ICT IN TOURISM

Information Communication Technology in Tourism

Table of Contents

Introduction2

Literature Review3

Modern Day Tourism3

Information Communication Technology4

Concept of Being Home and Away6

The Case of Avendra7

Methodology8

Findings9

ICT a vital component in E-hospitality9

Negative Effects of Communication Technology Tourism10

Benefits of Communication Technology in Tourism12

Why Tourists Engage in Communication14

Results15

Recommendation and Conclusion17

References19

Appendix22

Case Study- Avendra: Kicking Back on Kickbacks22

The Connected Tourist debate24

Information Communication Technology in Tourism

Introduction

Western society is a culture on the move. From the earliest days of history, humankind has sought to venture out into previously unknown lands in order to expand personal opportunity and enhance knowledge. Initially, we traveled in order to find food sources, safe places to live, and other factors necessary for basic survival. Later, the most ambitious of our kind would head off into completely unknown areas with the aim of expanding our geographic knowledge. The resulting accounts of these trips would eventually lead for the desire for “secondary” explorers to want to see these places for themselves. These were, in effect, the first tourists. Concurrently, humans sought to find ways to transfer knowledge that did not require engaging in a face-to-face conversation and the memorizing and retelling of lengthy oral traditions. Writing, painting, music, and other forms of communication came about in order to preserve knowledge and culture so that it could be passed on to succeeding generations with minimal degradation over time. Still, these early forms of communication were bound by the limits of geography or physical space. If one wished to read a book, view a painting, or listen to an opera, that person needed to find a way to bring him or herself into physical proximity to that informational object. In other words, physical travel was a necessary part of communication. The two were effectively inseparable (Creswell, 2006).

The spread and distanciation of social networks is also increasingly leading to leisure travel becoming necessary social travel. As post-tourists find themselves spread away from “strong tie” contacts, there is the necessity to travel in order to keep the strength of those connections alive through VFR tourism. In many cases, post-tourists desire this form of travel. However, not all individuals have peaceful relationships with strong tie social network members, with these less-positive relationships most likely to be encountered in ties with family members. However since there are some family life events which require corporeal copresence, travel may occur in order to appease a few of the social network members, or to simply to allow post-tourists to manage perceptions of themselves directly. These are quite literally “guilt trips.” Still, VFR tourism has benefits for post-tourists in that if friends and relatives are located in desired touristic destinations, there is often the lure of free accommodation to accompany the benefit of maintaining social ties. In addition, some post-tourists may desire the perceived enhancement of authenticity to their travel, as they can experience the host culture directly through the eyes of people to which they are emotionally close, and can provide a trusted, “insider's” approach to the destination (Csikszentmihalyi, ...