Best Practices Regarding the Use of Electronic Environment for Romanian Tourism Development
Author:Irina Maiorescu, Mihai Teodor Negrea, Dorin Vicențiu Popescu and Gabriel Cristian Sabou
JEL:L83, L86, M390, O33
DOI:
Keywords:Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), eTourism, GIS
applications, best practices, tourists’ behaviour.
Abstract:
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) plays an important role in all sectors of
activity, hence in tourism sector too. Starting from this fact, authors consider as important
identifying and implementing best practices in electronic environment for sustainable
development of tourism in Romania. Traditional tourism - implying at all stages specialized
human support – knows profound modifications. Today, current statistics show that more
and more people dive into virtual environment for visualizing new places and finding out
new information, for cross border business meetings, for entertainment as well as for
communication. Hence, the current paper – presenting the results of a complex quantitative
research, aims to discuss about the influence of virtual environment upon tourism in what
concerns informing, planning and organizing a trip. The obtained results led towards
recommendations for developing ICT facilities, especially for business tourism, for an
extensive use of web-GIS applications during the three phases of travel, for improving
infrastructure and mobile applications, especially for young people, as well as for
implementing digital systems that investigate tourists’ behaviour and personalize tourism
offers. The final purpose of the paper is to contribute to the development of best practices
that lead to economic growth in tourism, by quantifying the impact of electronic
environment upon visiting experiences.