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Tourism is one of the leading services for trade in many developing countries. It is among the highest producers of foreign exchange and accounting for a growing part of the GDP. Information and Communication Technologies, especially the Internet, have substantially changed the playing field for tourism stakeholders, providing new challenges and opportunities. A number of representative of international organizations, Governments in Asia-Pacific, private businesses, NGOs and universities addressed this topic and related issues in front of tourism stakeholders coming from 26 countries. What is the link between ICT and tourism?"Developing countries can have a comparative advantage in this sector, offering today's increasingly demanding and sophisticated traveller, a wide variety of attractions", said Dr. Supachai Panitchpakdi, Secretary-General of UNCTAD at the official opening before mentioning that "e-Tourism enables those developing countries that are in a position to exploit it…". He added that "The challenges are enormous." "Many developing countries lack not only the telecommunications infrastructure, but also the requisite skilled human resources, to turn an information-only website into a productive marketing tool." Datuk Dr. Victor Wee, Secretary General of the Ministry of Tourism Malaysia, highlighted that 40% of information that tourists retrieve is provided through the Internet and also more than 30% of all bookings are done this way. Recent changes in tourists' behaviour and the growing importance of ICT mean that much more effort has to be given to e-tourism. He added that travel and tourism rank very highly on the interest of the consumer when accessing the Internet. Generally it ranks 6th after Internet gaming, sporting news, financial news, music and films. As such there is great potential for e-tourism. Pakistan, with its 165 million inhabitants, has a good potential for tourism, said H.E. Mr. Ishaq Khan Khakwani, Ministry of Information Technology and Telecom of Pakistan. He added that the country is currently improving its telecom infrastructure and that ICT should be considered as an instrumental tool for the sustainable development of the tourism sector. Human resources are a key factor in innovation"The future success of the tourism industry relies on its ability to grasp the opportunities provided by ICT" said Dr. Kim Hak-Su, Executive Secretary of UNESCAP. Furthermore he stated, "failure to do so will mean the loss of competitiveness and business opportunities. In most countries of the region, however, the main bottleneck for the diffusion of ICT is the lack of adequate human resources and limited resources to upgrade skills". Mr. Ian Anderson, Senior Adviser at the Asian Development Bank said that the tourism sector is one of the leading sectors for job creation in the region, particularly due to the high percentage of growth of tourist arrivals. With the aim to support innovative approaches to promote ICT, enhancing regional cooperation and innovation with respect to ICT, the construction of a fair information society and ICT infrastructure and bridging the digital divide, ADB considers it of importance to carry out among others capacity building and the development of human resources through education and training. The market forces such as demanding and empowered consumers and fierce competition worldwide as well as new values among which sustainable tourism and the global code of ethics for tourism, demand new strategies for tourism destination, said Prof. Dr. François Bédard of the University of Quebec at Montreal. He went on to say that public administrations can create and stimulate human ware as a driver for innovation in the tourism sector by encouraging qualified and well-trained human resources, the support of training programmes for the tourism sector and the recognition of local people as stakeholders in the tourism sector. The development of a culture of excellence would thereby be crucial. Mr. Roger Harris, Founder of Asian Encounters, said that there is a growing demand for rural and remote communities tourism. With the increased deployment of ICT in rural communities in the form of community telecentres, e-Community based tourism is a growing trend. It stimulates local entrepreneurial activity; favours women by creating jobs for them, generates tourism income to those providing the experiences and empowers communities to use ICT for further development activities. It is also a disruptive innovation, involving new tourism stakeholders and networking. Such projects are being implemented in Laos, Malaysia and Vietnam and are being extended to other Asia-Pacific countries. Thailand's tourism strategy - some facetsThailand received 13.82 million tourists in 2006, worth 12,800 million USD compared to 11.52 million visitors in 2005 said Mr. Auggaphol Brickshawana, Deputy Governor for Policy and Planning of the Tourism Authority of Thailand. ICT played a key role in the promotion and marketing of the destination. Between 2002 and 2006, an information channel visible under http://www.tourismthailand.org, a B2B e-marketing strategy implemented under http://thaitravelsmart.org and an online booking portal were launched. Mr. Brickshawana said that it was expected that the portal http://www.thailandhotdeal.com would bring earnings of around 5.25 million USD. He further mentioned that the Tourism Authority of Thailand puts a lot of efforts in capacity building through the provision of training for SMEs. Focus is thereby put on enhancing their competitiveness, the introduction of ICT and online marketing. Within this context, five seminars were successfully conducted throughout the country in 2006. He said that the main challenges are the limitation of the e-skill level among SMEs, the updating of tourism information websites, the unawareness of the potential benefit of using ICT in tourism business and its rapid growth. Mr. Niracharapa Tongdhamachart, Vice President of the Software Industry Promotion Agency in Thailand, said that the country has over 2000 travel agencies and 5525 hotel registered. He presented the Thai Tourism c-commerce project whose function is to serve as a service intermediary in the tourism sector. Among the beneficiaries are travel agents and SMEs entrepreneurs through facilitation services and tourists who are being offered a larger choice of options, said Mr. Tongdhamachart. Risks and barriers to take into account are however the digital divide, interoperability, a sustainable business model, solid collaboration, a strategic plan to use TCC and the operators to implement the system. Knowledge management in support of pro-poor tourismThe success of tourism depends on human resources said Mr. Ryuji Yamakawa, Economic Affairs Officer at UNESCAP after which he mentioned that high standards of service are particularly important in sustaining long-term growth. Though the region has a high potential, human resources development is a major problem. He said that ICT thereby offers unprecedented opportunities both in the context of training, education and capacity building in the tourism sector and in the area of tourism business operation and management, collection and dissemination of knowledge and in reaching the greatest number of potential tourists. These issues can be tackled through a commitment of the highest political level to build an information society, the development of ICT strategies and consistent efforts to build up capabilities to fully harness opportunities offered by ICT, Mr. Yamakawa said. Mr. Sanjay Nadkarni, UNESCAP-APETIT Resource person, said that pro-poor tourism refers to interventions that specifically focus on addressing poverty and that it is an overall approach designed to unlock opportunities for the poor. E-Tourism, in particularly through free and open source software, can bring social inclusion to economically disadvantaged geographies, he said, whereby it can help in the identification, creation, representation and distribution of knowledge for reuse, awareness and learning across organizations. This contributes to the building of capacities, it brings last mile connectivity and sustainability. Pro poor tourism provides among others economic gains and social benefits said Mr. Richard Leete, Resident Representative for Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei Darussalam, UNDP. He went on by saying that the sector is relatively labour intensive, tourists often visit destinations where the poor may be, poor countries may have few other export products, it uses assets that poor may have access to and local products and services are used. Mr. Leete mentioned that ICTs supports sustainable tourism however the poor face barriers to ICT adoption, among which in areas of poor telecommunications infrastructure and lack of skills and knowledge. Destination Management Systems and partnershipsSetting up an adequate destination management system calls fro greater coordination and partnership between public and private sectors, said Dr. Supachai Panitchpakdi, UNCTAD Secretary General, it requires a well-conceived platform of financial, regulatory and administrative skills. Mr. Barry Ridgway, Government Industry Director of Microsoft Asia-Pacific, presented a list of development challenges for e-tourism among which long-term political commitment, lack of common standards, ability to scale best practice models, long term measurements and sustainable business models. Key initiatives he said his company identified and works on with UNWTO through a public-private partnership are tourism market communication and awareness, communication systems and standards, tourism disaster recovery, best practice and export competitiveness in emerging markets, knowledge management and distance learning, security collaboration and e-tourism for development networks. In order to tackle the problem of the diversity of tourism offices and management structures that led to a lack of common standards and less efficient tourism promotion, the Ministry of Tourism of Quebec in Canada set up a network of regional tourism offices based on selective criteria, said Prof. Dr. François Bédard, CIFORT Director at the University of Quebec in Montreal, Canada, whereby the Ministry would offer services to these regional tourism offices, including training and 7 day technical support. He said that the pilot projects started with 5 regional tourism offices in 2005 which has been increased to 43 in 2006 with the aim to further expand in 2007. Some of the actual results achieved from the cooperation in the project said Prof Dr Bédard, are that reservations have been increased by 192% between 2005 and 2006, client satisfaction was improved, the productivity of agents was increased as well as the updating of tourism offer in databases and the participation in the improvement of the interface design. There is a clear demand from small and medium-sized enterprises and from tourists for public-private sector cooperation within the tourism sector in Malaysia said Mr. Amran Hamzah, Head of Tourism Planning Research Group of the Faculty of Built Environment at the University of Technology of Malaysia. He said that major issues of concern are the lack of know-how on the challenges and opportunities of the Internet, an increased demand for in-depth, high quality content and an increased awareness of maintaining good relationship with customers through e-services. Mr. Niracharapa Tongdhamachart, Vice President of the Software Industry Promotion Agency in Thailand, said that among the key objectives of the Thai Tourism c-Commerce platform is to forge a public-private partnership in order to cut down costs in the productivity and distribution channels, to use pool resources and to bring more autonomy to tourism stakeholders in the country. The Ministry of Tourism of Quebec, Canada signed a partnership with the company Bell Canada in 1999 said Mr. Julien Cormier, Head of the e-Marketing Department of the Ministry, on the issue of the development of a Destination Management System for an amount of 20 million euros. Mr. Cormier mentioned that today the “Bonjour Québec” DMS has a transactional and informational website, a new call centre, a complete digital information database, electronic mailing solutions, booking facilities, an intranet system for hotel operators, a reservation interface for travel agents and 8’500 links to tourism suppliers. The use of ICTs in Malaysia and tourismThe Internet penetration grew from over 3.5 million subscribers in 2000 to 10 million by early 2005, said Mr. Ibrahim Shah Taarit Shah, Head e-Commerce, Application Service Hosting of Telekom Malaysia. During this same period, the Malaysian population grew 7% while the Internet penetration grew by 171%. Most of these users surf the Internet daily with an average of 10 hours per week, mainly for e-mailing activities, education research and information research. He said that in 2005, 45% of online purchases were related to travel related items. Datuk Dr. Victor Wee, Secretary General of the Ministry of Tourism Malaysia, said that Tourism Malaysia website attracts millions of visitors on a monthly basis. “It is not enough to set up a website as a one-time exercise” he said. “We need to continuously update the site with up-to-date information for visitors to return”. E-tourism is of high importance to Sabah whereby ICTs is one of the most effective ways to reach out to the rest of the world said Y.B. Tan Sri Datuk Chong Kah Kiat, Deputy Chief Minister and Minister of Tourism, Culture and Environment of the State of Sabah, Malaysia. Mr. Amran Hamzah, Head of Tourism Planning Research Group of the Faculty of Built Environment at the University of Technology of Malaysia, said that there is a great potential for ICTs implementation for tourism SMEs in remote areas. He said that there are 76 villages and 1089 registered providers that offer home stay tourism in 2006. Among the benefits the use of ICTs would offer are the empowerment of the youths in these communities and a reduction of exploitation and economic leakages, he said. A second area Mr. Hamzah said where ICTs could have a positive impact is the Perhentian Islands where resorts only accept “walk in”. Mr. Hamzah said that new plans are currently put into implementation to among others empower local youths, bypass conventional means in favour of an IT based system and to encourage the adoption of a booking system for mini resorts- medium enterprises already launched such a system. Furthermore, he said, Internet could be used to disseminate awareness and codes of conduct on sustainability practices on small islands. New models on marketing in tourism through ICTsBranding is particularly important in an online environment said Dr. Jamie Murphy of the University of Western Australia Business School. Domain names and e-mail addresses should be used as a brand. They should be matched, short, memorable and easy to type and be supported by proactive strategies. Dr Murphy said that e-mailing is the most popular Internet application and the first step in e-Marketing. It is effective, efficient, inexpensive, simple and potentially dangerous. Important issues to be taken into account are e-mail branding, an e-mail customer service and e-mail permission marketing said Dr. Murphy. Mr. Julien Cormier, Head of the e-Marketing Department of the Ministry for Tourism of Quebec in Canada, said that the Ministry shifted towards e-marketing in 2001 and distributes 10% of the marketing budget to the Web. Mr. Cormier said that 80% of Internet users plan their holidays online whereby 30 to 50% order tourist services online. The C to C phenomenon exists, 75% of users report being influenced by user-generated content when making an online purchase. The Ministry uses an e-Marketing mix for the promotion of its 21 tourist regions and 5’500 lodging units, said Mr. Cormier. It consists of the promotion to and attraction of the tourist, information and assistance in research and planning, selling, service and support in travel and retaining the tourist through post-trip services. The benefits of online marketing are good reach (24x7 availability) precise targeting, quick to set up and publish, immediate result, budget control, cheap, measurable and many channels are available said Mr. Ibrahim Shah Taarit Shah, Head e-Commerce, Application Service Hosting of Telekom Malaysia. He further on said that current common online marketing is search engine, e-mail advertising, banner advertising, blog marketing, social network marketing, articles and press releases and affiliate marketing. Incredible India as a model on tourism promotionIndia is among the 5 favourite tourism destinations worldwide. Its “Incredible India” campaign was launched to capture the country’s essence in A brand new avatar – “Kitsch look” said Mr. Sanjay Kothari, Additional Director General of the Ministry of Tourism and Culture of India. It consists of printed media, collaterals, electronic media, Internet campaign and outdoor. Mr. Kothari said that its impact is that the number of pages viewed multiplied by 5 between August and December 2006 and a growth of traffic was measured of 85,79% between 2003 and 2006. The total marketing budget for the period 2006-2007 is 35 million USD of which 13 million USD is used for electronic tools. E-Marketing is carried out through an interactive online campaign on major sites, global online contests, development of thematic microsites, an e-commerce platform (through partnership), hyperlinks to stakeholders for online booking, e-mail tracking, e-newsletters and availability of the website in different languages said Mr. Kothari. e-Tourism and the Millennium Development Goals“Tourism is now one of the largest and fastest growing industries in the world and has an impact far beyond its economic and business aspects” said Dr. Kim Hak-Su, Executive Secretary of UNESCAP. It can be in the frontline of the fight against poverty. Dr. Kim Hak-Su said that “the tourism industry is creating development synergies to help overcome poverty through job creation, including in remote rural areas where the great majority of people in extreme poverty live”. These include the provision of infrastructure facilities and services for tourists to be shared and benefit local communities, gender equality, empowerment of women and environmental sustainability. “However, many of the interventions are localized and small scale. Another concern is that where linkages between tourism and supporting sectors are weak, a considerable amount of tourism revenues “leak-out” of host economies” said Dr. Kim Hak-Su. UNCTAD is one of the first organizations that has recognized and assessed ICT’s potential as a tool for development said Mr. Peter Froehler, Focal point WSIS at UNCTAD. It has become one of the tools for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. Mr. Froehler said that the e-Tourism Initiative of UNCTAD supports this trend and aims to an e-inclusive sustainable tourism sector. UNWTO and Microsoft joined forces in 2006 by supporting the UN focus on digital inclusion and establishment of open participatory knowledge societies said Mr. Xu Jing, Regional Representative for Asia and the Pacific at UNWTO and Mr. Barry Ridgway, Government Industry Director of Microsoft Asia-Pacific. A secured environment is required for e-PaymentsY.B. Tan Sri Datuk Chong Kah Kiat, Deputy Chief Minister and Minister of Tourism, Culture and Environment of the State of Sabah, Malaysia said that a crucial element of e-tourism is the capacity to be able to undertake e-payments and within this context, focus should be put on the security issues related to e-payments. There are significant opportunities with e-commerce payments, and needs to both match industry needs with those of consumers through the right products and services and to play “our” role in addressing and enhancing the full potential of the Internet said Mr. Hugo Bottelier, Regional Head of New Channels Visa International Asia Pacific who sees Visa’s role as to drive tourism, support tourism authorities with data collection and analysis and the identification of high-value spending patterns. More consumers should be enabled with Internet and payment means, said Mr. Bottelier, as well as the development and deployment of products and the ability to pay online for those consumers that have access to the Internet but not to e-payments and increase internet access to potential consumers. Mr. Ibrahim Shah Taarit Shah, Head e-Commerce, Application Service Hosting of Telekom Malaysia, said that monetary regulations and international payment are problematic issues in the current e-commerce and e-marketing that require to be addressed. For instance, online banking in Malaysia is 12% of all Internet usage in Malaysia and online purchases 2% said Mr. Ibrahim Shah Taarit Shah. He continued by stating that when considering the growth of e-commerce in the country, the number of unique buyers- Internet users who are actually purchasing goods and services on the Internet – is a better reflection of the growing acceptance of e-commerce in the country. Web 2.0 as the future generation of web applications in tourismMr. Julien Cormier, Head of the e-Marketing Department of the Ministry for Tourism of Quebec in Canada, said that the Ministry is moving into Web 2.0 in relation to its e-marketing strategy and is introducing blogs, user-defined tags to organize information, shared travel tips, travel reviews, podcasts and videocasts and Wikis. The promotion of ecotourism through ICTMinimal impact, support of local economies and respect of local cultures are the core values of responsible tourism said Mr. Reza Azmi, Director of Wild Asia. Verifications based on standard criteria are undertaken and annual awards are handed out to create awareness and promote responsible tourism. Mr. Azmi also said that wide media coverage campaigns are set up and that practitioners can learn from experiences. Issues of relevance are how tourism is sold, the protection of the brand and the demands of customers Mr. Azmi said. Mr. Albert Teo, Managing Director of Borneo Eco Tours in Malaysia said that the key components of ecotourism are that it is nature and culture based, ecologically sustainable, there is education and interpretation and the community benefits. ICTs contribute to sustainable tourism as they are knowledge based and information intensive, provide more information on niche markets, special interests and facilitate marketing the competitive advantage, visual impact, environmental and community projects, tourism awards and levelling the playing field as well as providing direct access and immediate payment, Mr. Teo said. Pro poor tourism provides protection to the natural environment said Mr. Richard Leete, Resident Representative for Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei Darussalam, UNDP. Good management of natural, historical and cultural resources are key in sustainable tourism and capacity building activities are undertaken that support the strengthening of local communities.
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