Roberto Peretta. UniBg :. IT for Tourism Managers Lecture #2. Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Transcription

1 Università degli Studi di Bergamo Area didattica di Lingue e Letterature straniere Progettazione e gestione dei sistemi turistici / Planning and Management Systems Centro Studi per il Turismo e l'interpretazione del Territorio (CeSTIT) Our field is tourism. A tourism websites taxonomy: OTAs (Expedia, Booking.com), communities (TripAdvisor), metasearch engines (Trivago, Kayak), DMOs, DMSs Roberto Peretta UniBg :. IT for Tourism Managers Lecture #2. Tuesday, November 26, 2013

2 Digital has changed tourism Have digital technologies changed the world of tourism? Very much so, in terms of volume of transactions and different sorts of intermediation (especially in the field of tourism services); less so in the world of tourism destinations. But can we identify tourism websites? Can we try to categorize them? Which different business models do different tourism websites rely on? 2

3 Online Travel Agents Categories Taxonomy (1) Big private Online Travel Agent (OTA or OLTA, like Travelocity, Expedia, Booking.com, Priceline, Venere, HostelWorld, edreams etc.) Online intermediation and sale of tourism services (flights, accommodation, car rentals, packaged tours etc.) mostly not produced by agents Cashing brokerage rates (under different specific models: Expedia, for instance, tends to charge the customer in advance, while Booking.com gets a percentage from hotels after the customer has paid on the spot) 3

4 Travel metasearch engines Categories Taxonomy (2) Private Travel metasearch engine (or fare aggregator, like Ti Trivago, Kayak, Mobissimo etc.) Online comparison of tourism services and their fares (flights, accommodation, car rentals, packaged tours etc.) mostly offered by Online Travel Agents Cashing intermediation, mostly from Online Travel Agents 4

5 Online Travel Agents Categories Taxonomy (3) Private Accommodation broker (like Wimdu, Couchsurfing, etc.) Online intermediation of accommodation either provided by small business or made available by citizens Cashing brokerage rates, if any 5

6 Travel communities Categories Taxonomy (4) Private Travel community (like Tripadvisor etc.) Online comparison of tourism services (most frequently accommodation, food and points of interest) through usergenerated content: tipically, customer reviews Cashing advertisings 6

7 Publishers Categories Taxonomy (5) Private Travel Publisher (Frommer s, Lonely Planet, Michelin etc.) Sale of guidebooks, travel books or digital content, mostly produced d by the publishers themselves Selling books or digital content directly (no intermediation). Also selling massive digital content to destinations or companies. 7

8 Travel Suppliers Categories Taxonomy (6) Big private (or public ) Travel supplier (Air France, Deutsche Bahn, Trenitalia, RyanAir, Accor, Holiday Inn, Hertz etc.) Online sale of tourism services (flights, hotels, car rentals etc.) mostly produced d by the suppliers themselves Selling services directly (no intermediation) 8

9 Destination Management Organizations Categories Taxonomy (7) The public DMO [Destination Management Organization or Destination Marketing Organization] (or LTB, Local Tourist Board, or RTB, Regional Tourist Board) Either public or private/public funding Attracting visitors to the destination; marketing the destination and local l actors; informing and assisting visitors before, during and after their visit This is the category of tourism websites we have to evaluate. 9

10 Small service suppliers Categories Taxonomy (8) Small private Accommodation supplier (Family-run private hotel, Bed & Breakfast, Farmhouse, like frances.it) Online sale of tourism services (hospitality) produced by the suppliers themselves Selling services directly (no intermediation) or selling through Online Travel Agents and/or DMOs 10

11 Unofficial destinations, and affiliation Categories Taxonomy (9) Small private Small business or amateur (like CiaoMilano) Sponsorship and/or advertisements on the website; possibly sale of digitalit content; t affiliation Informing on a tourist area, and possibly making marginal profits through h affiliations 11

12 Travel bloggers Categories Taxonomy (10) Small private Travel blog (or travelogue, like PeterGreenberg, NomadicMatt, DigitalNomad, etc.) None though some travel bloggers increasingly act as professional travel writers or journalists. Affiliation is also possible Informing on personal travels, possibly making profits through h agreements with DMOs or publishers, and/or marginal profits through affiliations 12

13 DMSs, or Destination Management Systems In terms of digital management of tourism destinations, there s more to be considered. A Destination Management System, or DMS, is a special sort of CMS. DMSs are digital platforms. They are content management systems intended to drive local tourism operators to cooperate with one another, helping to manage a local tourism system. In other words, DMSs are based on a network approach as far as tourism operators are concerned... or, rather, they are supposed to be based on a network approach. The story of Tiscover provides examples. 13

14 Destinations, hoteliers, and e-commerce Finally, a very practical question in terms of e-commerce and business models for a destination. How should a destination manage hotel and service reservations in its own area? Destinations vs. hoteliers vs. OTAs... 14