Introduction
This paper describes the actions that would be required to be funded by
the EC in order to promote tourism between Europe and the Mediterranean
countries. The background for the paper are three specific components in
addition to the general ERCIM expertise in databases, networking, WWW, user
interface design, and internationalisation. Firstly, the MIPS Esprit project
which undertook analyses of the tasks involved in the tourism business in
order to produce travel information systems now in use in Corfu tourist
kiosks. Secondly, the TIM RACE project which developed common database data
models for the tourism and travel industries in order to promote the interchange
of information. Thirdly, a proposal submitted to the EC ORA Telematics programme
in 1995 to stimulate Southern European Tourism which has been modified here
to become an ERCIM proposal for the Mediterranean countries.
The Business Process of Tourism
Tourism is a business, and if IT research projects are going to promote
tourism, they must reach the business goals of the existing actors. If existing
tourist actors are required to contribute to the funding of projects then
they need to be clear about their direct business benefits.
The general structure of the tourism business process model is as follows
(for summer holidays). In October Tour Operators reserve accommodation in
tourism destinations and travel to them. During the autumn they develop
advertising for these holidays which they release after Christmas to the
customer. The advertising includes not only descriptions of the holidays
themselves, but supporting information including maps of the area, details
of local facilities and entertainments etc. From January until September
they take advance bookings and payments on holidays from the customer who
has decided to buy the holiday - made a purchasing decision. The method
of sale may be through a travel agent, or through phone or postal sales.
The more human involvement the greater the cost of the sale, but the objective
is to close the sale and securely take the customer's money. From January
until September the Tour Operator Monitors the difference between the holidays
bought and projected sales. Their are two actions possible as a result of
this monitoring : 1) Change the price of the holidays up or down to increase
profit or stimulate the market; 2) increase or decrease the number of reservations
if sales are very high or very low (given cash flow etc.). This monitoring
operation is what Tour Operators do well, and where they make their profit
margins. From May until September, customers go on holiday and when their
make local bookings for entertainments, car hire, sports, etc. and buy locally
produced goods. The Tour Operators encourage feedback from the customers
which they use in order to plan he next year's holiday reservations in October.
The cycle for non-summer holidays is the same with different dates. Another
business model applies to conference business which can be a major part
of a travel agents activities, where they create individual packages acting
as Tour Operators.
The core of the process is the purchasing decision made by the customer.
This decision has two components. The first is a set of Hygiene Factors
which must be reached in order to consider purchasing the holiday such as
available health care in case of emergency, local food, disease, local law
(especially Muslim Law) and safety & security. The second are the motivations
such as the cost of the holiday, and the activities available during the
holiday. The purpose of the advertising produced by Tour Operators is to
provide information to the customer to allow them to make the purchasing
decision including these factors. Where the customer has prior knowledge
of the location for many of these factors then the advertising can be brief.
In contrast, where the customer has little knowledge of the location, information
on all these factors must be provided in order to enable the purchasing
decision.
The major variable in the tourism business is between mass market holidays,
and elite holidays. Mass market holidays offer sun, sand and sea at a low
cost selling them through the cost rather than facilities motivation in
the purchasing decision. Consequently, they are high volume but with very
low profit margins, with the results that there is very little variation
in the product between one tourist and another. Given the low profit margin
there is very little capital available at this end of the industry for further
investment either in IT or in the local economy to improve the facilities.
A major consequence of this for the local economy is that little money is
spent locally on entertainments and local products, very little money is
invested in the local economy except to provide the most basic facilities
in the form of large concrete hotels on the coast without sufficient investment
in local support infrastructure of transport, or utilities (power, water,
sewage etc.). The mass market is ecologically destructive to the tourist
destination.
In contrast the elite market promotes local culture, art, entertainments
and cuisine in order to attract customers on the activities motivating factor
in the purchasing decision. Since this information is richer than the price
alone, more resources must be spent on advertising and information provision
than for the mass market. The resulting holidays have a high cost, with
low volumes, high profit margins, and considerable variability between in
the activities undertaken by individuals. These tailored holidays allow
for more investment in IT and the local infrastructure as a result of the
higher profit margins and the increased importance of local activities in
the purchasing decision. This form of sustainable tourism provides more
rewards for the local economy, and is ecologically supportive.
The countries of the Mediterranean countries vary in the way that they are
positioning themselves in these markets. Israel and Egypt have traditionally
positioned themselves at the elite market by exploiting their cultural heritage,
whereas Malta has positioned itself in the past at the mass market and is
now changing its strategy to focus on the elite market. Cyprus has tried
to address both markets for several years, while Tunisia is clearly positioning
itself at the mass market. Morocco, Algeria, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria do
not have significant positions in the European tourism market at present,
although Jordan has one significant site in the cruise based elite market
in Petra.
The major growth market in 1990's tourism is in cruising which imposes low
local demands for infrastructure, but can allow for support of the local
economy through the purchasing of local cultural activities and local goods.
Cruising overcomes most of the hygiene factors in the purchasing decision
since these are supplied on the ship rather than locally, yet the local
site can provide the activity motivations in the purchasing decision. Cruising
is a very suitable step in developing an elite market tourist industry and
would be appropriate for promotion for the Mediterranean countries which
cannot currently overcome the hygiene factors in the purchasing decision.
Actions to Support Tourism
From this analysis of the tourism business there are five areas where IT
support would improve the business for the Tour Operator, and result in
benefits to the economy of the tourist destination:
1) To provide background information to overcome obstacles to purchasing
decision.
To enter either market it is necessary to overcome the hygiene factors by
providing sufficient information about available health care in case of
emergency, local food, disease, local law (especially Muslim Law) and safety
& security. Familiarity with an areas geography history and culture
will also promote familiarity and increase the likelihood of finding a destination
acceptable.
Information on these topics is easily and cheaply provided, although targeting
the distribution of paper based media can be expensive. Network based distribution
overcomes these distribution costs easily.
However, a high quality of delivery will improve the image of the destination
and this high quality is not normally available for video's and large images
to the home over the Internet. Therefore although net
based distribution has advantages, CD-ROM based distribution of information
may also be useful. CD-ROM and WWW sites can be produced on a national or
regional basis to meet this need.
The Israeli Tourist Agency has a WWW site of information already, Tunisia
tourist agency currently has a single WWW page, and the other countries
have no web presence. CD-ROM information on no target country was available
in the UK at the time of writing. The establishment of Web sites and the
simultaneous presentation of the same content on CD-ROM which can be distributed
in Europe would address these problems.
Apart from technology transfer from Europe to the Mediterranean countries,
the research issues for Europe would include the internationalisation of
both WWW sites and CD-ROM's, and the quality of service requirements of
both distribution methods as part of the engineering process of generating
the products, and in contractual terms.
2) To upgrade target markets from Mass Market to Elite
In order to enter the Elite market the background information distributed
must not only overcome the hygiene factors but also contain sufficient background
information on Culture, History, Cuisine, Geography, Activities, Entertainments
to motivate visitors to choose a site in competition with others.
The production of CD-ROM's and simultaneous WWW sites on a national or regional
basis would meet this need. CD-ROM's are best targeted at Cruises initially
where passengers have chosen to purchase a package including one or more
stop about which they are uncertain. The CD can be used to encourage them
to go ashore at a port, and purchase local goods.
No virtual tourist information of cultural information of this class was
available for the target countries, although some European libraries and
museums are starting to put together presentations on culture alone. CD-ROM's
have been produced for Albania as part of the Chameleon Esprit IV project
in order to stimulate sustainable tourism there, which include not only
culture and sites in Albania, but also details of local craft skills and
products which can be purchased in order to stimulate potential markets.
3) To advertise holidays
WWW sites can be established by Tour Operators to advertise exactly which
holidays they have for sale. These would be universally available to travel
agents and for home use in choosing a holiday with up to date costs and
minimal distribution costs. These can be linked to supporting information
provided by national or regional tourist authorities, by Museums and Libraries
in Europe and elsewhere and even to film and other sites where locations
have been featured.
4) To monitor the differences between reservations and bookings.
At the height of the tourist season tour operators may want to fill every
available bed in hotels and every seat on transport. Therefore they need
to know accurately exactly where there is spare capacity in accommodation
or transport. This is currently hard to obtain in most tourist resorts and
would increase the profit margins of tour operators and the number of tourists
supporting the local economy if it were available.
Local WWW sites which provide access to databases of hotel use kept up to
date by tourist authority staff would provide this function. Such sites
could be extended with transaction management to allow bookings to be made
to them from Europe. Client machines would have to be installed in European
Tour Operators
Research issues here include not only internationalisation and quality of
service but also the establishment of standard data models for tourism,
extending the work of the TIM RACE project.
5) To move all bookings to advance.
Local excursions, theatre, concert and other entertainment tickets are all
made once the destination is reached unless the mass market model is used
and all tourists are presented with the same products. Other local facilities
or activities may also be booked locally. This makes the prediction of cash
flow, and the uptake of these entertainments difficult. If details of these
activities could be made available and booked from the Tour Operator then
three benefits would follow: firstly, customers would be more confident
about the activities available to them and have their holidays more tailored
to their needs, supporting the elite market model of sustainable tourism;
secondly, the capacity required for these activities could be planned in
more detail therefore allowing for greater profits; and thirdly, these activities
could be paid for earlier allowing this money to be used by the local economy
for longer, therefore further stimulating growth.
Local tourist authorities could provide databases not only of hotels, but
also of other activities, which could be accessible over the network to
tour operators.
The research issues here would be the same as those for monitoring reservations,
except these activities may require closer links to the multimedia information
used to provide background information and upgrade the market to the elite
model in order to explain the activities. This use databases and of multimedia
information requires clear models of dialogue, task, decision making, user
interface design and business modelling, all of which are relevant research
topics.
Several actions have been mentioned in the analysis of the tourism business
which have not been listed here as suitable areas for IT support. The general
reason is that they impose contractual requirements on the IT for quality
of service which would be hard to meet. For example, the actual selling
of holidays has not been mentioned, although the Internet can support sales
and various forms of e-cash or credit card transactions are possible. If
one where to provide Internet sales, then a security mechanism for the transaction
would be required, and checks to ensure the availability of the limited
supply product would be required, as well as changes to the contracts issued
by many travel organisations. Equally, the present sales mechanisms are
often funded indirectly though the sale of travel insurance rather than
the holidays themselves. Therefore, it would require considerable regulatory,
and market changes to support the mass use of Internet sales. Such issues
could be included in a project if actors wanted to support them, and there
are research issues associated with quality of service which could be undertaken
if such components were included in projects. However, such components cannot
be expected as necessary to projects.
The Level of Research Proposed
The research issues raised so far include:
internationalisation of CD-ROM and WWW sites;
quality of service for delivering information over both media;
the establishment of networks;
the development of database servers;
the agreement of common data models for tourism;
business process modelling;
tailorable user interface design;
all of which can be viewed at different levels. For example these could
be considered purely at the level of socio-political feasibility by applying
existing technologies and applications but resolving the international co-operation
required. In that case the proposed project would equate with the Telematics
programme of DG XIII in the language of the Bangemann Report. Alternatively,
one could develop novel applications at the client or server end to address
internationalisation and other issues of tailoring which would make the
project address applications feasibility at the same level as the IT programme
(or the old Esprit Programme) of DG III. Indeed this trend could be extended
further to address risks of technological feasibility too so that basic
research were included to investigate intelligent information interfaces
to retrieve information from sets of servers and customise it for the user
on their ubiquitous computing station.
Whether the risks addressed by the project should only include the socio-political
ones required to establish the information network, or also application
risks and even technology ones required to advance IT itself depends on
the level at which the EU wishes to promote the programme of support for
relations between the EU and Mediterranean countries. This proposal can
be focused on any of these risks as required.
Technological Differences between Mediterranean Countries
All Mediterranean countries are not currently at the same level of development,
and cannot be expected to proceed at the same pace. A common measure of
technology development is the number of telephone lines per 100 inhabitants.
On this measure, Israel, Cyprus and Malta are comparable with Europe with
about 40 lines per 100 inhabitants. In contrast, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia,
Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria have only about 12 lines per 100 inhabitants
showing that they are not as developed (figures from the CIA, 1994). This
distinction will cause significant differences in the time required to develop
communications infrastructure to support networks to local tourist authority
sites. In the extreme case, the waiting list for installing a telephone
line in a house in Mauritania is currently 50 years (well beyond the expected
life of a research project). The easiest way for these countries to all
be involved in a tourism research project and yet proceed at different paces
is to address different parts of the programme.
All countries can produce the multimedia content required to overcome hygiene
factors and encourage sustainable cultural tourism. This content can be
delivered on CD-ROM and from a single national WWW site in all countries.
Such content could be pointed at by European Tour Operator servers for all
countries. However, the development of servers in local tourist authorities
to provide information on hotels or local activities may only be introduced
in the countries with more developed communications infrastructure.
Project Structure
The structure of the project would centre around users - Tour Operators
in Europe and Tourist Authorities in the Mediterranean countries. Each user
would have an accompanying IT support partner in the form of an ERCIM research
institute in Europe and either an institute or company in the Mediterranean
countries.
The project will agree standards for database data models for tourist databases.
It will agree standards for internationalisation, user interfaces, WWW page
and site design etc. at the project level.
Servers will be established one per country or province and populated with
content from that province according to the project standards, following
the participation of user and IT support organisations. This content will
be made available on CD-ROM for distribution to travel agents, and cruise
ships.
Servers will be established in the Tourist Authority by the IT Support organisation.
Databases on the server will be populated by content from hotel operators
and local tourist activity providers.
Servers will be connected to networks which will be supported by project
partners.
Client machines will be established in European Tour Operators to access
the Tourist Authority servers.
Server machines will be established in Tour Operators which will be populated
by them with local IT support in order to advertise holidays. These servers
may have to mirror country or province servers depending on network performance.
End user holidaymakers will have access to the three sets of severs - at
country or province level promoting cultural information, at tourist authority
sites promoting local activities, and at tour operators promoting individual
holidays for sale.
Conclusion
ERCIM has already established the infrastructure in Europe with contacts
in tour operators, network providers and IT support companies for most of
the organisations required in this project. However, the participation of
IT support organisations, local Tourist Authorities and cultural content
providers in Mediterranean countries is required.
If the EU accept that a project such as this should be partially funded
by them, and partially by industrial partners, it has been argued that the
business benefits exist for the industrial partners to make such an investment.
It has also been argued that such a tourism project would encourage the
development of network communication and computing infrastructure in the
Mediterranean countries with short term economic benefits to the local area.
If such a project were proposed by the EU and funded with ERCIM involvement
it would be expected to yield the following benefits :
Tourist activity provider - more goods sold
Local Craft traders - more goods sold
Local Hotel Operators - No empty rooms
Tourist Authorities - increased sustainable tourism
Mediterranean IT support - improved skills
Telecoms and Network Providers - improved infrastructure
Tour Operators - Higher Profit Margins and new markets
Travel Agents - More holidays sold
European IT support - Establish new markets
System Architects - Consultancy and Research Papers published
European Tourist - Happy holidays !