THE ROLE OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS IN THE MANAGEMENT OF TOURISM AGENCIES IN ROMANIA.

The main objective of this paper was the identification of opinions, attitudes and behaviors within tourism agencies in Romania regarding the use of information systems. The rationale for the choice of this topic was mainly to provide relevant information on a real situation in the tourism market, namely the use of information systems in tourism economic units, more precisely tourism agencies. Statistical inquiry was the method applied in order to find out about the information systems employed by the agencies, and to identify both their weaknesses and benefits [3]. The results of the inquiry showed the opinions of the users, but, more importantly, the type of information systems available in agencies and the advantages that they bring. The inquiry was the tool of gathering data. For data interpretation and analysis the statistical program SPSS was resorted to. The findings consist in the fact that managers introduced change in their companies in order to simplify and eliminate useless data and in order to utilize IT systems [2] that would help people work better with data. The emphasis falls on people's training, so that they should understand the business, on correlating employee performance with company performance and on using information and IT software effectively in doing business. Competitive edge will be gained by those companies which obtain superior results in business through the synchronization of three elements: employee management, information and IT [3]. The impressive advancements in the last decade of information technology have numerous applications in tourism. These technologies, together with progress in the area of telecommunications have contributed to the modernization of tourism services. The use of information technologies in tourism has allowed in-depth knowledge of both demand and supply in tourism, the tracking of tourism types, of means of transport, hotel reservations and the study of the tourism market overall [4]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]