Information technologies in the tourism industry. Classification of information technologies in tourism. What will the winners receive?

The winners of the all-Russian competition “Innovative solutions in the field of information technologies for the tourism sector”, which was held by the Association of Tour Operators of Russia (ATOR) and the Skolkovo Foundation, have been announced. The finalists were addressed by the leaders of the Ministry of Culture and the relevant State Duma committee.

At the solemn ceremony, which took place on September 7 at the Skolkovo Technopark, eight IT projects were named, which received the support of experts and were recognized as the best.

State Secretary, Deputy Minister of Culture of Russia Alla Manilova, addressing the participants and organizers of the Skolkovo Foundation and ATOR “Innovative IT Solutions in Tourism” competition, in particular, emphasized:

“The Ministry of Culture welcomes the initiative to hold the competition “Innovative solutions in the field of information technology for the tourism sector.” This is an innovative project that is designed to help spread high-tech developments in all areas of tourism, including museums, hotels, and in the promotion of domestic tourism projects. Participation in such an event demonstrates the desire of the tour operator community to consolidate strength and capabilities with high-tech companies capable of developing and implementing innovative solutions. The highly professional implementation of this project by the Skolkovo Foundation and ATOR will allow tourism to make big step towards digitalization of the tourism industry."

Sergey Khodakov, head of the IT cluster of the Skolkovo Foundation, prior to the award ceremony, separately noted that most of the selected projects have high commercialization potential.

The best IT solution for the hotel business in 2018 startup recognized Chatme.ai, who proposed the project « Trusted Enterprise Virtual Assistant." Curator of the nomination: Ilya Umansky (National tour operator ALEAN).

Briefly about the project: application of tools artificial intelligence for effective communications with clients and employees of the hotel business. Thus, a travel chatbot based on artificial intelligence, capable of recognizing the Russian language, can easily order a transfer or rent a car, check in for a flight, report the weather, or even chat with a client about football. Website - www.chatme.ai

In nomination “The best IT solution in museums and socio-cultural projects” the project won « Next SpaceVvirtualMuseums". Developer - 3Dreamteam company (Vizerra group of companies). Curator of the nomination: Tatyana Nikolaeva (Tretyakov Gallery).

Briefly about the project: creation of a platform for the use of VR, MR and AR technologies in the field of culture with feedback through a neural interface, allowing museum workers without specialized technical education to solve basic functions (display, preservation and archiving). Essentially, we are talking about using virtual and augmented reality to create a virtual museum. 3D galleries, exhibits, and even historical figures are made available to anyone with an Internet connection.

The best IT solution for tourism and social services and communications project recognized QRepublic, offering smart non-electronic IDs and cloud-based healthcare solutions. The developer is a resident of the Skolkovo Biomed cluster, the Respublika company. Curator of the nomination: Maya Lomidze ().

Briefly about the project: a personal cloud medical card with a connected non-electronic identifier for tourists - in the form factor of a bracelet. Thereby important information(for example, about what medications a person takes for certain diseases and allergies) is always available to doctors in emergency situations with a tourist. Data is received in 24 languages, notifications with location are available and much more. Website: www.qrepublic.ru

In nomination “The best IT solution for travel agency business” the winner was the project 7seconds(developer - Seven Processing company). Curator of the nomination: Taras Kobishchanov (tour operator "Russian Express").

Briefly about the project: instant online lending in the tourism market based on a new generation scoring model. The platform collects interval observations of the consumer behavior of borrowers (receipts, geolocation at retail outlets, purchase and search history, etc.), builds an individual financial model of the borrower, and assesses the likelihood of fraud and the client’s credit risk.

The best IT solution for the independent travel segment in 2018 the jury recognized the project Insurion and a team of the same name, offering digital assistant services for insurance companies. Curator of the nomination: Leonid Marmer (Amadeus in Russia).

Briefly about the project: automatic insurance - for example, against flight delays or missing a connecting flight. The insurer transfers the client's data to Insurion. If a flight is delayed, the insured receive an SMS with a link, go through a validation process, create an electronic application for insurance compensation and receive it for each hour of delay while still at the airport. Project website: www.insurion.org.

The curator of the nomination - Amadeus - also expressed a desire to separately encourage and offer opportunities for promotion to another semi-finalist - the team startupYochting, who proposed a project for a digital platform-aggregator for yacht marine tourism.

Winner of the competition in the category “The best IT solution: systems for booking tours and travel services” became a startup offering an international service for booking fishing tours - Fish.Travel. Curator of the nomination: Dmitry Shevchenko (ICS Travel Group).

Briefly about the project: assistance in booking fishing tours using a global booking platform. You can book a fishing tour, including transport, guide, and accommodation in just one click. Benefits for both guides and fishing bases: they receive a stable flow of clients and a guarantee of payment for late cancellation of an order. Website - www.fish.travel.

The best IT solution for traveling around Russia Skolkovo and ATOR experts named the project PASSCITY (city service packages). Developed by Voxxter team. Curator of the nomination: Sergey Korneev (Rosturizm).

Finally, the winner of the competition in the category “The best IT solution for promoting tourism services and destinations” company recognized « Neutrotrend", who proposed a project on the use of neuromarketing technologies in tourism. Curator of the nomination: Vladimir Dolgov (“Academservice”).

Briefly about the project: application of neuromarketing techniques to model product offerings and communications in the tourism sector. Neuromodeling, based on synchronous recording of the client’s psychophysiological reactions, will help to choose the best vacation offer for the tourist. Website: www.neurotrend.ru

WHAT WILL THE WINNERS RECEIVE?

Congratulating the participants of the award ceremony, the head of the State Duma Committee of the Russian Federation on physical culture, sports, tourism and youth affairs, Mikhail Degtyarev thanked the finalists and nominees, assuring them that the committee he leads will always provide all possible assistance in promoting high technologies in tourism.

“ATOR is the strongest, most respected and universally recognized organization with a good management base. I would like to note the award in the field of IT technologies, because the future lies behind this industry. It should be given more attention because, as we see, tourism and the digital economy are inseparable,” he said.

Welcoming the finalists, ATOR Executive Director Maya Lomidze recalled that the directorate of the Association of Tour Operators will provide a six-month PR package to the winners in all nominations and an annual package in the supervised nomination. The nomination curators will also offer special prizes to the winners in the nominated nomination. In addition to prizes from the curators of the nominations, the Skolkovo Foundation will provide projects with the opportunity to obtain the status of a Foundation participant, bypassing the standard procedure.

The winners can take advantage of mentoring support from the jury members for further development of project concepts, assistance in finding tools for further financing (commercialization) of projects, as well as submit projects for consideration by partners and receive advice from jury members regarding further development project.

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The basis of the tourism industry is made up of tour operator firms and travel agents engaged in tourist trips, selling them in the form of vouchers and tours; providing services for accommodation and catering for tourists (hotels, campsites, etc.), their movement around the country, as well as management, information, advertising bodies for tourism research and training for it, enterprises for the production and sale of tourist goods. Other industries also work for tourism, for which serving tourists is not the main activity (cultural enterprises, trade, etc.).

Tourism is an information-rich activity. There are few other industries in which the collection, processing, application and communication of information are as critical to daily functioning as the tourism industry. A tourism service cannot be displayed and considered at the point of sale, like consumer or industrial goods. It is usually purchased in advance and away from the place of consumption. Thus, the tourism market depends almost entirely on images, descriptions, communications and information transfer.

A travel agent is an individual or legal entity who acts as an intermediary in the sale of tours generated by a tour operator.

A tour operator is a tourism organization that organizes tours.

However, one feature stands out - the connecting center that holds various manufacturers within the tourism industry, is information. It is information flows, and not goods, that provide connections between producers of tourism services; they come not only in the form of data streams, but also in the form of services and payments.

Services (eg hotel stays, car rentals, package tours and airline seats) are not sent to travel agents, who in turn store them until they are sold to consumers. Information about the availability, cost and quality of these services is transmitted and used.
Likewise, actual payments are not transferred from travel agents to travel suppliers, and commissions are not transferred from travel suppliers to travel agents. In fact, information about payments and receipts is translated (Scheme 2).

Three characteristic features of tourism can be identified.

Firstly, it is a diversified and integrated trade in services.

Finally, this is an information-rich service. Therefore, tourism - both international and domestic - is an area of growing application of information technology.

The information technology system used in tourism consists of a computer reservation system, a teleconferencing system, video systems, computers, information systems management, airline electronic information systems/electronic money transfer, telephone networks, mobile means of communication, etc.

It should be noted that this system of technologies is not deployed by travel agents, hotels or airlines individually, but by all of them.

Moreover, each tourism segment's use of information technology systems has implications for all other parts.

For example, systems internal management hotel may be associated with computer global networks, which in turn provide the basis for communication with hotel systems reservations, which, in the opposite direction, can be accessed by travel agents through their computers.
Therefore, we are dealing with an integrated information technology system that is spreading in tourism.

The tourism industry is so diverse and multifaceted that it requires the use of a wide variety of information technologies, ranging from development of specialized software, providing automation of the work of a separate tourism company or hotel, up to use of global computer networks.

Currently, the formation of a tourism product involves use of global distribution systems GDS (Global Distribution System), providing fast and convenient booking transport tickets, hotel reservations, car rental, currency exchange, ordering tickets for entertainment and sports programs, etc.

Also widespread in the tourism industry video text, combining possibilities computer systems reservations, e-mail, telex, electronic newspapers.

In the UK, around 90% of travel agencies use Prestel's visual data system, supported by British Telecom. This system contains tourism and travel information, as well as offers from tour operators, train lines, ferries, hotels and airlines, easily accessible to consumers. The system is also regularly entered last news and changes in all these areas. The main components of the Prestel system are a TV acting as a display, a keyboard for data entry, and an adapter that provides communication between the travel agency and central computer bypassing telephone lines. Videotext technology is also successful in France, where the Minitel system is used. At the same time, in the United States the use of video text is limited.

In recent years, the modern tourism industry has undergone very significant changes, this has led to the development and implementation of new information systems and technologies in the field of tourism. The successful functioning of any company in the tourism business market is almost unthinkable without the use of modern information technologies. The specifics of the formation and implementation of a tourism product require such information systems that, in the shortest possible time, would provide information about the availability of vehicles, the possibilities of accommodating tourists, ensure quick reservations and reservations, issuing tickets, invoices, settlement and reference information, etc. In addition, information technologies are a necessary attribute to ensure the quality of services provided to tourists, since end users place quite high demands on the information support of the service received, in particular, constant and reliable access to the Internet, the availability of a variety of mobile applications for tourism, etc. This is achievable provided that modern computer technologies for processing and transmitting information are widely used in tourism.

The tourism industry is so diverse and multifaceted that it requires the use of a wide variety of information technologies - from the development of specialized software that automates the work of an individual travel company or hotel, to the use of global computer networks.

Information technologies in the tourism industry can be classified according to various criteria.

A traditional feature of the classification of information technologies is their purpose. By purpose, supporting and functional information technologies are distinguished.

Supporting (basic) information technologies - These are technologies that provide ways to organize individual technological operations of information processes and are associated with the presentation, transformation, storage, processing and transmission of information. They can be used in various subject areas and are not specialized. These include processing technologies text information, technologies for working with spreadsheets, databases, multimedia technologies, character recognition technologies, telecommunication technologies, information security technologies, etc. These information technologies are implemented using traditional software products Microsoft Office Word, Excel, Power Point, Access, etc.

Functional (specialized) information technologies - These are technologies that implement specific procedures for collecting, transmitting and processing information in a certain subject area, in particular in tourism. They are built on the basis of supporting information technologies and are aimed at automated solution of problems in a given subject area.

Functional (specialized) information technologies in tourism can be classified as follows.

1. Booking systems in tourism.
1.1. Global booking systems (GDS).
1.2. Booking systems for certain types of services (accommodation facilities, air tickets, car rental, etc.).
2. Automation systems for the activities of tourism enterprises

industry.

2.1. Automation systems for travel agencies.
2.2. Automation systems for tour operator companies.
2.3. Automation systems for hotel enterprises.
2.4. Automation systems for public catering establishments.
2.5. Automation systems for transport enterprises.
2.6. Automation systems for excursion bureaus and museums.
3. Internet technologies, including e-commerce.
4. Multimedia technologies.
5. Geoinformation technologies.
6. Mobile applications.

Currently, the formation of a tourism product involves the use of global distribution systems (Global Distribution System, GDS), which provide quick and convenient booking of transport tickets, hotel reservations, car rental, currency exchange, ordering tickets for entertainment and sports programs, etc.

The tourism business, being one of the most dynamic areas of economic activity, is a highly saturated information sphere activities. In other words, the collection, storage, processing and transmission of up-to-date information is the most important and necessary condition for the functioning of any tourism enterprise. There are not many areas of the economy in which business success directly depends on the speed of transmission and exchange of information, on its relevance and timeliness of receipt, on its adequacy and completeness. In this regard, the successful development of tourism business involves the widespread use latest technologies both in the field of creating a tourism product and its promotion.

Modern Computer techologies are actively being introduced into the tourism business, and their use is becoming an integral condition for increasing the competitiveness of any tourism enterprise. The tourism industry allows the use of a wide variety of computer technologies, from specialized software products for managing an individual tourism company to the use of global computer networks. Today, tourism uses quite a lot of the latest computer technologies, for example GDS, integrated communication networks, multimedia systems, Smart Cards, management information systems, etc. The information technologies listed above are used with varying degrees of activity and have unequal distribution. The degree of their influence on the development of the tourism industry also varies.

The influence of information technology on tourism is felt at different stages of the creation and promotion of tourism products. The main directions of influence of modern computer technologies on the tourism industry are presented in Fig. 1.2 (the thicker the line, the greater the degree of influence of information technology in this area).

As can be seen from the diagram, modern computer technologies have the greatest impact on the promotion of a tourism product (distribution and sales). First of all, this concerns the possibility of creating new marketing channels for the promotion and sale of a tourism product. Thus, in the field of advertising, direct mailing of tourist information to e-mail (direct mail). In addition, most tourism enterprises in recent years have created their own websites on the Internet, and also use banner advertising. Although at present the effectiveness of these channels for distributing tourism products in Russia is not very high, this direction should be considered as very promising.

Currently, there is an electronic offensive on the traditional tourism business. Electronic tourist offices allow any owner credit card purchase a tour, book a seat on a plane or in a hotel, purchase tickets to entertainment events and order a rental car anywhere in the world. Thus, computer technologies have provoked the creation and use of fundamentally new electronic marketing channels for the promotion and sale of tourism products.

Rice. 1.2.

Computer reservation systems CRS (Computer Reservation System), which appeared in the mid-1960s, made it possible to speed up the process of reserving air tickets and carry it out in real time. The consequence of this was an increase in the quality of tourism services by reducing customer service time, increasing the volume and variety of services offered, etc. It became possible to optimize the loading of airliners, implement a flexible pricing strategy, apply new management methods, etc. The high reliability and convenience of these reservation systems contributed to their rapid and widespread distribution - most foreign enterprises in the tourism industry use reservation systems. On Russian market Mainly represented are global reservation systems such as Amadeus, Galileo Worldspan. The Amadeus computer reservation system has been operating on the Russian market since 1993, and this moment There are hundreds of users of the system in Russia.

One of the main areas of application of information technology in tourism is the introduction of multimedia technologies, in particular directories and catalogues. Currently, tourist guides and catalogs are published in books, on video cassettes, on disks, and on the Internet. Electronic catalogs allow you to virtually travel along the proposed routes, view these routes in active mode, view information about the country and objects along the route in video mode, obtain information about hotels, campsites, motels and other accommodation facilities, get acquainted with the system of benefits and discounts, as well as legislation in the field of tourism. In addition, information is usually provided on the rules for issuing tourist documents, tourist formalities, tourist behavior patterns in extreme situations, etc. The client can plan a tour program, select it according to specified optimal parameters (price, system of benefits, transport system, season, etc.).

In the field of management in the tourism business, dramatic changes have also occurred. Modern level The development of tourism business and fierce competition in this area attach particular importance to the information systems of travel agencies. The functionality of these systems should provide input, editing and storage of information about tours, hotels, clients, the status of applications, provide for the output of information in the form of various documents: questionnaires, vouchers, lists of tourists, descriptions of tours, hotels, calculate the cost of tours taking into account exchange rates , discounts, control payment for tours, generation of financial statements, export-import of data to others software products(Word, Excel, accounting programs) and other features. These systems not only speed up the settlement process and the generation of documents, but can also reduce the cost of services (tour packages) by choosing the best-priced option for customer delivery, accommodation, etc. An order for the development of a unique information system for automation of a tourist office is quite expensive, and at present there is no particular need for this, since there are a number of well-proven software products. Many IT companies are currently developing specialized software products for the tourism business, including Megatek, Samo, Recsoft.

The software market offers computer systems that allow you to automate the internal activities of a travel company. As a rule, these systems provide maintenance of reference databases for clients, partners, hotels, transport, embassies, as well as maintaining tours and accounting for payments, accepting orders and working with clients, generating output documents, etc. Almost all software systems provide the generation of accounting reports and often the import-export of data into specialized accounting programs, such as 1C, etc. Along with the automation of travel companies, a similar development of automation programs for the activities of hotels, restaurants and other tourism enterprises is underway. The use of information systems in this area leads to significant changes in management and also improves the quality of service.

The use of multimedia technologies is increasingly used in the tourism sector. With the help of multimedia technologies you can provide potential client complete and comprehensive information about any tourist product or individual tourist service that interests him, thereby allowing him to quickly and accurately select a suitable tourist product.

The main features of multimedia technologies are:

the ability to combine various information (text, sound, graphics, photos, videos) into a homogeneous digital representation;
ensuring reliable and durable storage of large volumes of semi-permanent information.

Test questions and assignments

1. What information levels can be identified from the point of view of the functioning of the tourism system?
2. What is the role of information in making management decisions in the tourism industry?
3. How is the information richness of tourism expressed?
4. How does information affect the quality of tourist services provided?
5. How are the processes of globalization and informatization related in tourism?
6. Name the main stages in the development of information technology.
7. How are information technologies classified by degree of automation?
8. Name the main supporting subsystems and give their characteristics.
9. What information technologies are used in the tourism industry?
10. What is the impact of information technology on the tourism sector?
11. How do information technologies affect the competitiveness of the tourism industry?
12. Justify the thesis that information technologies largely determine the future directions of development of the tourism industry.

Getalenko Anna Ivanovna, bachelor, student
Crimean Federal University named after V.I. Vernadsky

SINGLE INFORMATION SPACE
COMPUTER RESERVATION SYSTEMS
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
TOURIST AND RECREATIONAL COMPLEX
MULTIMEDIA SYSTEMS

This article addresses issues modern use information technologies in the theory and practice of tourism. This article shows and studies the features of the use of information technology in each case. Authors teaching aids The use of information technologies for educational purposes has been thoroughly studied, practice has also been carried out in training specialists in the field of tourism, an analysis has been carried out of the quality of information, as well as the approach to its placement and availability of processing.

Analysis of methods for assessing the financial stability of an organization
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Assessment of the financial condition of the enterprise (using the example of PJSC GC "Yalta-Intourist")

Purpose The work is to develop proposals for the management of tourism organizations on the selection of various information and computer systems in the field of tourism, filling the gap in scientific research on this problem in domestic science. The applicant achieved this goal based on the study and analysis of specific information technologies, the main trends in the development of the tourism business and the impact of IT on the efficiency of the organization.

Information is processed data suitable for decision-making. Information exists only for a specific (request) user. Thus, if there is no user, then there is no information.

A system is a large number of systems that are interconnected, functioning to achieve a specific goal.

The purpose of a system is the reason for which it is created.

An information system is a set of related software and hardware, information resources, management personnel that carry out information processes to prepare decisions.

Information technology is an initially specified sequence of procedures and operations that are automatically performed on the original data.

Information Technology consist of technological procedures and operations performed in a specified sequence. Typical operations are collection, registration, transmission, accumulation and processing of data.

The purpose of information technology is the production of information, upon analysis of which, a person will make a decision to perform actions.

Domestic sociologist V.P. Konetskaya understands communication this way: “Communication is a socially determined process of transmitting and perceiving information in conditions of interpersonal and mass communication through different channels using various communication means (verbal, non-verbal and others).”

Communication is a connection between subjects interacting in some way, through the transfer and perception of information to each other.

The purpose of communication is the exchange of information of various kinds and in various ways.

A communication system is a connection of individuals participating in the communication process in a certain way using information flows.

The purpose of a communication system is to transfer information from the communicator to its end user.

Information system managers—information managers—should carefully examine the acquisition strategies adopted by their suppliers. For example, some dominant corporations such as Cisco and Microsoft have concluded that it makes more sense to acquire ideas for next-generation information products from start-ups than to generate them themselves. By analyzing a company's acquisitions and the fate of the technologies they purchased, information systems administrators can gain insight into the vendor's ability to take advantage of the new asset. Buying rather than creating new technology is a legitimate and even effective approach, although it probably still indicates that such a company is inclined to immediately extract commercial benefits from the future, rather than create that future in-house.

Of course, such an approach can be successful if the information product manufacturer retains its core staff and funds ongoing development.

When choosing suppliers, heads of information technology, company departments and organizations tend to underestimate the need to analyze their innovation strategy.

However, the problem of innovation specifically in the field of informatization always arises when implementing development programs in a variety of areas of activity. Moreover, with the development of any field of activity, it is almost inevitable that innovative measures for informatization must be carried out.

The process of introducing new information systems in a company is a complex organizational task.

Considering the specifics of the field of information systems and the need to make decisions in the management of a company, this task is the task of an information manager. It is information management specialists who must implement the implementation project in such a way that the automated information system naturally, and as painlessly as possible, “fits” into the organizational structure of the enterprise.

The modern tourism industry has undergone very significant changes in recent years due to the introduction of new computer technologies. The successful functioning of any company in the tourism business market is almost unthinkable without the use of modern information technologies. The specifics of the technology for the development and sale of tourism products require systems that, in the shortest possible time, would provide information about the availability of vehicles and the possibilities of accommodating tourists, ensure quick reservations and reservations, as well as automation of solving auxiliary tasks in the provision of tourism services (parallel registration of such documents, such as tickets, invoices and guidebooks, provision of settlement and reference information, etc.). This is achievable provided that modern computer technologies for processing and transmitting information are widely used in tourism.

The tourism industry is so diverse and multifaceted that it requires the use of a wide variety of information technologies, ranging from the development of specialized software that automates the work of an individual tourism company or hotel, to the use of global computer networks.

Currently, the formation of a tourism product involves the use of global distribution systems GDS (Global Distribution System), which provide quick and convenient booking of transport tickets, hotel reservations, car rental, currency exchange, ordering tickets for entertainment and sports programs, etc.

In the tourism industry, video text is also widespread, combining the capabilities of computer reservation systems, e-mail, telex, and electronic newspapers. In the UK, around 90% of travel agencies use Prestel's visual data system, supported by British Telecom. This system contains tourism and travel information, as well as offers from tour operators, train lines, ferries, hotels and airlines, easily accessible to consumers. The system is also regularly updated with the latest news and changes in all these areas. The main components of the Prestel system are a TV acting as a display, a keyboard for data entry, and an adapter that allows the travel agency to communicate with the central computer, bypassing telephone lines. Videotext technology is also successful in France, where the Minitel system is used. At the same time, the use of video text is limited in the United States.

The tourism business, being one of the most dynamic sectors of the economy, is a highly saturated information industry. In other words, the collection, storage, processing and transmission of up-to-date information is the most important and necessary condition for the functioning of any tourism enterprise. The success of business in some sectors of the economy directly depends on the speed of transmission and exchange of information, on its relevance, timeliness of receipt, adequacy and completeness. In this regard, the successful development of the tourism business involves the widespread use of the latest technologies both in the field of creating tourism products and their promotion to the services market.

Modern computer technologies are actively being introduced into the tourism business and their use is becoming an integral condition for increasing the competitiveness of any tourism enterprise. The tourism industry allows the use of a wide variety of computer technologies, ranging from specialized software products for managing an individual tourism company to the use of global computer networks. Today, tourism uses quite a lot of the latest computer technologies, for example, global computer reservation systems, integrated communication networks, multimedia systems, Smart Cards, management information systems, etc. The information technologies listed above are used with varying degrees of activity and have unequal distribution. The degree of their influence on the development of the tourism industry also varies.

Modern computer technologies have the greatest impact on the promotion of tourism products (distribution and sales). First of all, this concerns the possibility of creating new marketing channels for promoting and selling a tourism product. Thus, in the field of advertising, direct mailing of tourist information by e-mail (direct-mail) has become widespread. In recent years, most tourism enterprises have created their own websites on the Internet and also use banner advertising. Although the effectiveness of these channels for distributing tourism products in Russia is not very high, this direction should be considered as very promising.

The West is already witnessing an electronic offensive against the traditional tourism business. In particular, e-commerce is beginning to actively penetrate and take root in the tourism market. Electronic travel offices already exist, such as Microsoft's Expedia travel agency, which allows anyone with a credit card to purchase a tour, make airline or hotel reservations, buy tickets to entertainment events, and book car rentals anywhere in the world. According to German experts, about 25% of all tourism product sales may in the near future be realized through e-commerce. Thus, computer technologies have provoked the creation and use of fundamentally new electronic marketing channels for the promotion and sale of tourism products.

Computer reservation systems CRS (Computer Reservation System), which appeared in the mid-60s. XX century, made it possible to speed up the process of reserving air tickets and carry it out in real time. As a result, the quality of services has increased by reducing customer service time, increasing the volume and variety of services offered, etc., and it has also become possible to optimize the loading of airliners, implement a flexible pricing strategy, apply new management methods, etc. The high reliability and convenience of these redundancy systems contributed to their rapid and widespread adoption. Currently, 98% of foreign tourism enterprises use reservation systems. The Russian market mainly presents global reservation systems such as Amadeus and Galileo Worldspan. The Amadeus computer reservation system has been operating on the Russian market since 1993, and at the moment there are more than 600 travel agencies in Russia that use the system.

One of the main areas of application of information technology in tourism is the introduction of multimedia technologies, in particular directories and catalogues. Currently, tourist guides and catalogs are published in books, on video cassettes, on CD-ROM laser discs, and on the Internet. Electronic catalogs allow you to virtually travel along the proposed routes, view these routes in active mode, obtain information about the country, objects along the route, information about hotels, campsites, motels and other accommodation facilities, familiarize yourself with the system of benefits and discounts, as well as legislation in the field tourism. In addition, these catalogs usually provide information about the rules for processing tourist documents, tourist formalities, tourist behavior patterns in extreme situations, etc. The client can plan a tour program, select it according to specified optimal parameters (price, system of benefits, transport system, season, etc.).

The use of multimedia technologies quickly provides potential clients with information about any tour they are interested in and thus allows them to quickly and accurately select the appropriate tourism product. At the same time, the tour operator (travel agent) has the opportunity, if necessary, to make changes to this tour or create a new exclusive tour, make reservations and sell the tourist service created online to the tourist.

In the field of management in the tourism business, dramatic changes have also occurred. The current level of development of the tourism business and fierce competition in this area attach particular importance to the information systems of travel agencies. The functionality of these systems should ensure the input, editing and storage of information about tours, hotels, clients, the status of applications, provide for the output of information in the form of various documents: questionnaires, vouchers, lists of tourists, descriptions of tours, hotels; calculate the cost of tours taking into account exchange rates, discounts, control payment for tours, generate financial statements, transfer export-import data into other software products (Word, Excel, accounting programs) and other opportunities. These systems not only speed up the settlement process and the generation of documents, but can also reduce the cost of services (tour packages) by choosing the best price option for customer delivery, accommodation, etc. An order for the development of a unique tourist office automation information system is quite expensive, and Currently, this is not particularly necessary, since there are a number of well-proven software products. The development of specialized software products for the tourism business is currently carried out by several Russian companies: Megatek (Master-Tour program), Arim-Soft (TurWin, Charter, Ovir programs), Samo-Soft (program “(Self-Tour”), “Tourist Technologies” (program complex automation"Tourist Office"), "Intour-Soft" (In-tour-Soft program), ANT-Group (ANT-Group system), "Rek-Soft" (Edelweiss, Barsum, Rekonline complex ) and etc.

There are several computer systems on the software market that allow you to automate the internal activities of a travel company. As a rule, these systems ensure the maintenance of reference databases for clients, partners, hotels, transport, embassies, as well as the maintenance of tours and accounting for payments, accepting orders and working with clients, generating output documents, etc. Almost all software systems provide the formation accounting reporting and often export-import of data into specialized accounting programs, such as 1C, etc.

Along with the automation of tourism firms, a similar development of programs for automating the activities of hotels, restaurants and other tourism enterprises is underway. The use of information systems in this area leads to significant changes in management and also improves the quality of service.

The emergence of multimedia technologies has found quick application and in the field of social and cultural services and tourism. Main Feature multimedia computer- the presence of additional devices, such as CD-ROM drives, sound card, speakers, 3D accelerator, etc. Currently, most computers on the market are multimedia and these devices are included as standard. Multimedia technology provides the ability to work with sound and video files, which opens up new directions for the use of computer technology in the field of socio-cultural services and tourism, in particular the development of virtual excursions to museums and travel.

Virtual excursions and trips are presentations that allow viewers to explore the main objects of interest to them (museums, attractions) even before actually visiting them. These can be randomly moving panoramas of objects of any size (exhibits of museums and art galleries, hotel premises, streets and buildings of cities, park alleys, bird's eye views, etc.). The panoramas are interconnected by simulated longitudinal movements inside the object in such a way that the illusion of real movement along and inside the object is created with the possibility of stopping for a circular inspection at the most interesting places. The viewer can arbitrarily change directions of movement, use the zoom function, move forward and backward, left and right. It is possible to voice the presentation, embed explanatory notes into it, integrate geographic maps and floor plans into the virtual journey with the ability to orient to the cardinal points.

One of the most common areas of using multimedia technologies in the field of socio-cultural services and tourism is the creation and use of encyclopedic, reference and advertising discs. Currently, a large number of information and reference materials have been developed for museums and various tourist destinations, including Moscow, St. Petersburg, the resorts of the Caucasian Mineralnye Vody, Sochi, etc. Since 1998, the company "Adaptive Technologies" has been producing CD directories "Hotels of the World": "All of Spain", "All of Switzerland", "All of Cyprus", etc. The company "Olbis" (St. Petersburg) has been publishing an advertising electronic directory since 1999 "Tourist companies".

Many enterprises in the sphere of social and cultural services and tourism, most often museums, travel agencies and hotels, create their own disks containing reference, information and advertising information. The cost of developing a CD directory depends on its volume and components (the presence of multimedia clips, 3D models) and on average ranges from several hundred to several thousand dollars.

Today, it is mainly the capital's tour operators that produce their CD guides. The discs usually contain regional overviews with descriptions of proposed programs, hotels, etc.

Typically, multimedia catalogs do not contain frequently changing information, such as pricing data, and functionality There are significantly fewer CD directories than directories on specialized Internet servers. However, CD reference books are popular for a number of reasons:

they are the most convenient means of obtaining information if the user does not have access to the Internet;
CDs make it possible to obtain reference information often much faster than searching for similar data on the Internet;
one CD, like network resource V local network, can be used simultaneously by several user-managers of travel agencies;
CDs can be easily transferred from one computer to another, and are convenient to use both at presentations and other promotional events;
CDs are ideal promotional and informational material sent to partners and clients.

The Internet and social media resources will soon be the most promising platform for placing the marketing budget of a social and cultural service enterprise. The main trend in recent years has been the strengthening of the role of the Internet in the process of making decisions about travel and purchasing a tourism product. Now the Internet has become the main source of information for travelers, and first of all - social media and review systems in which users exchange opinions about trips and tourism services.

An effective method of promoting a tourism product on the Internet is participation in international exhibitions and fairs on the Internet. All the most famous tourism exhibitions have already opened their information pages on the Internet, which provide statistics, conditions for participation, accreditation and visiting exhibitions.

The most important exhibitions include:

Madrid exhibition FITUR (http://www.fitur.sei.es);
Milan BIT exhibition (http://www.hcs.il.viadggi);
Berlin ITB (http://www/messe-berlin.de/ilb).

The possibility of direct and reverse audio-visual communication via the Internet allows you to:

significantly reduce the costs of promoting a tourism product in the tourism services market;
eliminate in some cases the costs of participating in expensive tourism exhibitions and fairs;
save on transportation costs, business trips, costs of renting and installing stands, etc.

Thus, fast, reliable communications in the global world network make it possible to promote a tourism product with greater efficiency.

In Russia, social and political restructuring and the formation of a market economy objectively led to the need for a significant change in information relations in society. Despite the recent significant expansion of the market for information services and products, Information Support organs government controlled, economic entities and citizens remains at a low level. The ability to access information is, as a rule, limited to its departmental affiliation and is often determined by the official position and social status of the consumer. The problem of access to geographically remote information resources. The majority of the population receives information in the traditional way - print, radio, television.

Information and telecommunication systems operate mainly in the interests of government authorities and, as a rule, in isolation. This state of affairs leads to duplication of work, redundancy of primary information, and increased cost of development and operation of systems. In addition, as noted, departmental fragmentation makes it difficult to exchange and access information.

Information services, resources and software products (information potential) are distributed extremely unevenly across the territory of Russia, and they are mainly provided in the central regions. This distribution corresponds to the concentration of the main scientific and information centers of Russia and does not take into account the needs of the population and government bodies. That is why the problem of equalizing information potential requires an urgent solution.

These problems can be solved only by creating a unified tourist information space in Russia.

The following properties of the information space can be distinguished, characterizing the level of its development.

Firstly, integrity, interpreted as the unity of all objects and subjects within the economic space. The main factor in the integrity and consistency of a subject is the manifestation of its economic activity. The information space, functioning in the form of a variety of socio-economic, social and information connections of economic space subjects, is a measure of their involvement in public relations.

The second criterion for the development of the information space is communicability, which manifests itself in the form of interconnected processes of integration and differentiation, occurring both within the subject and in interaction with the external environment.

Due to the fact that there is a constant increase in the number of interactions of subjects per unit of time within the economic space, and information about these interactions is reproduced and replicated in an increasing volume within the information space, it is logical to highlight another property of the information space - dynamism.

The following properties of a single information space are the constant expansion of boundaries, due to the increasing complexity of economic entities and their information interaction and the increase in the density of the information space, which occurs due to the growth of relationships between economic entities, its internationalization, cooperation and the growth in the number of elementary information exchanges per unit of time.

The main features of a unified information space in the field of tourism include:

the effect of uniform principles and general rules for all subjects of information interaction with a combination of state regulation and self-regulatory principles in the formation and development of a single information space;
ensuring safe information interaction between the state, organizations and citizens;
the most complete satisfaction of the information needs of subjects throughout the territory;
equal access of subjects of information interaction to open information resources and their legal equality;
maintaining a balance of interests in entering the global information space and ensuring national information sovereignty.

Thus, having studied the use of information and communication technologies in the field of tourism, we can conclude that in these days of widespread computerization and informatization, all travel companies and agencies, enterprises and firms abroad and the vast majority of Russian enterprises use international information as a working source of information. computer network Internet. The use of information technologies in the field of tourism allows users to easily find information about recreational conditions, prices, services provided, and more detailed information about the organization. No other type of advertising can compare with Internet advertising in terms of completeness, quality and efficiency of the information provided.

Thus, the creation of a unified regional tourist information space is of undoubted interest not only for individual tourism enterprises, but also in general can affect the development of the tourism industry, helping to increase the attractiveness of tourism in the region.

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