DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF AN INTEGRATED TOURISM MULTIMEDIA SYSTEM

1.1 Introduction

In the past, tourist regions largely relied on analogue media. Over the last few years, tourist offices and hotels have increasing started to use the internet, especially for online booking services. However, most websites are still largely modeled on the analogue products which were used for advertisement and brochures. Only a small number of companies within the travel, tourism and leisure industries make full use of the varied range of internet services that are available today. In the travel and tourism industries it is important that potential customers can quickly find all the information they need. Everywhere there is strong competition between the different tourist regions. Therefore, the tourist board is increasingly looking for new ways of presenting their main assets drawing on the full range of analogue and digital media. Logically, tourist information about these regions will use digital like the internet, CD-ROMs, TV, mobile devices and include 3D visualization techniques based on remote sensing data for maximum effect.

As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.

1.2 Background of Study

The 21st century is the era of information economy. It is not the capital but the information knowledge plays a decisive role in the information society. With economic development and social progress, people’s material and cultural standard of living continues to improve and leisure time continues to increase, tourism has become increasingly popular as a kind of leisure way. The number of tourists steadily increases. On the one hand, it promotes the vigorous development of tourism; on the other hand, it also brings new challenges to the traditional tourism management. There is the urgent need to improve management efficiency and modernization of industry standards.

In this case, the geographic information system combined with multimedia information system applied to tourism management is the preferred platform of tourism information. It can provide considerable travel management technology to ensure the effective and scientific tourism management. And it can enable more tourists to use the Internet to find travel information they need. Compared to the traditional access to travel information, the way that gets the travel information by the network is not only fast, informative, new content, but also low-cost and loved by the majority of young tourists, which greatly facilitates the travel of people and promotes the further development of the tourism industry.

The increasing demand for information at popular tourism destinations has driven tourism specialists to focus on finding better guiding solutions. The traditional guiding solutions are fixed interpretative signs, multi-media interpretation in an audio-visual room, and group guiding with a guide. Visualization and graphic representation of guiding information using geographic information system (GIS) techniques are useful approaches to improve such a guiding process. GIS can provide comprehensive access to a spatial database, query features, create themes and layouts, and offer reports. Chen (2007) also notes that GIS can make it easier for visitors to find their way around their destinations. One can also take advantage of the widespread use of hand-held mobile phones, which can already precisely track locations of mobile phone users.

Geographic Information System (GIS) is the emerging science that puts together geography, computer science, mathematics, statistics, management, surveying and mapping science into one. On the basis of geospatial data, supported by computer hardware and software, it collects, inputs, manages, edits, queries, models and displays spatial data. By using space model analysis method, it timely offers a variety of spatial and dynamic information to set up the computer technology system in order to serve Geography research and decision-making. Due to its efficient data management, spatial analysis, multi-factor comprehensive analysis and dynamic monitoring capabilities, it becomes an effective management decision-making tool, widely used in land management, urban planning, disaster prevention and mitigation, real estate development, commercial and other areas.

It is generally composed of hardware and software systems. GIS hardware system consists of computer equipment and network with some external device structure, in which the computer is the host of GIS. The external devices include input devices, output devices and data storage and transmission equipment. Network computing architecture determines the network devices. GIS software system generally consists of 5 sub-system, that is data input, data pre-processing, data storage and management, spatial analysis, data output. GIS’s main features are: data collection and editing; data storage and management; data processing and transformation; spatial analysis and statistics; production and display of product.

1.3 Statement of Problem

The development of tourism not only needs its own information management and exchange, but also adapts to the economic development and information needs of the whole society. The GIS applied to the tourism management is the inevitable demand for tourism management and tourism development. The development of modern information technology constantly presents new challenges to tourism management. In this case, it is a very important problem that how to make full use of the GIS in the tourism management to make tourism management better adapt to the needs of Information development. It requires on-going in-depth discussion and study.

1.4 Aim and Objectives of Study

The aim of the study is to Design and Implement of an Integrated Tourism Multimedia System. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows to design and develop an application software that will:

1. Handle the process involve in conducting tourism information management
2. Produce a comprehensive thematic map
3. Provide multimedia information about tourist sites
4. Provide references for the tourism development

1.5 Significance of Study

Tourism has a strong geographical attributes. Multimedia presentation of tourist information signifies improved conveying information by means of a well-aimed combination of different media like text, sound, picture, video and animation. And GIS itself are information systems offering services to geographic research and decision-making, which can play roles in tourism management. In particular, possessing the functions, such as data collection, storage, processing, spatial analysis and so on, GIS directly provides services for tourism management. When combining this with tourist information in the form of texts, photos and videos a comprehensive information system emerges, which offers the tourist optimum access to the region of his choice. This access is marked by high degree of interactivity, regarding the realization of Multimedia as well as internet solutions.

1.6 Scope of Study

The study focuses on the Design and Implementation of an Integrated Tourism Multimedia System.

1.7 Limitations of the Study

During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:

1. Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
2. Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
3. Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
4. Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet).

1.8 Definition of Terms

Multimedia: Multimedia is alike to traditional varied media in fine art, but with a broader opportunity. The term “rich media” is equal for interactive multimedia.

Audio Sound: The combination of audio sound into a multimedia application can offer the user with information not likely finished any other technique of announcement.

Text: Text is the foundation for word processing programs and is still the fundamental information used in many multimedia programs.

Learning Objects: In the context of this research, a learning-object-is-a-resource with a clear educational-application. It is in digital form − examples: a Microsoft Word Document or a PDF document.

Catalog: This research applies the word ‘catalog’ as a container that presents all the SICT projects logged/stored in an organized tabular format, showing relevant information about each project. It can be compared to a library catalog containing all the information about books − their titles, author, number of pages, published year, ISBN etc.

Repository: A repository (in this case; SICT repository) is an archive, storehouse or container that allows storage, cataloging, accessing all SICT undergraduate projects and thesis, and viewing each object’s content.

Identifier: An identifier is simply a unique identity attached to one object, it aids referencing such object directly when its identifier is requested. An identifier can be a serial number, identity number (also written as ‘ID’) or an index number.