Information and Communication Technologies in Support of the Tourism Industry

Pease, Wayne · Rowe, Michelle · Cooper, Malcolm

Feb 2007 · IGI Global

About this eBook

Tourism is one of the leading industries worldwide. The magnitude of growth in tourism will bring both opportunities and problems to source and destination markets in years to come, especially in the internal and external exchange of information in the industry. Information and Communication Technologies in Support of the Tourism Industry examines the process of transformation as it relates to the tourism industry, and the changes to that industry from modern electronic communications.

Information and Communication Technologies in Support of the Tourism Industry covers not only geographically supportive technologies in communication, but also in terms of culture, economics, marketing, social, and regional issues. In-depth analyses range from the use of the Internet to supply information to the emerging patterns of tourist decision making and investments.

About the author

Wayne Pease is the Associate Dean (Wide Bay) for the Faculty of Business, University of Southern Queensland and lectures in Information Systems, at the Wide Bay Campus of the University of Southern Queensland and has published and has published over 30 books, refereed articles and book chapters. His employment background is in senior management with Queensland Health and has worked in higher education since 1998 when he accepted a lecturing position in information systems at the then new USQ Wide Bay Campus. His research interests include electronic commerce and its impact on rural and regional communities; payment and security systems in electronic commerce; collaborative commerce; web design and web data delivery systems including DBMS integration and query optimisation; and windows application development.

Michelle Rowe has vast experience working in management and marketing roles in service organisations and as a Lecturer in Management and Marketing since 1990. Currently Michelle is undertaking PhD studies looking at collaborative commerce adoption by SMEs. Michelle is interested in the ways SMEs perceive and use ICT from the perspective of e-commerce and collaboratively, taking a multidisciplinary approach. This research has also focused on the digital divide, with the aim of assisting SMEs in rural and regional Australia. She has written generally from this perspective. Michelle is also interested in the application of electronic and collaborative commerce in various industries.

Dr. Malcolm Cooper is Vice President International Cooperation and Research, and holds the position of Professor of Tourism Management in the Graduate School of Asia Pacific Studies, at the Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, Beppu, Japan. He is a specialist in tourism management and development, environmental management, water resource management and environmental law, and has published over 80 books, refereed articles and book chapters. Dr. Cooper is the Asia Pacific regional editor for Tourism Research International and sits on the Editorial Boards of other international academic tourism journals. He has held previous appointments at the Universities of New England, Adelaide and Southern Queensland (Australia), and Waiariki Institute of Technology (New Zealand) and has worked in the environmental planning and tourism policy areas for Federal, State and Local Governments in Australia, and as a private tourism consultant to the Governments of China and Vietnam. [Editor]