Travel Blog #7: eTourism
Guess what you and I are doing? We are sharing a multimedia exchange of tourism information. This is one element of what is being referred to as “eTourism”. The University of Surrey is hosting the 5th eTourism Futures Conference in March 2006 (http://www.som.surrey.ac.uk/research/conferences/eTourism06.asp) while the Queen Margeret University College in Edinburgh will be offering the worlds first MBA in eTourism starting in September 2006 (contact this email for more info: afrw@qmuc.ac.uk). It appears that eTourism is a happening thing.
I think that one of the promising elements of eTourism is the potential for it to increase the amount of revenue that stays within small economies (reducing economic leakages) by decreasing the role of intermediaries such as international wholesalers, and increasing the autonomy of local operators, especially in less developed countries. Work on this is being done by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (http://www.unctadxi.org/templates/Startpage____1195.aspx).
I have always thought that many small island states and dependancies, often with scarce resources to attract foreign cash, may have unrealised resources. The resource I am referring to are uncrowded (or perhaps zero-crowded), perfectly barrelling sets coming in like corduroy in the form of beautiful glassy waves. There are many cash rich/time poor western surfers seeking these types of waves. If local island communites had the ability to set up and maintain web cams that showed real time images of these waves, then this would make up one important step towards sustanable destination development. Expect to hear more about surf-tourism on this site in the future.
How many companies are interested in having an online presence and being in the eTourism game? Well, .travel gives an indication. This is the “new official global name space exclusive to the travel and tourism industries that is designed to provide consumers with added confidence when dealing with travel-related services on the web” (http://www.melbourneit.com.au/cc/dottravel/) by creating a global directory of travel companies on the internet. According to the Malaysian National News Agency, “more than 16,000 domains have been registered in .travel within a period of 16 weeks” (http://www.bernama.com.my/bernama/v3/news_business.php?id=178507). That’s a lot of presence in my book.
Doc Martin.