Imperatives

IMPROVE THE WEB PRESENCE OF SMEs
The tourism market is highly fragmented, consisting mostly of SMEs and micro-companies with a heavy reliance on intermediaries (tour operators) to market their products and services — with concomitant subordination of their profitability as they fulfil the conditions set by other organisations. This situation is unsustainable in an increasingly globalised world where intense competition makes price a decisive factor in success. Therefore any measures that will enhance web presence of tourism SMEs would enable improved customer attraction, the ability to expand into demanding markets, reduced dependence on external agents (and thus lower costs), a clearer view of advance demand, accelerated business processes, and easier geographic expansion. For larger players improved web presence will improve their competitive position. For all, it will add to their service performance and the image of their companies.

SEASONALITY OF DEMAND
Recent years have seen global changes in consumer behaviour, which have contributed to seasonally adjusted demand. There are, however, still strong concentrations of demand in holiday periods. This creates unstable labour markets in high-demand nations. Promoting a wide variety of tourism – including events, health, incentive, cultural, sports – could help to spread the load and create wider demand. The onus is partly
on destinations to implement infrastructure, services, and technologies, catering to various forms of tourism.

QUALITY AND SUSTAINABILITY OF THE DESTINATION
The tourism industry is competitive and price-sensitive. Mature destinations are in constant competition with emerging destinations offering cheaper services (driven by lower labour costs, flexible monetary policies, etc.). To ensure a targeted, competitive, and sustainable tourism model, operators and destinations must ensure their specialised areas are well differentiated, while other areas are developed, and overall quality sustained. It is therefore necessary to develop design and customer service in order to adapt to the needs of increasingly demanding customers. Emerging IT (Web 3.0, Service Composition, Digital Context, etc.), must be developed along with new ways of using mobile technologies, and more affordable broadband.

COST REDUCTION
Between 5 and 10% of a typical hotel’s costs is due to energy consumption. Investment in energy studies as well as in new technologies such as activity sensors and other solutions aimed at optimising consumption will help the hotel industry to cut costs.

B2B and B2C solutions providers are hit by high costs in terms of maintaining their data processing centres, particularly SMEs (prevalent in the sector) who cannot leverage economies of scale. A potential here is to move data processing to the cloud to mitigate high costs and administration.

Business trends

Various environmental factors affect demand trends in the sector, broadly grouped thus:

Demographic and socio-cultural trends. Social changes can affect the tourism sector to a great degree. Changes in population pyramids, family structures, socio-cultural values, and new lifestyles can change the numbers and nature of tourist groups and their travel patterns:

• The ageing population and delayed retirement age
• New family structures
• Immigrant groups within the consumer markets
• Wider range of areas to visit and greater opportunities to visit developing countries
• Increased environmental awareness
• More sophisticated consumers
• New working patterns, new social patterns, ability.

Economic trends. Globalisation and the restructuring of the global economy (including new business models and digital economic exploitation) all affect consumption and travel patterns:

• The growth of the euro as a global currency
• Greater demand for tourism from Asia and new markets in Eastern Europe
• Deregulation of transportation and the rise of low-cost airlines
• Rising oil prices
• Alternative energies
  
• Tourism sector becoming fused with leisure and commerce.

Technology Trends. Wider technology shifts are affecting tourism as they affect the entire economy (IT, communications). However, some technology changes impact the tourism sector more than others (innovations in transport, energy, food, health and hygiene):

• Consolidation of the Internet as an information and marketing channel
• Introduction of technological innovations in the processes of intermediation
• Consolidation of ICT in business operations processes
• Proliferation of digital media
• Deepening and development of multimedia
• More robust transport security processes and technologies
• Greater investment in security, health and hygiene in destinations
• Sustainable water and energy resources in destinations.

The near future will see several trends emerging as the key factors:

• Increasing and diversifying supply of tourism services and goods
• Profound changes in the value chain of the tourism industry integration movements (vertical and horizontal) and new collaboration scenarios (networks of vertical and horizontal alliances that change the value chain)
• The consolidation of the Internet as a comprehensive tool for management of goods and services
• Environmental awareness
• The change in the habits and behaviour patterns of tourists
• Increasingly demanding and sophisticated tourists.

The survival and success of many businesses will depend on adapting to, or anticipating, change. key technologies and management areas to focus on will be:

• Energy saving systems / sustainable buildings
• Home automation industrial (domotics)
• Sustainable management of tourism resources
• Accessibility
• Support and multimedia channels
• Interconnection and aggregation of services
• Services through mobile telephony, geo-location content and services
• Customising the information and conten
• Care and high availability services
  
• Virtual Reality in tourism promotion.

Impact technologies

GEOLOCALISATION SYSTEMS
Geolocalisation Systems and navigation systems are widely used today in different markets (logistics, tourism, infrastructure management, emergency resources management). They will continue being a cornerstone for tourism, for instance through enabling public transport systems to inform tourists about different transportation means, optimal routes, position of vehicles, etc. Current trends drive these systems towards Web 2.0 and Context-aware Applications.

BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
Decision Support Systems (DSS) are computer-based information systems that support decision makers. Business Intelligence (BI) describes a set of concepts and methods to improve business decision making by using fact-based support systems. BI is sometimes used interchangeably with briefing books, report and query tools, and executive information systems. BI can be extensively used for tourism, provided appropriate data is gathered and stored. It is useful for campaign optimisation, market segmentation, demand forecasting, detection of transport delay or detection, and elimination of revenue losses among others. The main trends are towards geo-based BI and on-demand BI (based on Cloud Computing and SaaS).

CONTEXT-AWARE APPLICATIONS
Context-aware Applications are in their infancy today, but promise a revolution in the next years due to the increasing level of connectedness of people and the dramatic increase of sensor deployment.

These applications exploit knowledge about the user (location, identity, activity, etc.) in order to provide (reactively or proactively) useful information when and where it is needed.

Possible exploitations include the suggestion tourism routes according to personal preferences, helping tourists find places or persons, automatic translation of relevant information, real-time transport information, whether it is advised to visit a place due to weather or health conditions (personalised for the user), etc.

GEO-BASED SYSTEMS
Geo-based Systems have begun to be features of location and navigation systems, but their pervasiveness in other types of services is set to increase.

Geo-information is the fundamental enabler for Geo-based Systems such as integral transport systems and geo-marketing systems. They enable tourism providers to answer key questions such as where their customers and potential customers are, and which routes are under- utilised. Personalised tourism systems (which enable the design of personal experiences according to customer preferences and needs) is set to become more important in the next few years. Other Web 2.0-enabled platforms will allow tourism players to access places and tours that
tourists recommend, leverage geo-referenced feedback from tourists, and use geo-referenced event management tools, will also become more widespread, as they are a natural transition from localisation or navigation systems and Context-aware Applications.

ACCESSIBILITY
Accessibility means enabling people with disabilities and elderly people to use ICT on an equal basis with other people.

At present, the most successful field for accessibility is the Internet, where a lot of effort is being applied, through measures such as W3C-WAI (Web Accessibility Initiative) as well as European and national Accessibility Acts. This is being combined with assistive devices and applications (screen magnification, text reading, voice recognition, Braille conversion, etc.).

However, business stakeholders are still reluctant to use the principles of the Universal Design in such potential scenarios as iTV, mobile products and services, and even web applications and services.

Accessibility will continue to gain importance as public awareness of accessibility issues increases and Europe’s population ages.

INNOVATION MANAGEMENT
The continuous and systematic management of creativity and innovation in the sector, including the complete value chain, will impact the competitiveness and market presence of many tourist companies. However, a transformational change is required for incorporating Innovation Management in the daily life of an organisation.

Some tools are available for helping in the adoption of these practices: analysis of market trends, creativity workshops, ideas management platforms, training of key people at the companies, etc.

DIGITAL CONTENT MANAGEMENT
The Internet is becoming an essential channel and tool for making reservations, getting information about destinations, sharing opinions from other users, and so on.

As the content and tools available to operators and consumers over the Internet increases and becomes more heterogeneous and dispersed, proper management of both will be increasingly essential. Technologies are emerging (CMS, streaming, searchers, statistics tools) to help with functions such as website administration, information publishing, media publication (images, videos), positioning, ranking, and comment (through blogs, etc.).

ONLINE REPUTATION MANAGEMENT
The openness of Internet sites to the public and the possibility of users’ participation in the tourist websites is driving huge changes in the tourism business model.

Comments can now be posted by users on all aspects of tours, from hotels, destinations, and air companies to tourist services themselves. The existence of these comment channels through blogs or websites creates new standards, through the need to evaluate comments and interaction from users, and specific processes must be put in place to handle this indirect, multi-linear feedback, evaluate its importance, and engage with customers through these channels.

IVAs
Current Interactive Virtual Assistants (IVAs) applications in the tourism sector are focused mainly on the web, where they provide help services regarding information location, for example of hotels, restaurants, places of interest, etc., as well as helping to improve the accessibility and usability of the portals where they are implanted. During the next years, the IVA will be able to help on booking and lodging, allowing a cost reduction in the customer service process, diverting phone calls from the customers to the website. In a couple of years the IVA will be implanted in other channels as self-service stands and information panels in airports and hotels. Mobile phones will also be a target for this technology. Because of the ample diffusion of the IVA in all of these electronic channels, the image of the virtual assistant will become the corporative image of the company that implants them.

AUGMENTED REALITY
Augmented Reality projects are starting to appear in the market, mainly associated with mobile technology. Looking at a monument or a geographical landmark through the lens of your smart phone, you can add layers of digital information to at the object or place you are viewing. Applications already exist for iPhones or Android phones which aim to help tourists around major cities or public transportation networks. As the penetration rate of smart phone increases, and unlimited data plans become mainstream, a large portion of the people visiting places will be able to instantaneously access relevant information about the place they are visiting: restaurants near a monument (including menus and ability to book a table), historical information (including links to download eBooks about the place), etc. The business model will evolve mainly around add- supported applications, plus a few fee-based applications.