Читать книгу Global Experience Industries - Jens Christensen - Страница 24

From the point of view of the consumer, the tourist process starts with his/her need for information. Traditionally, this information was provided by travel agents, but nowadays increasingly via the Internet.¹⁶ When you have decided on your destination, guide books are another traditional and widespread source of information. The next step is the decision to use individually organized transportation (e.g. car, airplane or railway) or a tour operator and whether you want to book directly or to do so through a travel agent. That includes the choice of accommodation, visiting local attractions, participating in organized activities and finally, the return journey.

The large economic importance of tourism, increasing competition and consumer demands have caused tourism companies and tourism organizations to upgrade local and national information throughout most of the world.¹⁷ Public tourist organizations coordinate national or local tourist information for all private and public service providers, linking companies of transportation, accommodation, entertainment, culture, etc. by way of their web sites. Consequently, every person with access to the Internet anywhere in the world might directly search relevant information and book and buy rooms, tickets, etc. according to his wishes. In many ways, each developed country present itself as a whole on the Internet, including detailed information on all parts of its tourism value chain. One Internet site gives you access to all national activities, for example visitbritain, visitfrance, germany-tourism, italiantourism, usatourist, visitjapan and cnta.gov for China. Finally, you have even global tourism information sites, such as virtualtourist and worldtravelguide. Much of this and other kinds of tourism information are being available on mobile phones, too.

The widespread use of web-based national tourism portals and interactive sites has reduced the importance of printed guide books, on the one hand. But on the other hand, the endless information opportunities on the Internet seem to have created greater interest in more knowledge and informative guides on individual destinations. The printed guide is still a widely used source of tourism information that has been around for almost two centuries.

During the 19^th century, German Baedeker and British Murray pioneered the classical guide book. Baedeker continued as the well known Blue Guides in the 20^th century.¹⁸ After the Second World War, national travel publishing houses emerged in all developed countries, covering many parts of the world in their domestic language, for example Politiken in Denmark.¹⁹ Large international guide book publishers such as Fodor’s, Lonely Planet, Michelin and Rough Guides, have marketed guide books that cover most parts of the world.²⁰ Fodor’s and Rough Guides are now part of two global media conglomerates, Bertelsmann and Pearson, respectively, just as other national guide book publishers are normally owned by large media corporations. This is part of the global consolidation process across any source of information and media.

A separate industry of maps is added to the industry of guide books.²¹ These maps build on the works of scientifically based national institutions that are responsible for exact and detailed mapping of the individual country and who publish maps of their own, too. Internationally leading map corporations are for example French Michelin.²² Just like guide books, maps have also been invaded by the Internet. Free maps of any global destination may be found on the Internet (for instance by Google) and this has made the map industry come up with new strategies and business models. Finally, electronic maps have found their way into cars, enabling the driver to guide him to his destination.

Current weather forecasting information is a natural part of all travel preparations as well as during the vacation itself. Tourists are informed by way of the Internet and other media that continuously are updated by international, national, and local weather report stations, based on meteorological organizations through out the world.²³ Skiing resorts even provide webcams to inform tourists of weather and skiing conditions.