LOCATION-BASED SERVICES IN THE TOURIST INDUSTRY - Semantic Scholar
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Information Technology & Tourism, Vol. 5 pp. 243–256 1098-3058/03 $20.00 + .00
Printed in the USA. All rights reserved. Copyright © 2003 Cognizant Comm. Corp.
www.cognizantcommunication.com
LOCATION-BASED SERVICES IN THE TOURIST INDUSTRY
STEFAN BERGER,* HANS LEHMANN,† and FRANZ LEHNER*
*University of Regensburg, Germany
†University of Auckland, New Zealand
Mobile services available on mobile devices such as mobile phones and personal digital assistants are
a suitable instrument for spontaneous, ad hoc access to information travelers need while being on the
move. The supply of mobile services with specific relevance to the traveler is already well developed.
Mobile services allow to book last-minute trips, rental cars, and hotels; they provide information
about changes and delays of flights and trains, and offer guides on restaurants, events, and sightseeing
opportunities at the destination. This article shows that integrating location-based services (LBS)
creates additional value for most of theses products or services. LBS are applications of mobile tech-
nology that utilize the information about the location of their user. The four primary functions of LBS
for the traveler are: (1) localization of persons, objects, and places, (2) routing between them, (3)
search for objects in proximity such as restaurants, shops, hotels, or sights, and (4) information about
traveling conditions, such as traffic-related data.
Location-based services Mobile technology applications Mobile computing
Tourism services
Introduction technology is widely acknowledged (Werthner,
2000). Mobile information and communication
Together with health and information, tourism is technologies (ICT) play a special role because
still one of the fastest growing sectors of developed they allow a number of new services that the trav-
economies. According to statistics of the World Tour- eler can use while on the move (Schmidt-Belz et
ism Organization (WTO), last year there were 700 al., 2002). A specific class of these services are
million border-crossing travelers. Their numbers are location-based services (LBS), which use the in-
expected to grow to 1.6 billion by 2020. In Germany formation on the user’s current location (Francica,
alone, expenditure for tourism amounts to US$47.6 2002; Zipf, 2002). The content of the service or
billion (WTO, 2001). application is then customized to the specific lo-
Tourism is an industry with high information cation. This uses the spatial dimension of the
intensity and the value of its use of information mobility factor.
Address correspondence to Stefan Berger, Department of Business Informatics III, P. O. Box, D-93040 Regensburg, Germany. Tel:
++49-941-943-3207; Fax: ++49-941-943-3211; E-mail: stefan.berger@wiwi.uni-regensburg.de
243244 BERGER, LEHMANN, AND LEHNER
Occasionally, LBS are labeled the “killer appli- There is a number of different delivery agents for
cation” of the near future (e-Trend Media Consult- the services in each of the links or stages of travel:
ing, 2002). While such prognoses should be treated
with caution, they may well be of special impor- • Travel agents, travel organizers provide infor-
tance for tourism because of their potential to add mation and carry out bookings.
real value for the traveler, as the authors will show • Transport can be via the travelers’ own means
further on. This article describes the results of a study (car, etc.), hired but self-driven (i.e. car rental
evaluating mobile services for travelers in Germany. companies), or third-party transport by airlines,
First, however, the value chain in the tourism indus- railways, ships, etc.
try is examined to determine which LBS already exist • Accommodation is provided by hotels and other
throughout the industry. This is followed by a short accommodation services, such as guesthouses
discussion of the technology used for LBS and a (bed & breakfasts), and hostels.
more detailed comment on its usage potential for • At the destination are local branches of larger
the end user (i.e., the tourist). The article concludes travel organizations, travel guides, local gov-
by pointing out where future research should focus. ernment tourist offices, etc.
Mobile Services for Travelers The larger travel companies (such as Preussag
Touristik in Germany) are active during all stages of
This section starts with an overview of typical
the value chain.
components a journey includes (in the text these
The travel process requires a high degree of infor-
components are referred as the “value chain” of the
mation during all stages of the value chain. Travel
product “travel”). The mobile services will be cat-
agents offer information by catalogues, via the
egorized on the basis of these components. The ar-
Internet, television, and also by personal consultations
ticle follows on with a brief analysis of the potential
to assist the planning of journeys and make the nec-
for adding value with LBS for each component.
essary bookings. If air travel is the chosen kind of
Additional information about the value chain of tour-
“transport,” a check-in process is needed, and travel-
ism is provided in Dettmer (2001).
ers must be provided with information about delays
and changes to their flights. At the destination infor-
The Tourism Value Chain
mation about the availability of accommodation is
“Travel” as a product is heterogeneous to a large required either to find a place to stay or to make
extent. At first business and private travel need to be changes to reservations. Furthermore, information is
separated. Each of those, in turn, can either be orga- needed about available entertainment possibilities,
nized by the travelers themselves or by travel agents current events, restaurants, and sightseeing opportu-
or travel organizers. While these kinds of travel are nities. Information and communication technologies
different, especially with regard to the needs of the that are not limited to a permanent situation are well
travelers, the links in the value chain are largely simi- suited for all these requirements, especially when they
lar for all of them. They are: planning/booking, trans- can even be used when the traveler is physically mov-
port, accommodation, and, finally, information and ing. This supports spontaneous decision making and
support at the destination (Ludwig, 2000). The value makes traveling more flexible (Schmidt-Belz et al.,
chain is shown in Figure 1. 2002). A number of such mobile services are already
Information/ Transport Accommodation Destination/
Booking Information
Figure 1. Value chain of tourism.LBS IN THE TOURISM INDUSTRY 245
available for tourists. In a first step the portals of all ets, and all-inclusive travel arrangements either at
German mobile network operators (T-Mobile, the usual rate or special offers, “last minute” deals.
Vodafone, Viag Interkom) and the mobile portals of They are often augmented with additional services
Lycos, Jamba, and Yahoo were scanned to find rel- such as city guides or “event” travel. The structure
evant services related to tourism. In the next para- of the WAP service of Lastminute.com is used to
graphs some of them for each component of the prod- demonstrate this (Fig. 2).
uct “travel” will be examined as an example. The functionality of mobile services in the plan-
ning and booking sector is thus somewhat small and
Mobile Services for Planning/Booking limited. The reason for this is probably the complex-
ity of travel as a “product,” which makes customers
Most travel agents use a number of different chan-
prefer the personal advice and contact of the tradi-
nels for the information about their products and for
tional travel agency “experience.” Moreover, com-
the distribution of their products and services. The
pared with using a travel agent or the Internet, book-
traditional channels are the travel agents’ offices and
ing travel is difficult on a mobile handset due to a
shops, their Internet presence, and advertisements
number of technical restrictions—and often not nec-
on television and other public media. More recently,
essary, because planning and booking happens
information dissemination over mobile handsets is
mostly before the traveler is physically on the move.
beginning to be included as a separate channel by
The fact that most of the time mobility is not an es-
some travel companies. During the euphoria about
sential requirement for the planning and booking
the dominant role of electronic commerce, numer-
process it is not likely that there will be significant
ous prognoses were made about the future of the
improvements to the limited functionality of mobile
distribution landscape in the tourist industry, nearly
technology applications in the near future.
uniform in their forecast of drastically reduced rev-
enues of travel agents and the hypergrowth of direct
Mobile Services in the Transport Phase
distribution via electronic media (Muntzke & Finke,
2000). The tourist industry disputed these forecasts Mobile services in this phase are directed towards
(Computerwoche, 2001) and they have not come the traveler already on the move, either to or from
true, at least not so far. On the contrary, the last few his destination or within the destination. The advan-
years have seen a positive revenue development of tage of mobile technology here is that the handsets
traditional travel agencies whereas the share of are easy to carry and that they have seen a rapid
Internet direct bookings has been static at around extension of their coverage area over the last few
2.1% of all travel bookings in Europe, and this is years (i.e., where they can be used). This makes them
well below expectations (Schäfer, 2001). an easily available source of information that is rel-
Despite the low Internet revenue overall, however, evant for travelers. Services in this area are mainly
a number of travel agencies, mostly those with an offered by transport providers such as airlines or
already existing, sophisticated Internet presence, railways. Examples of such services in Germany are
have started to offer mobile access to their informa- the Deutsche Bahn (wap.bahn.de) and a number of
tion, using the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP). local transport companies, Lufthansa (wap.
They include: lufthansa.de) and car rental companies such as Sixt
(wap.sixt.de).
• Lastminute.com (wap.lastminute.com) The railways together with a rail logistics com-
• Thomas Cook (wap.thomascook.com) pany developed a timetable system that also includes
• wwwtravel (wap.mreise.de; or wap.mflug.de local transport companies. The system has so far
specifically for flights) been installed in seven European railways. It pro-
• Nix-wie-weg (wap.nix-wie-weg.de) vides information about the connection between
• Ebookers (wap.ebookers.de) 320,000 stations in Germany and 50,000 in the rest
of Europe. Access to the information happens via
The WAP offers of the travel agencies are all some- WAP or the Short Message Service (SMS) for cel-
what similar. Usually they offer flights, hotels, tick- lular phones. Offline access for personal digital as-246 BERGER, LEHMANN, AND LEHNER
Day
Airport
Destination
Offers
- Africa
- Asia List of Offers
- BritishAirways Exclusive
- Europe
- Carribbean
- Lufthansa Specials
- Flights - South America Date
- USA & Canada
- Hotels
- Orient
Destination
- Tickets
- Astron Hotels
- Weekend Offers
- Trips
- Sun & Beach
- Steigenberger
- Events List of Offers
- Classic, Opera & Ballett
- Rock & Pop
- Specials & Events
- Theatre
Date
- City Trips
- Exclusive & Exotic
Destination
- Spring Break
- Countryside
- Ski & Fun Offers
- Sun & Beach
List of Offers
Date
Destination
Offers
List of Offers
Figure 2. WAP service of Lastminute.com.LBS IN THE TOURISM INDUSTRY 247
sistants (PDAs) has been added recently (HaCon, more suited to electronic distribution. However, the
2002). Using the service is very similar to the Internet question if booking over the phone at a call center is
version and therefore relatively intuitive. Figure 3 not easier and more comfortable for the customer
shows the sequence for a WAP-capable mobile de- still remains.
vice and also for a “Smartphone” with a bigger dis-
play. Mobile Services in Accommodation
A number of airlines have made their arrival and
The services in the area of accommodation are
departure information available. Some of them also
mostly mobile offers of large international interme-
offer additional services such as notifications about
diaries who have a large number of hotel chains and
flight changes (e.g., Air Canada) or offer check-in
individual hotels on their electronic “book.” Ex-
via WAP (e.g., Lufthansa). As yet, no airline offers
amples are:
online mobile bookings, probably because booking
in the traditional way or over the Internet is com-
• HRS, Hotel Reservation Service (wap.hrs.com)
paratively simpler (Rogl, 2001).
• Hotelguide (wap.hotelguide.com)
Car rental companies like Sixt and Europcar were
• Bedhunter.com (wap.bedhunter.com)
some of the pioneers of reservation and booking via
mobile services among transport companies. In the
They all offer online inquiry for room availability
SMS version of their—very similar—service the
and sometimes reservation functionality. The search
customer phones the call center some 4 hours be-
for a room happens in a number of steps. After the
fore the time the car is needed and makes the reser-
country and city/town has been chosen, the selec-
vation in person. Confirmation of the reservation is
tion of hotels can be limited by a number of criteria
sent to the customer’s mobile phone via SMS. It
such as category of hotel, type of room, price, etc.
contains a code with which the customer can retrieve
Then the selected hotel can be phoned from the WAP
the car keys from an automated safe. In the WAP
device to carry on with the booking. At the Bedhunter
version the whole booking process can be carried
service the customer can continue to make a con-
out over the mobile device. Car rental companies,
firmed reservation by transmitting a credit card num-
of course, take advantage of the fact that cars are
ber. However, the Bedhunter services have a self-
well-known standardized commodities and don’t
imposed rule that any WAP reservation must be
need explanation and/or negotiation as individual
totally completed within 3 minutes—otherwise a call
travel plans or airline itineraries. This makes cars
to the call center would be faster for the customer
(Rogl, 2001).
Mobile Services for Information/Support
at the Destination
There is an enormous amount of mobile informa-
tion services with at least some relevance for the
traveler. First there are city guides, such as the “Max
CityGuide.” This contains voluminous information
on 31 cities worldwide, of which 10 are in Germany
and 16 more in Europe. For each city there are in-
formation modules about hotels, cultural events,
nightlife, restaurants, shopping, sightseeing, and
sport, with many more subdivisions (Fig. 4). The
service works interactively for WAP-capable mobile
devices and in download mode for PDAs. At present
the service is limited, though, to static information.
Dynamic content such as theater, concert programs,
Figure 3. WAP-enabled timetable system. or ticket availability is not yet available.248 BERGER, LEHMANN, AND LEHNER Figure 4. Screen shots of Max CityGuide. Some tourist regions offer similar information machine (ATM) with wap.forium.de (in Germany), services (e.g., www.istra.com/wap). Furthermore, and any number of restaurant guides are available weather forecasts (e.g., wap.wetteronline.de in Ger- for the public at large, but can well be of specific many), searching for the nearest automated teller relevance for travelers and tourists. Other tourist-
LBS IN THE TOURISM INDUSTRY 249
related service providers are the towns and cities This result points strongly to the conclusion that
themselves, some museums, and especially trade fair it is those services that provide information about
organizers who offer maps and additional geographi- travel and condition that are considered useful.
cal information, usually in download mode for Transactions are less in demand. This underlines
PDAs. Not only can such information be more up to the medium-related advantage of mobile technol-
date than printed material, but, as it is especially ogy: it is spread widely, is simple to use, and it can
useful for the customer on the move, mobile tech- be carried easily. Therefore, it is a suitable instru-
nology can add significant value here. ment for spontaneous, ad hoc access to informa-
tion while being on the move. When it comes to
Demand and Use of Mobile Services carrying out travel-related transactions such as
planning and booking, the other channels (personal
As the previous sections have shown, the supply
contact, call centers, Internet) are more appropri-
of mobile services with specific relevance to the trav-
ate to deal with the higher complexity and signifi-
eler is already quite well developed and the amount
cant communication requirements inherent in the
of services available means that the list of examples
travel “product.” Technical restrictions such as
could be considerably extended. In this section the
small displays and narrow bandwidth are an addi-
actual use of the services by tourists and other trav-
tional disadvantage of mobile devices concerning
elers is examined.
travel transactions. The next section deals with the
A survey of 35,000 people (Connect, 2001) in
technologies used for localizing users in a mean-
Germany contained, among others, questions about
ingful and useful way.
the best WAP pages for travelers. Information ser-
vices took the top ranks, as shown in Table 1.
First rank went to the ADAC (the main German Location and Service Utility
automobile association), which offers information
LBS, as explained above, is a category of services
about traffic jams and other traffic-related topics as
where the current geographical position of the user
well as route planning. The information sites of the
is an essential factor that influences the content of
German Railway and of Lufthansa follow. Max
the service in each individual case. The geographi-
CityGuide has emerged as the most preferred city
cal or spatial dimension (manifested in such con-
guide. “Clever Tanken,” a specialist database service
cepts as position, target or destination, route) is an
with local petrol prices was the first of the providers
important aspect of everyday decision making. The
with more dynamic content. Falk is a provider of city
decision to go to a cinema or a restaurant normally
maps. Only 20% of the surveyed mobile users ranked
includes the current position as a decision criteria.
car rental and hotel services as significantly useful.
This way of thinking in spatial dimensions renders
the current position as a natural basis for a number
of services (Eriksson, 2002). It is important to note
Table 1
that position information is not used in the form of
WAP Services for Travelers
coordinates, but as more concrete geographical iden-
% of Users Who Ranked tification points such as addresses or street names
Mobile Service This Service as Useful (International Organization for Standardization,
ADAC 33
2001). This is necessary to make the information a
Deutsche Bahn 12 useful context for the (human) user.
Lufthansa 10 The basis of LBS is the technologies that enable
Max CityGuide 9
Clever Tanken 8
the establishment of the current position of a mo-
Falk 7 bile device. While a very detailed treatment is pro-
Europcar 4 vided in Hjelm (2002), Roth (2002) and Lehner
Passo 4
Sixt 4
(2001), a short overview of the two main types of
Hoteldirect 4 localization technology is given below. They differ
Bedhunter 2 depending on whether the necessary measurements
Tourisline 2
are carried out in the network or in the device.250 BERGER, LEHMANN, AND LEHNER
Network-Based Localization Technologies. In this (such as Germany). In the following paragraphs three
mode the position of the device is determined by methods, namely Enhanced Observed Time Differ-
measurements and calculations carried out by the ence (E-OTD), Assisted GPS (A-GPS), and local-
network computers. This has the advantage that once ization via infrared, are described briefly.
this technology is implemented, it is simultaneously In the E-OTD method the position of a mobile
available to all the mobile devices connected to the device is obtained by a triangulation over three base
network, without the need for changes to the de- stations. The device measures the time for the sig-
vices themselves. Customers can use the service nals it receives from three different transmission
immediately and complete market penetration for antennae. Because the transmission time schedules
the LBS service can be achieved instantly. However, for each antennae are known precisely, the device
the disadvantage of these technologies is that the can calculate the distances to these. Because it also
position so determined is often imprecise. In the knows the exact location of the antennae, it can
following paragraphs a brief explanation of the more “draw” circles around each mast whose radii are the
common network-based technologies is given. calculated distances. The area where the three circles
The Cell-Id method uses the “Cell Global Iden- overlap must then contain the position of the de-
tity” (CGI), which is the unique identifier of the net- vice. This is shown in Figure 6.
work cell—or a sector of one—into which the mo- In the A-GPS method the mobile network en-
bile is currently logged in. Figure 5 demonstrates hances a localization in which the global position-
cells and cell sectors, each of which has a CGI. ing system (GPS) is used. GPS is a system of 24
This method is the cheapest of the common tech- satellites on six orbits around the globe. It is main-
nologies described here and is subsequently the one tained by the US for military purposes, but can also
most often used. It is, however, also the most impre- be used for civilian purposes.
cise localization method, because cells have at least To be able to use this method, the device must be
a radius of 100 m in urban centers. This radius can capable of receiving the GPS signal, which contains
increase to 35 km in rural or remote areas, which is a very precise timestamp and the current position of
a degree of imprecision unacceptable for some LBS. the satellite. Triangulation of the signals from at least
Measuring the distance to the nearest transmission four satellites is used to calculate the device’s posi-
antenna is then used to estimate the local position of tion with good precision. The satellite signals are rela-
the mobile device more precisely. tively weak, however, so that reception in buildings
or densely built-up areas is often impaired or even
Device-Based Technologies. The advantage of impossible. In addition, it sometimes can take some
these technologies, where the estimation of the lo- time before the device can locate four satellites above
cal position is carried out by the device itself, is their the horizon. For these reasons, data from the mobile
superior precision. However, this can only be network is used to enhance the localization. From the
achieved at the price of changes to the device, or, CGI the device knows its own position; it can then
more often, of requiring a new device altogether. calculate the position of the satellites that it can most
This makes them more expensive, which is the rea- easily connect to. It also knows their exact frequency,
son why they are not very common in some markets which assists in receiving weaker signals.
Figure 5. CGI method for localization (Swedberg, 1999).LBS IN THE TOURISM INDUSTRY 251
Figure 6. E-OTD method for localization.
The technology to position mobile devices—al- vices needed to be located with an accuracy of 125
beit only within narrow limits—with the assistance m. European regulatory moves may well follow.
of infrared emissions also deserves to be mentioned
in this context. Connection of the mobile device Value Added by Location-Based Services
(mostly PDAs) and infrared emissions from send-
ing devices are used to determine the PDA’s posi- Being able to determine one’s own position or the
tion. Because these emissions only carry a distance distance to another place is in itself not often of im-
of a few meters, the proximity to the connecting mediate value for the user of a mobile device. It is
sender unambiguously determines the—approxi- only the connection of the position information with
mate—position of the PDA. other, position-dependent information that will open
For many LBS the limited precision of the local- the door to new service functionality and thus to
ization data provided by CGI is not adequate. This adding value for travelers. For example, the knowl-
indicates that the trend will move towards the in- edge that one’s position is 1 km away from the next
creased use of device-based technologies to locate train station may be comfortable for the traveler, but
mobile devices of all kinds. A further driver in this only the information that one has to turn left in 200
development could well be regulatory moves, fol- m in order to arrive there in time adds immediate
lowing the “FCC E-911 Mandate” in the US. In it, value. Similarly, the information that on a certain
the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) route one will pass interesting sights or even a shop
sets accuracy and reliability requirements for the with special offers will be of interest. Information
automatic location identification used in handset- about traffic jams en route is just as useful as not
based and network-based mobile technologies. The having to give a description of one’s position in case
first milestone was to be met by October 1, 2001, of emergencies; something that can be difficult in
and decreed that emergency calls from mobile de- remote or rural areas.252 BERGER, LEHMANN, AND LEHNER
Examples and applications like these can be con- movements of users recorded in this way would al-
ceptualized into schema (shown in Fig. 7) that rec- low the creation of very precise consumer profiling
ognizes four primary functions of LBS for the trav- by combining demographic data with information
eler (Koeppel, 2001): about lifestyle and purchasing behavior. The
customer’s trust that personal information is suffi-
• localization of persons, objects, and places; ciently and securely protected is therefore an im-
• routing between them; portant prerequisite for the success of LBS like these.
• search—within a set proximity—for objects The network operators and carriers are sensitive to
such as restaurants, shops, or hotels; services this issue and guarantee, like Vodafone in Germany,
such as English-speaking medical doctors in which only anonymous localization data will be
Germany; place-dependent information such as handed on to content providers. Similarly, the Ger-
sights or advertising; man ViagInterkom has decided to ask customers for
• information about traveling conditions, such as their specific agreement before each localization.
traffic-related data.
Routing Services
In the following sections each of these application
areas will be discussed in turn. Route planning is a well-known and often used
application on the Internet. It is now beginning to
Localization Applications gain recognition in the market for mobile services
also. Once the mobile device’s position is deter-
The applications in this area use predominantly mined, the route to a defined destination can be cal-
GPS technology, especially A-GPS for localization culated—and kept up to date—automatically. Some
of the mobile device. Other methods cannot deliver applications offer the option to calculate the fastest
the position information with the required degree of or the shortest route. The output is either a graphical
precision to be useful for these applications. Fur- display of the route or a list of route segments, or
thermore, precise localization is the foundation for both together. Often the route planning functional-
most or all applications in the other areas too. For ity is not offered as a stand-alone service, but as part
example, applications in local public transport use of another LBS application. ViagInterkom’s restau-
the position of the device to map out a route to the rant finder software, for example, offers the route to
next station or bus stop. Applications such as loca- the chosen restaurant as an option after its selection
tion-based tolling or ticketing have been developed (Fig. 8).
in the US and in Asia. They use the position of the
device to ascertain whether a toll or ticket is due Searching for Locations in Proximity
and, via the user identification on the device, charge
the appropriate amount to the owner’s specified ac- Once the geographic position of the traveler has
count such as a credit card. This saves time for the been determined, the question of what is in the vicin-
traveler, who would then by-pass the queues wait- ity of the device is a logical consequence. Electronic
ing for manual processing, and omits the need to databases use special search algorithms to determine
carry large amounts of small change. Using local- what sights, shops, or other subjects of possible inter-
ization in this way raises issues of privacy and con- est for the traveler are within a set radius to the mo-
fidentiality of personal information. Analyzing bile device. In the tourist industry a number of appli-
Are there any problems
Where I am? How can I reach What’s on my way?
on the way?
Whe
Figure 7. Value added by LBS.LBS IN THE TOURISM INDUSTRY 253
Figure 8. Screen shots of Restaurant-Finder and Routing.
cation areas is of relevance, such as city and restau- Deutsche Telekom, and Bedhunter, who automati-
rant guides, or search engines to find ATMs or petrol cally finds hotels in close proximity once the posi-
stations with cheap petrol. A study for Mobilkom tion of the device has been determined. Knowing
Austria (Heim, 2001), illustrated in Figure 9, shows the position of the traveler also allows the transmis-
that searching for restaurants and hotels is by far the sion of local personalized information or advertis-
most widely used service of this kind. ing, which can happen via SMS. In this way city
Other existing services in this area are the “hotel tours could be planned with detailed route descrip-
finder” of “T-Motion,” the mobile portal of the tions, with information to specific sights blended in
Searching for Locations in Proximity
Restaurants
34%
Pharmacies
ATMs
51% Gault Millau Restaurants
Petrol stations
Hospitals
2% other
3%
3%
3% 4%
Figure 9. Searching for locations in proximity.254 BERGER, LEHMANN, AND LEHNER
where appropriate. This could be financed through environments such as popular sights (see http://
localized advertising. The restaurant chain www.heuschboesefeldt.de).
McDonalds, for example, offers registered custom-
ers an SMS service that is activated once the Location-Based Services in the
customer’s mobile device is near a McDonalds’ res- Tourism Value Chain
taurant. Travel agencies could well use a similar ser-
Being able to establish one’s own position can
vice to notify customers of last-minute offers. In
generate additional value for the traveler. In the sim-
Germany, however, it is not legal to send such mes-
plest instance this comes from the fact that this ob-
sages to consumers without their prior consent. This
viates the need for travelers to determine this them-
could be solved by creating an Internet registration
selves—which may be difficult, or even the very
site where the consumer could also establish an in-
purpose of the application—and then input this into
terest profile to focus—and limit—the messages to
a system. This makes the use of LBS easier and thus
be received.
contributes to their wider acceptance: LBS are cur-
Localized information is also potentially very
rently not yet applications in their own right. The
useful for museums or other exhibitions where the
integration of LBS functionality is, however, a natu-
position of the visitor could be determined via PDAs
ral complement for many mobile travel services,
and infrared emissions as described above. An ex-
because the determination of one’s own position is
ample is the visitor information system developed
an important context—and often determinant—of
by the Fraunhofer Institut for Graphical Data Pro-
the information to be transmitted. Such localized,
cessing. This uses mobile, context-sensitive location
mobile services combine a number of different con-
to provide the user with information, advice, and
tent categories (Eriksson, 2002):
directions on their journey through a museum or
similar institution (see http://www.rostock.igd.
• tourism “products,” such as sights, hotels, etc.;
fhg.de/fhg_igd/abteilungen/a3/projects/xyberscout/
• transport and traffic;
mobis/).
• destination-relevant information such as maps,
etc.
Information About Traveling Conditions (Traffic)
The administration of these different information
Traffic notifications have been available over the
fields is usually carried out by many different ac-
radio for a long time. Using LBS means that it is
tors. Localization data are provided by mobile net-
now possible to retrieve traffic information in real-
work operators. The information with relevance to
time specifically relevant to the user’s current po-
tourism, however, is managed by a large number of
sition, which makes it possible to avoid traffic jams
actors from different backgrounds and with differ-
and other obstacles. The US Wireless Corporation
ent motivations for the provision of information. LBS
(http://www.uswcorp.com) already offers such a
therefore need to combine the systems of a number
service using sensors on motorway bridges that
of typically disparate organizations and manage their
measure the traffic flow. This is then used to pro-
ongoing cooperation.
duce traffic reports that can be accessed via the
Mobile Portals for Tourism, analogous to Internet
mobile device. It may well be expected that such
portals, offer the opportunity to integrate new tech-
services will be offered in conjunction with dy-
nologies such as LBS with the contents of travel
namic route planning functionality (e.g., to offer
agents, airlines, car rentals, and other institutions of
alternative routes, etc.). A current project in this
tourism or transport management, national, regional,
field is run by the Senate of Berlin, Germany, and
or urban. Uniting the access to these divergent con-
the traffic management company. This aims to of-
tents under one roof could well offer significant value
fer dynamic route planning, navigation, and park-
for the traveler (Welt, 2000), as demonstrated in this
ing availability information for tourist buses. This
vision of “what could be” (Golem, 2000):
could well help other communities, too, to profit
from tourism while avoiding bottlenecks for visi- The mobile handset rings: the traveller is informed
tors and improved load management for specific that his flight has been delayed. He is immediatelyLBS IN THE TOURISM INDUSTRY 255
offered alternatives, which he can confirm with a tures, and to integrate video and synchronized au-
push of a button. With that change in reservation dio elements (“. . . to your left is the medieval castle
his bookings of hotel and car at the first destina-
tion are cancelled—automatically. The next step is
of . . . with its world-famous. . . .”) into mobile ser-
the reservation of another rental car, which will be vices. Animations, historical documentation, and
ready at the new destination airport at the new ar- computer reconstructions would add further value
rival time. The handset then offers available hotel to the travel experience.
accommodation on its display. A new reservation
can now be made with the push of a button, with-
Biographical Notes
out having to re-enter personal data. The portal then
offers for the new destination the same types of Stefan Berger studied at the University of Passau (Germany)
personalised services it had prepared for the old with the focus on Business Informatics and holds a degree in
one—for example a route to the nearest Italian res- Business Administration. Currently he is Research Assistant
taurant. Business partner and colleagues are noti- at the Chair of Business Informatics III, Prof. Dr. F. Lehner,
fied by SMS of the changed itinerary and the new at the University of Regensburg (Germany). His research
arrival time. interests are in the areas of Knowledge Management and
Mobile Computing.
The key to success of such portals may well lie in
the personalization of the contents to the individual
preferences, needs, and expectations of the user— Dr. Hans Lehmann studied at the University of Vienna be-
as the successful Internet portals have demonstrated. fore working as a data processing line manager in South
Such personalization will be significantly assisted Africa. In 1980 he joined Deloitte as a management consult-
with the availability of current position, intended ant and moved with them to Zimbabwe, England, and New
Zealand. In 1991 Hans joined the University of Auckland.
route, and sequence of destinations, which are the He holds degrees from Natal University (M.A.) the Univer-
core functionality of location-based services. sity of South Africa (M.B.A.) and the University of Auckland
(Ph.D.).
Conclusion and View to the Future
In this article a brief overview of the potential and
the opportunities of mobile services, especially us- Prof. Dr. Franz Lehner is professor for Business Informatics
at the University of Regensburg (Germany). Prof. Lehner
ing LBS, for the tourist industry were provided. The has published 20 books (including some as coauthor, 2 books
spectrum of possible applications is wide and cov- are in preparation) and more than 100 articles in national
ers the whole value chain of tourism. In conclusion, and international journals to various topics in the field of
it seems that LBS can add specific and important information science and information management. His re-
value for the traveler. search interests are in the areas of Mobile Computing, Knowl-
edge Management, Multimedia, E-Learning, and Software
In the current atmosphere of crisis throughout the Engineering.
telecommunications industry, however, suppliers as
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