Design and Implementation of an Integrated Multimedia Tourism System
Chapter One
Aims/Objectives of the study
The following are the objectives of the study;
- Conducting Tourism Information Management
- Being Able to Produce a Comprehensive Thematic Map
- Providing multimedia information about tourist sites
- Providing References for the Tourism Development
CHAPTER TWO
Introduction
This chapter is concerned with the review of related literature, the contributions of other researchers is examined in this chapter. It looks at:
- The definition of tourism
- Etymology of tourism
- World tourism statistics
- The impact of tourism
- The Impact of Multimedia Geographic Information System in Tourism
- The existing problems of GIS applied to tourism management and the GIS application prospects
DEFINITION OF TOURISM
Tourism is the travel for recreation, leisure, religious, family business purposes, usually of a limited duration. Tourism is commonly associated with trans-national travel, but may also refer to travel to another location within the same country. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people “traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes”.
Tourism has become a popular global leisure activity. Tourism can be domestic or international, and international tourism has both incoming and outgoing implications on a country’s balance of payments. Today, tourism is a major source of income for many countries, and affects the economy of both the source and host countries, in some cases it is of vital importance.
Tourism suffered as a result of a strong economic slowdown of the late-2000s recession, between the second half of 2008 and the end of 2009, and the outbreak of the H1N1 influenza virus. It then slowly recovered, with international tourist arrivals surpassed the milestone 1 billion tourists globally for first time in history in 2012. International tourism receipts (the travel item of the balance of payments) grew to US$1.03 trillion (€740 billion) in 2011, corresponding to an increase in real terms of 3.8% from 2010. In 2012, China became the largest spender in international tourism globally with US$102 billion, surpassing Germany and United States. China and emerging markets significantly increase their spending over the past decade, with Russia and Brazil as noteworthy examples.
ETYMOLOGY
William F.Theobald (1994) suggested that “etymologically, the word tour is derived from the Latin, ‘tornare’ and the Greek, ‘tornos’, meaning ‘a lathe or circle; the movement around a central point or axis’. This meaning changed in modern English to represent ‘one’s turn’. The suffix –ism is defined as ‘an action or process; typical behaviour or quality’, while the suffix, –ist denotes ‘one that performs a given action’. When the word tour and the suffixes –ism and –ist are combined, they suggest the action of movement around a circle. One can argue that a circle represents a starting point, which ultimately returns back to its beginning. Therefore, like a circle, a tour represents a journey in that it is a round-trip, i.e., the act of leaving and then returning to the original starting point, and therefore, one who takes such a journey can be called a tourist.”
Today, three schools discuss on the roots of tourism. The French School, led by A. Houlot argued that the term tourism comes from the old Aramaic Tur, which was used for the trip, exploration and movement of people in the Bible. This word had been used, for the first time, when Moses begins his expedition to the lands of Canaán. Nevertheless, another school of thought – the Onomastic School – considers the origin of the concept not from a linguistic perspective but rather links it to the last name of the French aristocracy Della Tour. According to this school, after Carlos V signs a treaty with England in 1516, in celebration of this event, the future king gives the Della Tour family exclusive rights to conduct commercial transport and related businesses. Last but not least, a third school focuses on the Anglo-Saxon world, situating the Theobald´s development under the lens of scrutiny. Surmising that the roots of the word tourism comes from the Ancient Anglo-Saxon term Torn, these scholars found evidence to think the term was coined in the 12th century which by farmers to denote those travels with intentions to return. Over centuries, the meaning of the word has been shifted to be politically adopted. By the middle of the 18th century, the English noblemen used the term “turn” to refer to the trips undertaken for education, search and culture exploration. In reality, the purpose of the noblemen’s trip to the different parts of Kingdom was to acquire knowledge that was later useful for governing.
CHAPTER THREE
SYSTEM ANALYSIS AND DESIGN
Introduction
This chapter takes an overviews on the system design and the entire research work, it is important to note that a poorly designed system will equally produce an incorrect output as such this chapter presents a skeletal approach to the design of the entire system.
Research Methodology
A software development methodology or system development methodology is a frame work that is used to structure, plan and control the process of developing an information system. The methodology employed for the development of the system is the spiral development. The spiral development model comprises the elements of both design and prototyping. The model has four stages namely:
- Planning
- Analysis
- Evaluation
- Development
The data used for the development of the research was gotten from the internet, textbooks and articles. The contributions of other researchers on the subject were examined so as to gather relevant information.
System Analysis
System analysis has to do with examining a system in order to understand its step by step operations so as to identify its benefits and areas of limitation that require improvements.
Analysis of the existing system
In the existing system, tourism is done manually. A typical example is that if a tourist comes in to Nigeria, he will need to ask people so many questions in order to know his way about.
CHAPTER FOUR
SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION AND DOCUMENTATION
Introduction
This chapter presents the system flow chart, analysis of modules, choice of programming language and programming environment.
CHAPTER FIVE
Introduction
This chapter focuses on summary, conclusion and recommendations.
Here, the entire summary of the research from the problem stage to the implementation stage, the relevant conclusion and recommendations are discussed.
Constraints of the Study
The problems encountered during the course of carrying out this research project include:
- Time: Time for the research project was too short coupled with researcher’s academic time table.
- Fund:There was limited fund to take care of the research properly in terms of transportation and other expenses especially when visiting attraction sites.
- Research Materials: Lack of access to research materials on the topic in the polytechnic library and even public libraries were also major constraint in the cause of this project.
Summary
Implementation of an integrated multimedia information system for tourism has been carried out with an embedded GIS feature.
The manual method of discovering and visiting attraction sites has been so stressful, time consuming and always at a high cost. The new system would be very easy to use because of its accuracy and reliability. Information about tourist sites can be promptly assessed easily.
Conclusion
All kinds of information in different environments are needed in information systems which are created with a definite theme. For example, map information, a photo or video images are needed. Also the accuracy, reliability and update of these data are important. Otherwise, it may be difficult to make correct decisions. Multimedia Geographic Information System of tourist sites in Akwa ibom was produced in this application. Through MMGIS, domestic and foreign tourists are able to access to all kinds of information multimedia-assisted. As well as map and attribute data, multimedia data are also added to Geographic Information Systems. Multimedia data incorporate variation, visualization and reality into GIS.
Recommendations
Having designed, tested and implemented the new system, the following must be put in place to fully achieve the objective of which the software is designed.
- Maintenance: The system needs to be maintained. This implies that any fault detected should be reported to the programmer for correction at any point in time.
- Internet Connection: The system needs to be connected to the internet before the user can access the features of the software.
- Research: More research should be conducted on the topic to assess it effectively.
REFERENCES
- Chen, R. J. C., “Geographic information systems (GIS) applications in retail tourism and teaching curriculum”, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 289-295, 2007. Choi, J. Y., J. H. Jung, S. Park, H. J. Shin, and B. M. Chang, “A Smart Location-Aware Application
- for Bus Guide based on GPS”, International Journal of Information Processing and Management, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 101-108, 2011.
- Huang, M. L. and J. H. Hong, “A Geospatial Service Approach towards the Development of a
- Debris Flow Early-warning Systems”, Advances in Information Sciences and Service Sciences, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 107-117, 2010.
- De-hui Liu, “The application of GIS in tourism: discussion on tourism GIS and its research development and prospect,” Geomatics & Spatial Information Technology, vol. 31, no. 1, pp. 90-95, February 2008.
- Hua-long Zhao, “GIS and its Application in Tourism Management,” Journal of Science of Teachers’ College and University, vol. 27, no. 3, pp.21, May 2007.
