionality (combinatorial queries, search for each island)
q Virtual Reality subsets of information (e.g. gis routes, multimedia presentations etc)
q Mobile services (specialised information provision through new generation mobile phones)
B. Tourism entrepreneurs
q First level presentation of their company (easily searched by the tourists)
q Advanced/specialised web presence of their company (easily searched by the tourists)
q Promotion of specialised offerings (easily searched by the tourists)
q E-consulting service (e.g. exhibitions, collaborations, programs, legislation etc)
q Automatic created periodical useful information
C. Content responsibles
q User friendly environment for the inclusion of information (tourism, cultural, historical) to the system
q Levels of check and acceptance for the content uploaded by local entrepreneurs
q Statistics concerning local companies and offerings
Methodology
In order to begin the system’s actual usage, an important issue is the data integrity. Assuring integrity, gives confidence to the system and helps its viability a great deal. Whatever is included in the “Digital Ionian Islands” must be right and up-to-date. For this reason a specific methodology has been decided and incorporated. There are three levels of access to the system in order to insert and update information.
Firstly, all tourism entrepreneurs use relative functionalities (presented in the previous chapters). With this level of access they can also include their data (enterprise info, web site, offerings etc). These data however, are not automatically inserted in the system. In a second level of access, authorised people for the local chambers of commerce audit all entrepreneurs updates. They can either accept or not the data inclusion. With this way it is assured that there will be no false and malicious information in the whole system. These authorised local officers can also access the system to update the tourism information within it (cultural-historical portals, general info etc). In a third level of access authorised stuff from the Ionian Tourism Corporation has as responsibility to constantly check the coherence of all general information included in the whole system.
Based on the above methodology, and within the framework of 3I program a pilot application of the “Digital Ionian Islands” information environment is now under way. In the first stages of this pilot phase, several training workshops organised in every island in order to present the system to the entrepreneurs. Such kind of training is needed to develop an understanding of the impact of ICT on business and to explore ways for better use of ICT. ICT alone does not increase productivity.
Results
Although we are still on the beginning of this application, a first set of results have been obtained and can be presented. There are 3 kinds of beneficiaries from the system actual usage. First of all tourists, for whom it goes without saying that they can benefit from such information environments. The existence of an integrated and up-to-date environment providing all kinds of tourism information for the region of Ionian Islands has raised great interest. For this reason the Regional Authority of Ionian Islands has decided to appoint the main Region’s web site to this environment. Secondly, tourism entrepreneurs, which have shown significant interest to the Digital Ionian Islands information environment, directly benefit from the services offered. Until now, within the first months of actual system usage, a significant raise of interest has been shown. A high level amount of businessmen have submitted their interest to gain access and they have started uploading information. In the same time several information events have been organised in the Ionian Islands. In all these events the participation of local businessmen was very notable and the interest concerning the pilot use of the system and its future continuous presence was raised. Last, but not least, such projects are valuable tools for the regional administration in order to support their activities to further enhance their economy and promote the regional tourism and cultural product. The Regional Authority of Ionian Islands and the Regional Tourism Corporation consider the Digital Ionian Islands as a very important step towards Region’s economic growth and as a catalyst to help it achieve coherence with other EU regions.
Future Outlook
The issues that need to be addressed concerning further advancement of Digital Ionian Islands, include two equally important directions. a) Administrative and organisation amendment and b) Technical improvements and upgrade.
a) Administration and Organisation issues
As described in the previous chapter there are four kinds of users of the system (General public, Regional tourism entrepreneurs, Authorised staff from the local chambers of commerce, Main administrator from the Ionian Tourism Corporation). This organisational scheme has been selected in order to achieve constant update and viability of the system with 100% data integrity. However in some cases it can add delays to the upload of information in the data base, and therefore to its visibility for the general public. Possible simplification actions might needed in the near future (e.g. combine the two last levels of access).
b) Technical improvements and upgrade of functionalities
Information Systems like the “Digital Ionian Islands” which combine several levels of information and services, in order to be constantly viable and valuable have to be continuously updated with new content and follow the last technological trends in order to provide better and more useful services to potential travellers and local tourism business. Resulting from these needs, the main effort concerning the developed information system is to constantly upgraded with improved and additional functionalities based on the results of the actual usage and the trends concerning ICT applications. A first set of such additions and improvements based on the system’s use until now, includes:
q connection of the system with regional e-commerce environments (e.g. to buy local products which the user can locate through the system)
q connection with e-booking systems
q additional features to the CMS system (dynamic addition of languages in the multilinguality feature, documentation of digitised content etc)
Conclusion
Regional development plays a key role for the achievement of Lisbon strategy- a strategy to prepare the EU for the challenges of the new century. On the other hand, ICT influences the regional economic growth due to their ability to improve the competitiveness and to boost productivity. However, ICT is no panacea, but a technology that can be made to work to enhance economic performance
In a Region with developing economic activity which is based mainly on tourism and rather low usage of ICT, tools like “Digital Ionian Islands” are considered as effective example of how ICT can contribute to regional development. It is estimated that the creation of similar “tools” in regional and local level will have a positive long-term impact to the economic prosperity of EU regions.
Example snapshots from the provided fuctionalities
1. First level web presence of tourism companies. 2. A route and a list of vacation offers. 3. Content Management System
Basic references
“Achieving the Lisbon Agenda: the contribution of ICT’, A report for the Brussels Round Table, Indepen and Ovum, January 2005
Buhalis, D., 2003, eTourism: Information Technology for strategic tourism management, Pearson
“Horizontal ICT interregional collaboration activities in the region of Western Greece. Impact on Regional Development”, Catherine Christodoulopoulou, John Garofalakis, Andreas Koskeris, Research Academic Computer Technology, Regional Studies Association 2006 conference “Shaping EU Regional Policy: Economic, Social and Political Pressures” Leuven, Belgium, 8th & 9th June 2006
Region of Ionian Islands, http://www.visit-ionianislands.com/etin_gr_gen.htm
WTO,2001, eBusiness for Tourism: Practical; guidelines for destinations and businesses, Madrid: World Tourism Organisation.
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