E-Tourism in Sri Lanaka

E-Tourism In Sri Lanka E-Commerce stand University Collage Dublin Student hold Madushanka W. H. M Student Number 11294574 E-mail madawa. emailprotected com About Sri Lanka Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka commonly known as the pearl of the Indian Ocean or as Ceylon is one of the exquisite Island in the world Sri Lanka set in the Indian Ocean in south Asia near to the equator which is a great cornerstone to 8 UNESCO world heritage sites.Not only that this great Island has unspoiled beaches, water supplyfalls, pure rivers, 15 national wildlife parks, lagoons with indigenous aquatic birds, 250 acres of botanical gardens, hot water wells and so many unique things. Because Sri Lanka is a multinational rural area Sinhalese, Sri Lankan Moors, Indian Tamil, Sri Lankan Tamil, all these ethical groups lives in this small Island. Sri Lanka is a place where the fender soul of Buddhism still flourishes (Buddhist 69. %) entirely it is not a problem to friendly people in this count ry because there are Muslims (7. 6%), Hindu (7. 1%), Christian (6. 2%) & some other religions people living happily within area of 65,610Km. Country has three main geological divisions. In the lowlands, up to an altitude of 100m to 150m, the mean annual temperature various amongst 26. 5 0C to 28. 5 0C. In the highlands, the temperature falls quickly as the altitude increases. The mean annual temperature of Nuwara Eliya, at 1800 m sea level, is 15. 9 0C.The coldest month of the country is January, and the warmest months are April and August. Agriculture plays an important role in Sri Lankan economy. Main agricultural product is rice but Tea, Rubber & coconut brings more foreign currency to the Island not only that but also Spices export brings foreign money as well. Sri Lankas economy like a shot is mainly ground on the service and industrial sector. However Tourism and the related services industries are also growing in Sri Lanka. Madushanka W. H. M 11294574 madawa. emailprotecte d com What is E-TourismWhen we sell about manual processes regarding hitchism, there are so many things including air ticket or Cruise ticket reservation, hotel reservation not only that every person must need to obtain a permission before entering to a country (Visa). Just think if a tourist or travel agency had to do all those things manually definitely it ordain take nearly one month or more. So E-tourism is the best plectrum for all those season taken processes. Its a combination of e-commerce and tourism & it helps to maximizing the efficiency of tourism sector.Tourism has closely been connected to progress of ICTs for over 30 years. The establishments of the Computer Reservation Systems (CRSs) in the 1970s, Global Distribution Systems (GDSs) in the late 1980s and the Internet in the late 1990s have transformed functional and strategic practices dramatically in tourism (Buhalis, 2003 Buhalis & Law, 2008). The tourism industry at first focused on utilizing computerized sy stems (e. g. , CRS, GDS) to increase efficiency in processing of innate information and managing distribution.Nowadays, the Internet and ICTs are relevant on all operative, structural, strategic and marketing levels to facilitate orbiculate interaction among suppliers, intermediaries and consumers around the world (Buhalis & Law, 2008 Egger & Buhalis, 2008). E-tourism is a really great concept because it includes handicraft management, information systems & management and the tourism. As an example it has main electronic business functions such as e-commerce, e-marketing, e-accounting etc http//www. srilankan. aero/welcome. html? local anesthetic e=en_us. ttp//www. srilankan. aero/welcome. html? local e=en_ushttp//www. srilankan. aero/welcome. ht ml? locale=en_ushttp//www. srilankan. aero/wel come. html? locale=en_us. srilankan. aero/welco me. html? locale=en_us http//www. starcruises. com/freshweb/home knave. aspx Madushanka W. H. M 11294574 madawa. emailprotected com Key Player s In E-tourism E-tourism provides great opportunities for many get a line players in tourism industry to expand their businesses. Also because of the E-tourism numbers of new players have come into the tourism industry.Mainly there are several key players 1. 2. 3. 4. Airlines Hotels Tour floozys 7 Travel Agencies Particular country(In here Sri Lanka) 1. Airlines When we considering about the airlines long time ago reservations were made by using a manual process. Its a really time consuming work because reservations were made on manual display boards, where passengers were listed. Travel agencies had to locate the best routes and fares in manuals and then wear availability and make reservation by phone, before issuing a ticket manually.Worlds first automated reservation system called SABRE (Semi-Automatic short letter Research Environment) was introduced by American Airlines and IBM jointly during 1962. It enabled American Airlines to replace the handwritten passenger reservati ons system of the 1950s with the automated reservations system for the future. Currently SABRE global distribution system is used by more than 400 airlines, 55,000 travel agencies, 88,000 hotels, 13 cruise lines & etc.In Sri Lanka currently Sri Lankan airlines has earned great revenue and won serial publication of international and national awards in fields ranging from passenger transport to marketing and internet technology including Platinum Award from the International Air Transport necktie as one of the first airlines in the world to introduce a major innovation to tickets. Madushanka W. H. M 11294574 madawa. emailprotected com SriLankan Airlines made significant investments in technology during rifle year, the carrier contracted with Calidris(since acquired by Sabre Airline Solutions) to help ensure seats are not occupied by false or specious bookings .The solution looks at business problems including Ticket time limits, Fake names, Duplicate bookings and duplicate segments within a booking, Fake or duplicate ticket numbers. 2. Hotels peerless of the most important player in travel & tourism sector which has a long history, nearly 1300 years. Worlds oldest hotel is Hoshi Ryokan which is founded in 717. Sri Lankas oldest hotel is Galle display case Hotel which was founded in 1864 by four British entrepreneurs. Now a day hotels in other words E-Hospitality plays major role in E-Tourism.During 1970s ascribable to the airlines Computer Reservation Systems (CRSs) and ICT developments forced hotel industry to develop hotel CRSs in order to maintain life-threatening customer friendly environment with rapid response time to customer. By using CRSs in hotel sector, its enable travel & tourism trade to access accurate information on availability and to provide easy, inexpensive, economic and reliable way of making and confirming reservations. Switch companies such as THISCO and WIZCOM emerged also to facilitate interconnectivity between dedicated or intern al hotel system and GDSs (Emmer etal. 1993 OConnor, 1995, 1999) The development of switch companies Switch Companies CRSs/GDSs Madushanka W. H. M 11294574 madawa. emailprotected com Galileo is one of the well-known CRS in the world which provide Hotel room reservations, Airline bookings etc. Galileo RoomMaster is supper solution by Travelport accompany which provides hotel shopping and booking solution. By purchasing Galileo RoomMaster it provides Galileo-connected subscribers with direct, real-time access to relevant hotel system for shopping and bookings of hotels properties.Also it enables to connect with more than 190,000 travel agency workstations, as well as corporate and consumer/ecommerce users throughout the world. Most of the Sri Lankan hotels also are now available for online reservations by using those systems & some of them are inbuilt solutions by the hotels. 3. Tour operators & Travel Agencies Tour operators organizes, arranges leisure packages including flights & ac commodation. They pre-book tourism products and distribute them through advertising in travel agencies.Major tour operators use internet based talk system in order to reduce information handling costs and to increase the speed of information transfer with agencies and the customers. Currently some of the established tour operators business are made, in other words packages are booked through online. Thomson Holidays is one of the world famous tour operator company which only accept reservation made through Thomsons open-line Program (TOP). In Sri Lanka huge number of tour operators like JF tours, Miracle Sri Lanka, Nalro tours use Ecommerce based techniques to attract travelers & advertise about their packages. Madushanka W.H. M 11294574 madawa. emailprotected com 4. Sri Lankan Government After 30 years of the civil war, tourism is one of the main considering areas of the Sri Lankan government. As mentioned in previously, county has fortune of tourist attractions. So currently gov ernment has invested in several areas to develop travel & tourism industry. Sri Lanka Tourism Board (SLTB) former Ceylon Tourist Board which is on a lower floor the Ministry of Economic Development has the main responsibilities to develop countrys travel & tourism. As a country still Sri Lanka couldnt reach up to good place in E-Tourism. but SLTB doing its best to improve E-tourism.They have an alliance with ICTA (Information and Communication Technology Association of Sri Lanka) to develop E-Tourism. Also SLTB re- launched their web site (http//www. srilankatourism. org/) with new look & currently Sri Lanka Tourism Promotion Bureau which is under SLTB trying to use the best technologies to promote about the Sri Lanka (http//www. srilanka. travel/). Social networking (Facebook icon) on the page Ministry of Economic development has long time tourism development strategy (20112016). They have mentioned use of the internet & E-commerce are key objectives to be achieved through the 5 y ear strategy.Madushanka W. H. M 11294574 madawa. emailprotected com E-Tourism Benefits to Key Players 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Help to understand about the customers & help to build a good customer relationship. Make direct communication between customers. Ability to respond in quick and efficient way to customer. Reduces communication, advertising cost due to eMarketing. Help to increase interconnectivity among the key players. 24/7 of the business time Less of labors. E-Tourism Benefits to Customers 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Can do the business directly without interpreters. Reduces time Accessible at any time Due to competition can obtain good ervice or great product at low price. Can know Up to date information. Wide range of selections. Ability to customize products or services. Online auctions. Future developments in E-Tourism E-tourism has reach to great place in the world but when considering with E-commerce there are so many ways which can develop. ? ? ? E-tourism in world or Sri Lanka, still havent any major developments in field of mobile, mobile advertising. So developing that kind of product will help to earn more revenue than now. When considering other online products travel & tourism sector need to more think about social networking.As a country Sri Lanka should need to develop several telecommunication technologies such as speed of the internet, wireless internet access etc. Madushanka W. H. M 11294574 madawa. emailprotected com Bibliography 1. Department of Meteorology Sri Lanka (2012) mode in Sri Lanka online, available http//www. meteo. gov. lk/index. php? option=com_content=article=106 d=81=en 07 Feb 2012. 2. Dodson, B (2011) PEACOCK PROUD, ascend, available http//www. google. lk/url? sa=t=j= saber%20in%20srilankan%20airlines= web=1=2=0CCgQFjAA=http%3A%2F%2Fwww. abreairlinesolutions. co m%2Fimages%2Fuploads%2FPeacockProud_APR_2011. pdf=6Lk0T87BIYnPrQe13rC6 Dw=AFQjCNGqQUEN5z3krOlHuO4v41AcGRi3wA=rja 06 Feb 2012. 3. Gartner, W. C, Lime, D. W. (2 000) Trends in outdoor recreation, leisure, and tourism New wave of technological evolution, London CABI publishing. 4. Glowatz, M (2011) Emerging Infrastructure Trends , E Commerce Infrastructure (SL), 9 Feb 2012, University Collage Dublin, Unpublished. 5. Hotelmule(2008)The development of switch companiesImage online, available http//hotelmule. com/management/html/83/n-2183-9. html06 Feb 2012. 6. IBM