CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

This chapter is concerned with the general introduction of the research work. It presents the objectives, scope and limitation of the study together with other relevant introductory details.

1.1   PRELIMINARIES

There are many different ways of presenting information for tourist. 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 modelled 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 are 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.

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.

1.1 The BACKGROUND TO STUDY

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.

1.2 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.

1.3 Aims/Objectives of the study

The following are the objectives of the study;

a.     Conducting Tourism Information Management

b.     Being Able to Produce a Comprehensive Thematic Map

c.      Providing multimedia information about tourist sites

d.     Providing References for the Tourism Development

1.4 Significance of the 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

1.5 Scope of the Study

This study covers the integration of multimedia and geographic information system in tourism management

1.6 Organization of Research

This research work is organized into five chapters. Chapter one is concerned with the introduction of the research study and it presents the preliminaries, theoretical background, statement of the problem, aim and objectives of the study, significance of the study, scope of the study, organization of the research and definition of terms. Chapter two focuses on the literature review, the contributions of other scholars on the subject matter is discussed. Chapter three is concerned with the system analysis and design. It presents the research methodology used in the development of the system, it analyses the present system to identify the problems and provides information on the advantages and disadvantages of the proposed system. The system design is also presented in this chapter.  Chapter four presents the system implementation and documentation, the choice of programming language, analysis of modules, choice of programming language and system requirements for implementation. Chapter five focuses on the summary, constraints of the study, conclusion and recommendations are provided in this chapter based on the study carried out.