BTT40223 E-TOURISM

CHAPTER 1 :
INFORMATION AND
COMMUNICATION
TECHNOLOGIES IN
TOURISM
 1.1 INTRODUCTIONS TO ICT’S
INFORMATION SYSTEM,
INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP
 Information and communication technologies (ICTs) enhance the ability of organizations to
manage their resources, increase their productivity, communicate their policies and market
their offerings, and develop partnerships with all the stakeholders (consumers, suppliers,
public sectors organizations, interest groups, etc)

 ICTs also enable organizations to expand geographically and coordinate their activities
regionally, nationally, and globally. Technological tools offer unprecedented tools for
managerial control and coordination. As a result, they not only facilitate expansion, they
often investigate it. Example: Hotel chains, can expand because of their ability to control and
coordinate their functions at remote locations and in larger properties.

 More importantly, ICTs support the development and maintenance of organizational

competitiveness and competitive advantage. Constant innovation in applications of hardware,
software and network computing means that only dynamic organizations that can assess the
requirements of their stakeholders and respond efficiently and effectively will be able to out
perform their competition and maintain their long-term prosperity.

3
Defining ICTs and Information Systems
ICTs include not only the hardware and software required but also
the groupware and NetWare as well as the intellectual capacity
(humanware) to develop, program and maintain the equipment.
Several authors have to attempted to define ICTs :
 Thomas (1988) philosophically suggest that technology consist of
society’s poll of knowledge concerning the industrial, mechanical
and practical areas’.

 Peppard (1993) defines information technology (IT) as the

enabling mechanism that facilitates the processing and flow of
information in an organization and between organizations,
encompassing the information the business creates, uses and
stores, as well as the technologies used in physical processing to
produce a product or provide a service.

4
Table 1.1 Information and communication technologies

9
 Information Systems (IS)
Are defined as the ‘interrelated components working
together to collect, process, store and disseminate
information to support decision making, coordination,
control, analysis and visualization in an organization’.

IS’s represent the collection of computer hardware and

software, as well as procedures, documents, forms and
people responsible for the capture, movement,
management and distribution of data and information.

6
1.2 THE STAGES OF ICT
EVOLUTION
ICTs have contributed in different ways to organizations
and have required variable resources and commitment.
More importantly they have concentrated on different
functions, and as a consequence, have had a dissimilar
importance for the strategy and operations of
organizations.
The stages of ICT revolution be divided to the FOUR (4)
main eras of technological evolution.
 1st Era – Data Processing
 2nd Era – Management Information System (MIS)
 3rd Era – Strategic Information System (SIS)
 4th Era – The Network Era

7
1ST ERA-DATA PROCESSING 2nd ERA – MANAGEMENT 3RD ERA – STRATEGIC 4TH ERA – THE NETWORK ERA
• The main objective was to improve INFORMATION SYSTEMS (MIS) INFORMATION SYSTEMS (SIS) • Intra- and inter-organizational
operational efficiency by • The principle aim of this era was to • Aimed at improving competitiveness networking has proliferated.
automating information-based increase management effectiveness by changing the nature or conduct • Local area networks and wide area
processes. and efficiency by satisfying of business. networks as well as the Internet,
• This era took place from the 1960s organizational information • integrated ICT networks were used intranets and extranets have
onwards and mainly used requirements. to achieve organizational strategic revolutionized communication and
mainframe computers and mini • Information systems were used objectives, to enhance enabled multilevel integration and
computers. primarily to address the needs of performance, and to coordinate efficient collaboration.
• Computers were only used by major internal management and activities across functional and • It also supported both centralized
corporations such as airlines. coordination. business unit lines as well as to and distributed computing to
• Hardware and programming were support interaction with external maximize the performance of the
very expensive and could only be entities, in pursuit of competitive available resources.
justified for organizations that had a advantage.
significant amount of transactions
daily.

8
 1.3 NETWORKING AND THE INFORMATION
SUPERHIGHWAY: THE INTERNET, INTRANET AND
EXTRANETS
The Internet as an idea emerged in the 1960s as The system was known as ARPANET and used
1994 – Tim Berners-Lee at CERN developed a
a military tool by the US army (Defense a Transmission Control Protocol (TCP/IP) for
user-friendly graphical interface supported by
Advanced Research Projects Agency). The aim linking all computers together. Its use spread
the HyperText Mark-up Language (HTML),
was to link together mainframes and enable from the military to other government
which provided the opportunity for the
them to communicate with each other and share departments to non-government organizations
convergence of information processing ,
data through a flexible system that could such as universities and research laboratories,
multimedia and communications through the
remain operational if a few systems were and ultimately to the business community and
World Wide Web (WWW)
destroyed or out of ordered. the general public.

User navigate through a plethora of

networked multimedia web pages by
The WWW is effectively a global protocol of using web browsers to access Uniform
communication, which uses web pages that Resource Locators (URLs) and retrieve
contain text, graphs, animations, sounds and HTML documents. Browsers, such as
videos for storing, retrieving, formatting and Netscape Navigator and the Microsoft’s
displaying multimedia information in a Internet Explorer, use hypertext’s point –
networked environment. and-click ability to enable users to
navigate or surf from one site to another
line.

9
 1.3 NETWORKING AND THE INFORMATION
SUPERHIGHWAY: THE INTERNET, INTRANET AND
EXTRANETS
Using Internet standard protocols and thus
Internal systems or INTRANETS have offering user-friendly multimedia
interfaces, intranets allow authorized
also been developed as ‘closed’,
personnel to access information, knowledge
‘secured’, ‘controlled’ or ‘firewalled’
and mechanism across the enterprise in
networks within organizations or order to perform their tasks efficiently.
individual departments. Intranets use similar software and hardware
to the Internet.

However. They are protected from

Intranets enable organizations to improve
unauthorized users by firewalls, which
their internal management at all level by
use hardware and software to identify
sharing media-rich data and processes, using
users and prevent outsiders from Internet interfaces.
invading classified networks and data.

10
Figure 2.1 : Electronic networking for organizations

INTERNET
EXTRANET
Interacting with
Interoperability
all stakeholders
with authorized
and window to
partners only
the world

INTRANET
For internal
employees and Firewall
managers
11