Discuss the role of Information in Tourism.

Information is an important element of any system or industry to exist and prosper . Tourism industry as a matter of fact requires large amount of information on different areas. The role of information in tourism is an important for everyone. The important information covers image of destinations, products, competitor’s offering, prices, quality and services, promotional and selling activities, channel and experience of tour operators.

Regarding travel behaviour and motivation, the information one related to motivation for travel, location accommodation, mode of transport, frequency of visits, services at hotels, actual relations to prices, destination and products.

INFORMATION MANAGEMENT.

Information Management is an area where:

• The collected information is to be systematically processed.
• The processed information can be printed as information products.
• One has to study how to collect information from various sources.

Information/Data Collection: A manager should know the difference between data and information:

• Data unanalyzed number and facts.
• Information is that data which has been organized in a proper way.

Information gathering or collection of data related to tourism involves lot of interaction with various agencies. It must be noted the information supplying systems are necessary to support managerial functions of planning, organizing, leading and monitoring.

Information Generation: The tourist organizations are also required to manage the marketing information since the image problem in tourism has been questioning their existence. Hence, information generation shall be seen as an integral part of modern marketing management.

The task of choosing the right target markets is also simplified as the destinations, attractions and facilities can be rightly matched. With the use of technology organizations develop product databases, containing destination data. The CD Roms prepared by various Tourism Departments is the best  example in this regard covering all the details like  accommodation, food, weather, facilities and attractions.

Information Handling: Once the data is collected, it has to be organized and analyzed properly so to get any piece of information easily. The various access points to the information and its storage and retrieval can be done using computer with speed and accuracy.