CHAPTER ONE/INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the study

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 modeled 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 is 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. 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.

According to Hunziker and krapt in (1936) stated that “Tourism is the sum of the phenomena and relationships arising from the travel and stay of non-residents, insofar as they do not lead to permanent residence”.

Tourism is an important, even vital, source of income for many regions and countries. Its importance was recognized in the manila declaration on world Tourism of 1980 as an activity essential to the life of nations because of its direct effects on the social, cultural, educational, and economical sectors of national societies and on their international relations.it brings a large amount of income into a local economy in the form of payment for goods and services need by tourist, it also creates opportunities for employment in the service sector of the economy associated with tourism. More so, the middle ages, Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam all had traditions of pilgrimage that motivated even the lower classes to undertake distant journeys for health or spiritual improvement, seeing the sights along the way. With so much benefit a new system should be invented for a faster and more effective tourism management. 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. 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) 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

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     Aim of the study

Design and implementation of integrated tourism multimedia system, to make tourism better adapt to the needs of information development.

1.4     Objective of the study

• Conducting tourism information management

• Being able to produce a comprehensive thematic map

• Providing multimedia information about tourist sites

• Providing reference for tourism development

1.5     Significance of the study

Tourism has a strong geographical to 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.

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, and 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.

Design and Implementation of an integrated tourism multimedia system

1.6     Scope of the study

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