Tourism information system from integration viewpoint : a constructive case study

Abstract

As the rapid economic development of tourism industry in recent years, and gradually increasing user needs to tourism products and services, a variety of Tourism Information Systems (TISs) have been available. However, less attention is focused on these TISs from integration viewpoint, since currently most TISs are independent or isolated from the user’s perspective, tourists have to enter separately into different TISs in order to make a complete travel plan and get related tourism services. Advanced, Smart Tourism Information Systems (STISs) provide all tourism-related products and services in the unified system environment.

This constructive case study proposes a framework for STIS including theoretical analyses of the core elements and components of the systems, and provides several potential development approaches to and recognized challenges as developing STISs. Interview-based scenarios with potential users are used to demonstrate the needs of independent travellers and in showing for which purposes the different systems should be integrated. The results show that the developed framework of STIS is promising and can be useful when integrating the systems as offering one-stop services for independent tourists. More research with a wider empirical sample is still required to generalize the results and test the framework in practice.