Tourism Destination Analysis & Planning: An IT Application.

The tourism industry is dynamically evolving, responding to significant environmental changes. Information Technology (IT) applications constitute a major contributor to the industry's evolution. This paper reviews several popular tourist destination analysis and planning instruments. Specifically, evaluation matrix techniques and simplified diagrams for landscape analysis are covered. It then attempts to develop such an instrument, namely the Tourism Destination Analysis Card, The card belongs to the section elevation diagrams type of simplified diagrams for landscape analysis and its philosophy is based on the presentation of related geographic areas. The data base management system, the architecture of the proposed IT application and the information flow diagram are finally presented analytically. The overall objective of this paper is to introduce a "coordination and communication" scenario among the involved players of the tourism industry (the public sector included) based on technology challenges upon which information flow and transactions will be accelerated and the value of the end consumer enhanced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]