Information technologies in promoting tourism products. Coursework: Possibilities of Internet technologies in the development, formation and promotion of tourism products

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

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 the promotion and sale of 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.

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.

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.

The Internet is considered an extremely convenient technology for carrying out targeted advertising campaign with the ability to monitor its effectiveness. The developments in the field of advertising technology proposed in the 90s were truly revolutionary. XX century well-known American companies (Yahoo, Alta Vista), which are based on creating unique opportunities for advertisers to place advertisements targeted at a carefully selected and accurately measured audience.

The Internet, as a new generation of media, has a number of features that distinguish it from conventional media:

? narrow target orientation of information (through the Internet, a tour operator can directly, bypassing an intermediary, establish communication links with a potential consumer);
? the ability to automatically record information about users (various counters allow you to track the number of site visitors, as well as monitor statements and reviews about the tour operator);
? democracy in the field of PR (all tour operators on the Internet, regardless of their size, are placed in the same starting conditions, and the effectiveness of marketing depends solely on the professionalism of the specific people who are involved in it).

Providing advertising information on the Internet differs from providing similar information in other media. Tourist advertising information posted on the website of a tour operator organization has the following features:

1) limited target audience - potential site visitors are people aged 18 to 55 years with a sufficient level of education, but they are the ones who are able to make independent and thoughtful decisions based on the information that the tourist organization offers them;
2) interactivity - information on the network is not just viewed by a potential consumer, it involves him in an interesting process of interactive communication, gives him the opportunity to express his own opinion about the tourist service received, exchange experiences in using the tourism product, etc.;
3) the need to promote such information (through website promotion) about the tourism organization itself and its products and services;
4) the need for constant analysis of the state of the tourism services market - the Internet allows not only to monitor changes in the tourism services market, but also to respond to them in a timely manner: introduce new special offers, change directions according to the current market conditions.

Advertising of tourist services on the Internet has its own specifics, most often it is associated with the work of the website of tourist organizations. Internet advertising technologies for tour operators can be classified as follows: e-mail advertising, line advertising in tourist portals, registration in search engines and catalogs, offline advertising, banner advertising, bairik.

E-mail advertising. Email is one of the oldest and most popular services on the Internet. This is a very effective tool for promoting a tour operator due to the possibility of using targeted advertising and information mailings to interested tourists.

Many tour operators actively use email to quickly and promptly inform your travel agents about new tourism products and services, last-minute travel packages, special offers that are valid for only a few days and are in great demand. In addition to interesting offers, regular consumers of the tour operator’s tourism services are sent personalized holiday greetings, which contributes to the formation of a positive image of the tour operator company.

Many specialized sites offer their visitors a free subscription to a newsletter informing about updates and the posting of new material on it, which will regularly remind subscribers about this server and help increase repeat visits. There are also all kinds news feeds, which are sent in the form of a list and a summary of articles (usually with tempting titles); in order to read them in full, the recipient needs to visit the site.

Linear advertising on travel portals. This type of advertising on the Internet usually looks like bright colorful lines indicating the name of the tour operator, resort, hotel category, additional services, minimum or maximum price, which are located in databases on popular portals. An undoubted advantage of using line advertising is the ability to quickly change important information based on the number of responses from site visitors. The most successful are inline advertising that contains a link to a site where an interested visitor can obtain more complete information interactively. When placing line advertising, they try to choose the most popular resource, but for the greatest audience coverage, it is advisable to choose two or three sites.

Registration in search engines and directories- this is a rather complicated procedure. It is necessary to correctly select the keywords to be used for the search, which would most clearly reflect the specifics of the activities of the tourism organization and the features of its tourism product. It is extremely necessary to try to avoid commonly used words such as “tourism”, “travel”, “trip”, since for this query the search engine can return several thousand links that will not necessarily contain information about the tourist organization and the services it offers.

Experts advise registering with the largest search engines on the Internet, whose services are used by a multi-million Russian-speaking audience: Yandex (http://www.yandex.ru), Rambler (http://www.rambler.ru). In order for the search engine to find out about the site, you only need to register the address home page. After this, the system will independently load the tour operator’s website into its database and index all the words found on it, so that it can then independently connect to the site at some intervals and check for changes.

Next, you need to register in resource directories. They are built on the principle of hierarchical rubricators. To do this, the head of the tour operator fills out a registration application, in which he indicates the site address, name and various other information about it, after which the catalog employees look through it and enter it into one or another section. Registration in search engines and catalogs is a mandatory event that attracts a large number of visitors, among whom is the maximum percentage of potential consumers.

Offline advertising - This is an advertisement for the website of a tourist organization, which accompanies other types of advertising messages. For example, when publishing an advertisement in various printed publications, designing billboards and other types of outdoor advertising (along with the address of the tourist organization, its telephone numbers, fax), it is necessary to indicate the website address and e-mail. The site address must also be included on all business cards, letterheads, leaflets, booklets and other attributes of the tour operator.

Banner advertising. A banner is an advertising poster on the Internet that contains, to one degree or another, an explicit call to visit a particular site. The user, interested in the banner, clicks on it and goes to the advertised resource. Banners can be made in any style, have any size and information content, and occupy a specific position on the page. Their main task is to attract attention, interest the visitor, and create a desire to visit this information resource. Banners can be placed on the websites of the tour operator’s partners, or with friends who have their own website. Placing banners on specialized tourist sites is even more effective. These resources attract many people interested in tourism. Therefore, by placing banners here, the tour operator is already dealing with potential consumers of services.

Bairik and Interstitials- two types of advertising that have become widespread on the Russian Internet. Bayrik- a minimized web page that opens as a window on top of the main browser. You can put any information, text, image, etc. on the badge. It is a full-fledged page, but small in size. Bairiks were previously predicted to have a great future, but they never became a widespread format because users do not like windows popping up against their will.

With Interstitials, the user, against the background of loading the publisher's website, observes a short but extended advertising screensaver of the advertiser that spans the entire browser screen. If he accidentally clicks on the insert, then, accordingly, he will be taken to the advertiser’s website. This type of advertising also caused a number of complaints, so it is even less common than bairik.

All of the above types of online advertising come down to one element, without which they would not make sense - the website of a tourist organization, which in this case serves not just as a prestigious element of the tour operator’s corporate identity, performing image and information functions, but is also a powerful advertising tool, combining the features of many media. Tour operator websites vary in structure and content. Based on the goals pursued and the nature of the information, they can be divided into three groups.

1. Business card - a website is a simple way to present a business and contains key information about the tourist organization, its location and main activities.
2. The web showcase contains background information about the proposed tourist destinations (descriptions of countries, resorts, hotels), price lists, special offers and “hot” news.
3. “Tour operator - travel agent” system. First of all, such a site is aimed at travel agencies, it provides the possibility of online booking and many other functions that simplify the process of selling a tourist product through a travel agency network as much as possible.

Each of the listed types has its own positive and negative aspects, which should be taken into account by the head of the tour operator when deciding to create his own representative office on the Internet (Table 7.3)

Advantages and disadvantages of the main types of tour operator websites

Table 7.3

Site view	Advantages	Flaws
Business card card	Simple technology and low cost of creation	Lack of detailed information about the tourism product, which often plays a decisive role in consumer choice
	No need for regular updates	Lack of feedback
Web showcase	Availability of operational information about free seats Oh	Higher price for website creation The need for regular updating and monitoring The need to employ a qualified specialist
"travel agent - tour operator"	Full automation of all business processes for the sale of tourism products	High initial cost of website development
	Possibility of prompt interaction between travel agents, including prompt delivery of information about the availability of available places, etc.	Lack of established business processes
		High requirements for automation of the travel agent workplace
		The need for mandatory regular system updates

So, a well-thought-out and structured website, executed at a high design level, is a real tool for doing business in the practice of tour operating. Currently, almost all self-respecting tour operators and the vast majority of travel agents have already acquired their own websites, many of which have the level of portals.

1.3. Internet technologies in tourism

Information technology (IT)– a systematically organized set of methods and means for implementing operations of collecting, registering, transmitting, accumulating, searching, processing and protecting information based on the use of developed software, telecommunications, and hardware (technical) means.

Modern information technologies are based on the use of computers united into local, regional or global computer networks for generating, collecting, exchanging and storing commercial information.

The main problems of introducing information technologies into the Russian tourism industry are a significant number of travel agencies with different levels of automation, the impossibility of instant payment for tourist services ordered by a client via the Internet due to the lack of a unified electronic payment system in the country.

Main achievements:

Access of intra-office programs to the Internet;
- remote access to the receiving party’s database to confirm services in real time;
- client access to the office database via the Internet;
- creation of large Internet portals and online markets.

1.3.1. Automation of a travel agency

Automation of a travel agency includes a set of functions:

Receiving and processing information from different tour operators;
- maintaining internal document flow and accounting;
- building relationships with tour operators;
- data analysis and obtaining statistical reports.

Levels of automation of the company:

Office equipment (telephone, fax, copier);
- computers with Microsoft Office software;
- special software, used to connect office programs with global reservation systems;
- presence of own online stores.

The required level of automation for a company depends primarily on the number of clients. For companies with a small volume of services sold, it is enough to use Microsoft Office tools (Excel, Word, E-mail, etc.).

The need to use special software to automate all in-office work depends on the volume and type of activity of the travel agency, since the software for travel agents and tour operators differs.

Comprehensive automation of a travel agency includes, in addition to intra-office automation, office work, accounting, the availability of Internet channels and travel services booking systems.

Software capabilities in the tourism business:

Registration of applications and clients in the database;
- printing of documents issued to the client and sent to partners;
- accounting and control of quotas, flight loads;
- printing price lists;
- on-line booking;
- connection with travel agency software and accounting programs;
- formation of databases of travel services from different tour operators;
- choosing the best option for the client from many offers;
- placing orders directly in the tour operator’s database;
- assessment of cost effectiveness, profitability (unprofitability) at different levels of business.

Main trends in the development of modern Internet technologies:

Creation of independent travel agency networks;
- providing travel agencies with new technological services;
- consolidation of independent travel agencies and their automation;
- development of a unified standard for the exchange of information between participants in the tourism market.

Some important tasks that can be solved by automating the activities of a travel company:

1. Market monitoring. Start-up agencies prefer tour search and booking systems, allowing you to understand which tour operators work in which direction, and with whom it is most profitable to cooperate.

Experienced agency managers who are well versed in the offer market independently monitor offers from several tour operators and book services on-line. This allows you to reserve a tour operator’s resource at the time of submitting your request, which is very important given the limited number of places in the hotel and on the flight.

When booking on-line, the agency has the opportunity to monitor in real time the status of its applications from the tour operator (confirmed, paid, unpaid, on the waiting list).

2. Automation of internal document flow of a travel company includes issuing the documents necessary for the tourist (vacation voucher, incoming/outgoing cash order, contract, voucher, etc.), tracking the life cycle of the client’s application. To do this, they use search and booking systems for tours or specially developed software systems.

3. Automation of relationships with tour operators consists in creating and printing an application form, automatically tracking the progress of the application from the moment it is formed until the moment it is sent to the archive. For this purpose, on-line booking modes of tour operators, intra-office systems, search and tour booking systems, etc. are used.

4. Accounting automation involves the use of specialized accounting programs. In a number of cases, travel agencies operating under a simplified taxation system use the services of audit companies, submitting to them only primary documentation. In this case, the functions of intra-office programs related to financial accounting are sufficient. It is possible to interface specialized in-office travel programs with accounting ones at the file exchange level.

5. Automation of data analysis and obtaining statistics. To make the right strategic decisions, the software used by the travel agency must generate an exhaustive number of statistical reports showing the profitability of the company over a period of time, and the average profitability of applications by destination and tour operator, etc.

This allows the agency to correctly navigate the market and develop the necessary areas of activity, building relationships with tour operators, at the right time, give the right advertising and evaluate how it works.

1.3.2. Possibilities of using the Internet in the tourism business

The use of network technologies today begins with accessing the Internet as a user in order to find some information belonging to others, and ends with building your own private corporate network in which the most valuable information circulates with great speed and efficiency.

The simplest possibilities of the Internet in tourism are to disseminate information about a company and the services it provides on various bulletin boards, forums, etc.

Any Internet user can become a buyer of a tourism product. Even sites that pretend to be nothing more than an introductory booklet “bring” more than 20% of clients to the office of the company that owns the site.

The main stages of using the Internet in the travel industry:

1. Creation of a website with a list of services, details, price list, pictures (business card website) and other information duplicating the company’s advertising brochures. In this case, the site is an additional advertising tool that allows everyone to familiarize themselves with permanent access to information about the company, its activities, and coordinates. Disadvantage - the information on the site is presented in a static form without taking into account the opinions of users.
2. Creation of an interactive website for quick communication between clients and the company via the Internet, capable of providing information at the user’s request, answering his questions, and having means of feedback with the company (guest book, forum, answers to frequently asked questions, information request form, etc. ). Such a site is an electronic office of the company, helping to increase the number of potential clients. Disadvantage: inability to participate directly in the sale of tourism services;
3. Creation of a website-shop capable of accepting payments for travel services, booking tours, tickets, concluding contracts with clients, notifying them about available places, tours, etc. Such a site functions as a full-fledged parallel mechanism for the sale of travel services, allows you to relieve managers, speed up the execution of routine operations (accepting payments, preparing and signing papers, client’s arrival at the office, etc.). The disadvantage is the risk associated with the possibility of the site being hacked by hackers, fraud, and lack of legislative support from the state.
4. Connecting a travel agency on the basis of a subscription fee to business systems that implement the above-mentioned opportunities and take responsibility for the safety of doing business. The function of the system is intermediary. The benefit is a much greater concentration of potential clients and, accordingly, an increase in demand for travel services. The disadvantage is high competition, the need to respond quickly, otherwise the client will turn to another company.

The first three systems work on the principle B2C (Business-to-Consumer)– “seller-client” interaction. The latest system is based on the principle B2B (Business-to-Business)- “seller-intermediary” interaction.

Currently developed information network technologies made it possible to implement business systems in which the client interacts with travel service providers entirely via the Internet.

The most active users of such systems are regional travel agencies, for whom it is much cheaper to place an order via the Internet than to call tour operators in the capital.

It is impossible to truly book a tour via the Internet, having completed all the necessary documents, in Russia for a number of technical and legal reasons.

1. The problem of obtaining visas when providing virtual services to consumers by travel agencies through websites. To do this, the client must provide photographs and personally sign the questionnaire issued by the embassy. Theoretically, this can be done via the Internet (Russia has adopted a law on electronic digital signature), but embassies do not accept such signatures.
2. Low prevalence of electronic payment systems. Holders of plastic cards are not always ready to make purchases via the Internet with their help, fearing scammers.
3. Most tourists are accustomed to personally communicating with the manager when choosing a tour, in order to be able to get advice when choosing a tour.

1.3.3. Prospects for the development of tourism Internet projects

Modern Internet capabilities allow you to study the client’s interests, determine his favorite sites and the time of their visit. Marketers can only provide the client with the necessary information to make a purchasing decision at the most convenient moment of time and on their favorite website.

In the near future, the main direction of on-line business will be the sale/booking of tickets and travel services to a corporate client for organizing a business or individual trip.

In the B2B sector, experts predict the further development of tour operator-travel agent booking systems. There is an emerging trend of using such systems as a powerful marketing tool for creating an agent network.

With this approach, the travel agency will be tied to one or another operator through the sharing of appropriate software, and the transition to another operator will be associated with a restructuring of work within the agency.

1. You should conduct a survey among clients and determine what information they primarily look for on the site, talk with managers about what information most often interests clients. Answers to the most frequently asked questions can be posted on the website. This is what customers are most often interested in when they are trying to purchase products or services.
2. All collected information should be analyzed and divided into sections. The names of the sections will be items in the main menu with which the user can move around the site.
3. When compiling a menu list, you should maintain a balance between “breadth” and “depth”, that is, between the menu items visible on the page (breadth) and the number of hierarchical levels of the site (depth). Research has shown that “broad” structures work more efficiently than “deep” structures, allowing users to quickly find information in “shallow” structures. Many popular sites have a structure that includes up to 100 links on the main page.
4. To make it easier for the user to find the necessary information, menu items on the site can be grouped into sections. For example, this is done on the website www.kokstravel.ru. There are a lot of links from the first page, but they are divided into groups, the headings of which are highlighted in color and font (Catalogue, Koks-travel this, Special offers and holidays), which allows the user to easily navigate the site.

Site's home page. Most often, the user finds the main page of the site. But even if he went to one of the internal pages from the search server, most likely the next step will be to go to the main page, since it is this page that gives the user a general idea of the company.

In order for the home page to interest the user and for him to stay on the site, it must satisfy the following rules:

for new clients, a slogan or a small explanation of what the company does is placed on the first page so that the user understands what benefits he can get from visiting the site;
highlight the most important topics of Saiga so that the visitor can see the main activities of the company and the services that can be used;
place a search form to facilitate navigation on the site;
provide examples of one or more of the best tours or services;
The names of links and sections begin with a keyword, because visitors scan pages to try to find elements that meet their immediate interests.

For travel agencies, you should indicate the phone number and office address on the first page, because It is important for the client where the company is located geographically.

Critical Page Elements. You should not overload the main page with a large number of illustrations and dynamic pictures. Visitors often do not pay attention to graphics, considering them advertising banners, and focus on those parts of the site that they think are relevant.

Website development process. Before creating a website, you need to decide who the site is intended for. The tour operator should post information of interest to travel agents (charter schedules, flight and hotel loads, mutual settlement procedures, etc.).

A travel agency should post information that may interest the client (tour price, service, food, entertainment, delivery, etc.). Positive reviews are generated by the detailed tour programs.

When developing a site, it is necessary to provide for the possibility of changing it. Sites that do not update information are called dead. To avoid this, special, frequently updated sections are created: company news, guest books, customer reviews, etc.

Stages of website development:

1. A list of required menus and submenus with transitions between them is compiled;
2. A complete functional layout of the site is created without any special design, while attention is paid only to the convenience and logic of dividing information;
3. One or several website design projects are developed, from which the best one is selected. The design project must contain examples of the design of one or more pages
website;
4. Depending on the chosen technology for building the site, the services and internal structure of the site are filled and/or programmed, as well as the implementation of the selected design option on the created pages.

Any site, in order to be visited, must contain up-to-date information. The method for updating information on the site depends on the technologies used to create the site.

Basic schemes for updating information on the site:

1. The site is completely static, information is updated by changing, deleting or adding html files. The method is inconvenient because every time you create a new page you need to think about its design and functional menus, which have to be transferred from existing files or rewritten anew. The use of purely static pages is justified in the case when the site has no more than 10-20 pages and the information on them is not updated very often.
2. The site is built using SSI (Server Side Includes) technology, which allows you to separate repeating sections of pages into separate files and then insert them into the right place. This scheme is more convenient, but is associated with tedious work of editing, deleting, adding files on the server.
3. Site pages are dynamic and are generated using a special program on the server. In this case, information can be stored both in the form of files on the server and in the form of tables with records in the database. Special forms are used to update information. The user goes to the information update page on the site, enters the login and password, section and changes the information in it, while changes occur automatically on the site. This convenient method requires the development of simple and understandable forms designed for people with minimal knowledge in the field of website building technologies.
4. For sites with a complex structure, with numerous sections, integration with internal and external databases, it is most often necessary to use a combination of several technologies and write separate tools to update each block of information. Such sites can be online stores of tourism products with extensive descriptions and the possibility of online booking. Information for the site is taken from the internal database of the travel company. In this case, most often the web server is not located on the provider’s side, but in the office itself, and a specially dedicated person or an entire department is responsible for updating the site.

Website modernization. When creating a website, you should take into account the prospects for further development of the site, the possibility of expanding functionality, changing the design, multilingual support, etc.

Simplicity and clarity of structure. It is necessary to create a site in such a way that for a specialist in the field of Web technologies, changing any part of the site does not cause insurmountable difficulties due to the complexity of the structure.

Compatibility. When creating a website, you need to take into account the likelihood of it being located on servers with different operating systems.

Portability. Sometimes the site's location may change due to unexpected problems with the ISP or local server. In this case, you should be prepared to transfer all the information as quickly as possible.

It makes sense to install the Tour Search module of any search engine on a ready-made website. Such services are offered by search engines TURY.ru (www.tury.ru), Foros (www.foros.ru), Tursoft (www.toursoft.ru), Optimalno.ru (www.promo.optimalno.ru), etc.

Examples of website packages for travel agencies(www.fortun.ru)

1. Package STANDARD includes the following features:

Creation of an original website design;
- automatic filling of the site with offers from tour operators;
- an interactive search system with the ability to search by country, type of tour, price, hotel category, date of arrival and tour order.
- an administrative interface that allows you to select offers from tour operators that will be displayed on the site;
- domain registration;
- email box;
- hotel database (www.turizm.ru), connected to the tour database;
- news feed controlled through a convenient interface with the ability to delete unwanted messages.

2. Package EXTRA includes package STANDARD, and also: section Special offer with the ability to select tours from the database through a convenient interface, an interface for manually filling out the tour database, an automatically updated section with weather at resorts and exchange rates.

3. Package SUPER includes package EXTRA and an automatically updated section with useful information (visas, air, etc.).

The next step in the development of the site could be linking it with a credit card payment system and an on-line booking system for tour operators.

When choosing on-line booking systems, it is necessary to compare their capabilities: how many operators are represented in the system, is it possible to display additional information (description of hotels, weather and exchange rates in the country of interest to the client), how often tour operator offers are updated.

The most striking indicator when choosing a system is the availability of already implemented sites based on similar technology.

Placing the company's website on the Internet. In order for a site to be “visible” on the Internet, it must be hosted on a web server - a computer that is constantly located on the Internet (a web server is also understood as a program that transmits information over the network to user computers).

Options for placing a website on the Internet:

1. The computer used as a web server is located in the company’s office. In this case, you can always quickly switch to other software, add or change server components. The disadvantage is the high cost of renting a dedicated channel, the need to have a high-performance computer, and to have a system administrator on staff to support the server.

2. Server space can be rented from a provider that provides high speed access to the server. In this case, he is also responsible for the problems of administering and protecting the server. The downside is that you only need to use software that your provider allows.

Many providers provide users with up to 5 MB of disk space free of charge, enough to create a small server. Examples of servers that provide this service for free: www.geosites.com, www.webjump.com, www.chat.ru, www.narod.ru.

You can place the home page of a travel company on one of the advertising travel servers for a fee. In this case, the server name on the network will look like this: www.glasnet.ru/yourfirm or www.tours.ru/solvex.

The server domain name can be registered with RosNIIROS (www.ripn.net) (in Russia) or with InterNIC (for *.com, *.org, *.net domains).

The registered name should be assigned to your directory on the Internet computer that is in your office or at your provider. The company's domain name is not registered on free servers.

When choosing a provider, you should decide who the site is intended for, i.e. determine your target audience by answering the questions:

What level of client income is your tourism product designed for?

1. If an exclusive product is offered, designed for clients with a high level of income, then in this case, high-quality design and ease of navigation are important for the site. The main thing is to bring the client to a manager who will serve him.
2. If the product is intended for middle-income customers looking for something cheaper, then they need to provide maximum information about the product, offer a large assortment of products and create a convenient search system. It should be remembered that the client does not like to wait until all the graphic elements that do not carry useful information are loaded. Before creating a website for such an audience, you need to decide what technologies should be used on the site, and find out whether these technologies are supported by the provider on whose Internet site you plan to host the site.

Where do your customers use the Internet (at work or at home)?

Using the Internet at work usually indicates that potential clients most often have a high-speed Internet channel and will be tolerant of the site taking a little longer to load than competitors' sites. This characteristic influences the decision on what technologies to create a site on, and has virtually no effect on the decision on which technical platform to host the site on.

Where are the bulk of your clients located geographically and where is the best place to place a website?

If a company is engaged in receiving foreigners in Russia, then it would be more appropriate for it to host a website on a technical platform in the USA or Europe.

The site owner needs to understand how seriously he needs to approach the software part of the site. There are two options:

A completely static site is a set of files posted on the Internet;
- use of a site content management system.

The first option implies that in order to change information on the server, you need to change the corresponding file and upload the changed version of the file to the server. Frequent changes to static sites, accompanied by their disconnection from the Internet, are not economically viable due to interruptions
in the operation of the site.

The second option suggests that the company purchases a content management system.

An intermediate option is to create a custom-made dynamic website. In this case, the company does not receive a full-fledged content management system, but only certain “smart” pages, the contents of which can be changed by a non-professional through a specially designed data management interface.

When choosing a website development option, it is possible to use ready-made travel applications provided by providers.

To make the site more interesting for customers, it should contain useful information relevant to the topic of the site (weather in the country being visited, a local currency conversion calculator, etc.). Such information can be obtained free of charge or on a paid basis from various specialized agencies.

When choosing a provider, you should study the services they provide:

Location of the provider's servers (which Internet channels are suitable for the provider's technical site, is there redundancy, protection from possible damage, accidents, etc.);
- technologies supported by the provider's software;
- whether the provider registers the domain name and to whom (to the company or to himself);
- does it provide mailboxes and how many?
- does it carry out backup data;
- how much disk space it provides (for a travel agency website you usually need from 5 to 50 MB).

Technical tools for website creation. The first versions of World Wide Web sites were sets of simple text pages formatted using a special language called Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML).

Currently widespread new model business, based on the use of ASP (Active Server Pages) technologies, and which allows you not to purchase information and technological resources as your own, but to rent them from an application service provider - ASP.

Application Service Providers host servers and network equipment on their premises, install application software, as well as monitoring and management software, and provide their customers with access to these tools, usually for a time-based fee.

The method of interaction between the application server located at the Provider and the user's client programs is either the Internet or dedicated channels.

Currently operating in rental mode software systems, requiring high-speed access for a wide range of visitors. Examples of such systems are e-commerce systems, virtual communities, and information support systems for distribution channels that do not carry out real financial transactions (for more details, see Section 3).

1.3.4. Technological solutions in attracting and servicing clients

Recently, Internet advertising in its effectiveness has come close to such advertising platforms as radio, TV, and print media. But it turns out that placing high-quality advertising on the Internet is not enough. It is important to interest the visitor who comes to the site with high-quality content of the resource; it is necessary to provide him with detailed information about resorts, hotels, visas, flights, accommodation conditions, prices and availability.

To promote a travel agency website, you can negotiate with tour operators to post information from their servers. In this case, the level of trust in the site and in the company as a whole in the eyes of the tourist will increase significantly. It is necessary to constantly monitor changes on operator websites and post them on your site. In addition, it is worth subscribing to the operators’ online newsletter and promptly posting the offers you receive on the Internet site.

Another way to fill your website with offers is to place a search engine of one of the travel search engines (www.tury.ru, www.foros.ru, etc.) on the website pages. In this case, site visitors, using the search form posted on the site, independently select a tour from a database containing more than 1 million regularly updated offers. Thus, the client, having visited the website, independently selects a suitable vacation option, and the travel agent will only have to book this tour with the operator.

Modern technologies are used to search for tours:

1. Travel search engines, with the help of which it is easy to choose a suitable tour for any client. By setting the necessary search criteria, you can receive offers from dozens of operators that meet the requirements of clients with a detailed description of the tour, list what is included in the price and what is paid additionally, and provide information on air travel.

These systems allow you to partially automate the work of the company, in particular, create and send an application to the operator, receive confirmation, generate reports, etc.

2. Tour operator booking systems. Each of these systems has its own characteristics, but they all serve the same purpose - to provide agencies with a self-booking tool.

To work with any of the booking systems, operators require the conclusion of an agreement, after which the agency receives a “name” and “password” to enter the system. Entry into the system is prohibited for outsiders! When you log in, you are given the opportunity to select a suitable tour and book it.

All reservation systems are divided into systems operating in on-line and off-line modes.

In on-line mode, all changes in the system occur in real time and all tourism products put into the system are in the operator’s quota. Popular on-line services provide weather information before purchasing any products with delivery. Travel agencies also use on websites paging and search engines, allowing you to search for tours.

Booking through the order basket: The travel agent navigates the site and works with price lists. In price lists, the price is a resource that can be added to the order basket. Having formed an order basket from various components (these can be either ready-made travel packages or individual services or service packages), these services can be booked. Using this booking option, it is convenient to organize the sale of ready-made package tours, as well as individual services.

Booking via dynamic price list: by entering the on-line booking menu, the travel agent sees the price list. Using a set of filters, you can select the desired tourist product, then click on the price you like and make a reservation. This option booking is popular for mass destinations (Turkey, Egypt, Cyprus, etc.). The number of steps in this booking option is a maximum of 3-4.

Booking a tour by selecting the best price, hotel, special offer, etc. Using this booking option, it is convenient to select a tour based on a set of search criteria, such as the name of the resort, hotel star rating, hotel service, meals, expected price range, etc.

Cruise booking. In order to correctly select and book a cruise, the client must receive a large amount of information - a description of the cruise company, the cruise ship itself, its schedule, prices for cabins, descriptions of cabins, penalties of cruise companies, etc.

Booking bus tours. Bus tours have their own specifics. As a rule, these are tours with complex routes in many cities and countries. In online booking of bus tours, it is necessary to show the exact route, the actual load of the vehicle, occupied/vacant seats, and who will be the neighbor - a man or a woman.

Booking services for sanatorium-resort and rehabilitation treatment. In such systems, the main thing is to carry out a qualified selection of a sanatorium according to medical indications and patient preferences. The selection is carried out by automated expert systems. To correctly select the object of sanatorium-resort and rehabilitation treatment, indicate a list of diseases, specific data about the patient (estimated time of treatment, place of residence, climate, etc.). To make a choice, the patient is provided with a large amount of medical information about sanatoriums. Once the choice is made, the booking process begins.

As a rule, tour operator reservation systems have a set of additional dynamic Web pages that allow you to view various operational information on-line: stop-sale lists, hotel availability, flight schedules and loading, work with booked tours.

Main types of reservation systems. There are the following main types of reservation systems:

- global reservation systems(Sabre, Galileo, Worldspan Amadeus);
- national (Russian) reservation systems(Siren, Express, Cypress, Avantix, Matisse, etc.);
- corporate reservation systems(Marriott Hotel, etc.);
- hotel broker booking systems(www.uts.com – representation of the largest hotel brokers, etc.);
- Internet booking systems(1001hotels.ru, www.alean.ru, etc.).

Global Distribution Systems. Global reservation systems, based on the worldwide integration of internal databases and accounting systems, are an association of hotels that independently provide information about themselves, indicate prices and availability using back offices installed in hotels or via the Internet. Thus, hotels become accessible to any Internet user, which increases their sales. When booking a service, the order will go directly to the service provider.

Characteristics of the main GDS:

SABER founded in 1964 by American Airlines, headquartered in Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA, staff - 6,500 people in 45 countries, resource - 420 airlines, 58,000 hotels, 53 car rental companies, 9 cruise and 33 railways, 232 tour operators, users - 60,000 travel agencies.

AMADEUS founded in 1987 by three major European airlines - Air France, Iberia, Lufthansa. Headquarters - Madrid, Spain (development office - Sophia Antipolis, Fraction, main computer - Erding, Germany), staff - 4250 people, resource - 470 airlines, 59600 hotels, 48 car rental companies, all major cruises, railways roads, ferries, insurance companies and hundreds of tour operators, users - more than 70,000 travel agencies and airline counters. It has been present on the Russian market since 1964 and has representative offices in a number of cities. The “AMADEUS” system presents the resources of providers “AVIA”, “HOTELS”, “CARS”, “INSURANCE”.

GALILEO founded in 1987, Owners: Air Lingus, Air Canada, Alitalia, Austrian Airlines, British Airways, KLM, Olympic Airways, Swissair, TAP Air Portugal, United Airlines and US Airways, headquartered in Parsippany, New Jersey, USA , staff - 3,000 people in 116 countries, resource - 500 airlines, 51,000 hotels, 31 car rental companies, all major cruise companies, 430 tour operators, users - 47,000 travel agencies. Since 1999, GALILEO has opened its own representative office in Russia. Users of this system are more than 200 Russian travel agencies, 80% of them are Moscow agencies.

WORLDSPAN founded in 1991 as a result of the merger of the DATA II computer reservation system (owner - Delta Air Lines and PARS (owners - Trans World Airlines), headquarters - Atlanta, Georgia, USA, staff - 3000 people in 50 countries of the world, resource - about 400 airlines, about 50,000 hotels, car rental companies, all major cruise companies, the largest American tour operators, users - about 20,000 travel agencies.

Most GDSs provide an Internet interface to their databases.

Russian reservation systems. In Russia there are a number of domestic reservation systems that are used in the tourism business.

Siren reservation system. The first domestic automated airline ticket reservation system “Sirena” was developed by scientists of the USSR Academy of Sciences and specialists from the Min-pribor in 1972. It ensured minimization of the time of orders and issuance of air tickets, which made it possible to significantly improve the quality of customer service. In 1999, the Sirena-3 air ticket booking system appeared. The Sirena-3 drive is designed for terabytes (1000 GB) of information, which is higher than the storage capacity of most foreign reservation systems. The system hardware was supplied by IBM, and from a technical point of view, the Sirena-3 reservation system is fully consistent with the level of modern European computing systems.

System complex "Alean". The Alean software package is a computer system for booking and selling tours in real time. It consists of an information retrieval system (IRS) and a booking and sales system (SBP) for tourism services. The complex offers long-term information about the availability of the actual number of places at accommodation facilities, the terms of booking and payment, allows you to confirm the order and arrange the purchase and sale of various tourist services.

The Alean system provides information both directly about holiday homes and sanatoriums, and about large tour operators. The system database contains descriptions and photographs of more than 600 objects located in Moscow, Moscow region, Krasnodar Territory, Crimea, Caucasian Mineralnye Vody, Czech Republic, etc. The system allows you to view sales prices for accommodation objects and provides access to the server of the company selling services. Places in the system are reserved either with a guaranteed quota or upon request. The first ones can be booked without confirmation and immediately receive an application, invoice and voucher. The latter require confirmation and are first placed on a waiting list, and after checking the availability of available seats, the system confirms or cancels the reservation, usually informing the client by email.

Unified computer system for booking tour packages "MegaTIS". Developed jointly by Megatech and SFT (Financial Telecommunications Society). The MegaTIS system allows you to obtain complete descriptions of tours, information about the climate, customs and traditions of countries, provide a selection based on specific requests (resort, hotel category, length of stay, price, etc.) and book in real time by contacting a specific travel agency, as well as search for partners. MegaTIS regulates the response time to the client and guarantees a response within the day.

The system is aimed at promoting tourism products, not specific companies. It presents tours only from tour operators, so that the client can first choose a tour, and then the travel agency that implements it. Information about tours is transferred to the MegaTIS system directly from the Master-Tour office program, which is used by more than half of the largest Russian tour operators.

Tour order system of VAO "Intourist". If you have access to the Internet, the system provides online ordering of tours. If there is no Internet access, then Intourist offers to connect to the intranet network of VAO Intourist. Thus, by telephone via a modem you can access the “Tour Order System”, and through the local network of “Intourist” you can view orders without a password, as well as issue vouchers, invoices, vouchers using standard document forms.

If there are free seats (on sale status), the system immediately confirms the order and automatically reduces the number of remaining seats. If a package is on sale and is booked, then the order receives the status of MG (seats are guaranteed), and after payment for the tour - the status of MP (seats are confirmed). The system processes the order in 2–5 seconds, while manual processing of the booking order by the dispatcher takes about 2–4 hours.

Booking system of the company "Natalie-Tours". One of the pioneers in introducing its own electronic booking system on the Russian market is the well-known Russian operator Natalie-Tours (www.natalie-tours.ru). To book tours, the agency must register and receive the so-called agency code and password. Many Natalie-Ture agencies work with tour operators via the Internet. The system processes the application online. The client or agency books a tour, receives confirmation and an invoice, which can be paid in cash or by bank transfer. In addition, online you can track the status of payment, readiness of visas, issuance of air tickets, etc. However, the system does not provide separate booking of air tickets. This tour booking system is distinguished by the fact that the possibility of booking services on-line is actually implemented for both the agency and the end user.

Booking system "Academservice". In the Academservice VHI tour booking system (hotels.acase.ru), you can get information about countries, cities, hotels online, select and order a tour, the cost of which is calculated according to specified parameters. At the same time, information about the actual number of seats is displayed on the screen. All bookings are tracked by a special operator and entered into an internal common database. In a few minutes you can receive an order confirmation with an automatic reduction in the quota of seats. Above the quota provided by hotels, bookings are made upon request, i.e. the order is confirmed during the day. Currently, about 300 hotels are available for booking in the system. Payment is made in cash at the central office and in the offices of authorized agencies or by bank transfer with an invoice. The booking system is carried out off-line, since the buyer must wait for confirmation and then, upon payment, receive a voucher. When booking air tickets, the order is confirmed within 24 hours, and payment must be made within 48 hours.

Reservation system "Cypress". In 2000, the Sochi Resort Association (SKO) introduced its own Cypress reservation system. The server was developed by St. Petersburg by Digital Design. The purpose of creating the system is to organize a clear mechanism for reserving places and services, providing opportunities to quickly search for suitable offers and book places. The Cypress reservation system allows you to reserve places in eight sanatoriums of the city (Sochi, Kras-mashevsky, Rossiya, Aurora, Dawns of Russia, Neva, Izvestia, Southern Beach). It is planned to expand the site database to 25 objects.

Reservation system of the company "Europe-2000". The reservation system of the company "Europe-2000" (www.uae.ru) also works off-line, and most reservations are made by fax or e-mail. Data on electronic reservations are transferred to the general application database, and the company is sent confirmation of receipt of the reservation by fax indicating the cost of the trip and payment terms. It is also possible to obtain information about the availability of hotel rooms. As a percentage, Internet bookings account for about 5% of the total volume.

Telecommunication network RusNet. The RusNet telecommunications network was developed taking into account the capabilities of domestic means of communication and is aimed at both tour operators and travel agents. Network functionality includes the following:

Implementation of tours;
- sale of last-minute tours, air tickets, hotel rooms;
- implementation of mutual settlements using the Escrow system;
- implementation of various insurance opportunities;
- conducting an advertising campaign and marketing the tourism services market;
- providing the user with fax-modem communication with almost the whole world and providing e-mail services.

This network is supported by the international insurance company INKO, NPP Infocomservice and the Russian Association of Independent Tour Operators (RANT).

Reservation systems of the largest operators. Each tour operator (TO) has an internal database where data on the availability of purchased seats is stored. Thanks to direct contracts with hotels, constant turnover and the purchase of blocks of places, hotels give TO a commission of up to 70% of the initial price. Maintenance booking systems are their internal databases posted on the Internet. By booking a room in the TO system, the client reserves one of the places already purchased by the tour operator from the hotel.

The systems of wholesale operators (brokers) contain the following main blocks: an information database of services offered for sale, current information on availability, the possibility of instant booking, accounting.

The main difference between broker systems and GDS is the different approaches to the tourism market and its participants. GDSs were created primarily to serve the interests of service owners. The mission of brokers is to provide the minimum price on the market, which reflects the interests of tour operators and travel agencies.

Brokers have enormous purchasing power and receive conditions that are unique in the market. Negotiators are the core of such companies, specializing in finding personalized approaches to hotels and transport companies.

Brokers' contract prices reach up to 10% of official hotel prices. Thus, even taking into account the interests of tour operators buying from brokers and their travel agencies, the cost for the client is 60-70% lower than the official price of the hotel. Example: MIKI Travel (www.mikitravel.net) is one of the largest wholesale operators in the world.

Broker systems, inferior to GDS in the air transportation market and in information support, turned out to be more competitive in the area of comprehensiveness of service.

The main advantages of the largest hotel brokers over GDS are mobility in payments, the ability to provide visa support and comprehensive support for tourists in the host country.

Corporate booking systems, uniting hotels on the principle of joining consortia and hotel groups, operate according to independently developed programs. Leading Russian tour operators ( Neva, Natali-tour, Tez-tour etc.) are used to connect to corporate systems B2B booking system ( Business-to-business), developed for the interaction of tour operators with travel agents.

Examples of systems.

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Site view	Advantages	Flaws
Business card	Simple technology and low cost of creation	Lack of detailed information about offers and tours, which often plays a decisive role in consumer choice
Business card	No need for regular updates	Lack of feedback
Web showcase		Higher price for website creation
	Availability of operational information about available places	The need for regular updating and monitoring
		The need to employ a qualified specialist
"Turrent" system- tour operator"	Full automation of all business processes for the implementation of tours	High initial cost of website development
	Possibility of prompt interaction with travel agents, including prompt delivery of information about availability, etc.	Lack of established business processes
		High requirements for automation of the travel agent workplace
		The need for mandatory regular system updates