From March 14 to 16, 2013, the Nanjing International Holiday Tourism & RV Exhibition was successfully held at the Nanjing International Expo Center. A focus on self-driving tours and independent travel became a key highlight of the exhibition.
According to a survey by Ctrip, 42% of tourists prefer to use travel agencies' independent travel services, while 39% opt for completely independent travel. This shows that people are becoming less satisfied with standardized tourism services, and more free and personalized travel is becoming a major trend in the future. The exhibition chose to present content in both traditional tourism and RV self-driving vacation directions, showcasing a richer variety of holiday travel options and lifestyle models.
At the event, many tourism enterprises showcased their flagship products to industry experts and audiences from across the country, promoting their concepts of carefree travel in various ways. Surprisingly to reporters, telecom operators also set up their own booths at the exhibition.
According to the person in charge of the China Telecom booth, with the arrival of the big data era, the company has turned its attention to the development of information technology in the tourism industry. After more than a year of effort, China Telecom has done extensive work in mobile tour guides, electronic ticketing, dining reservations, and scenic spot WIFI guides, and has developed its own products.
With the advancement of technology, more and more traditional IT devices can play roles in the tourism industry that better meet its needs. For example, the most common WIFI wireless internet equipment can now directly push images, text, audio, and video within scenic areas, and guide information related to attractions can be directly displayed on visitors’ phones without using mobile data. Additionally, the WIFI service system can also analyze visitor preferences for attractions, providing sufficient data support for better scenic area development, enabling them to serve tourists more effectively.
It is understood that the National Tourism Administration has designated 2014 as the "Year of Smart Tourism." More and more scenic spots hope to become more humanized and intelligent this year, and also aim to take advantage of the Year of Smart Tourism to expand new marketing channels, such as e-commerce platforms. However, the inability to provide electronic tickets for scenic areas has become a challenge for many.
To help more enterprises more easily overcome this difficulty, China Telecom has specifically built an electronic ticketing credential management platform for scenic areas. Scenic spots only need to apply for and activate the platform to have their own electronic ticketing credential management system, thus opening up a technical pathway for expanding e-commerce marketing. It is reported that the platform can use second-generation ID cards as carriers for electronic tickets. In the future, visitors can enter scenic areas by simply swiping their ID cards, just like taking a high-speed train—making the process more convenient. The system can also provide data analysis on tourist sources, origin regions, and visitor demographics based on electronic ticketing statistics.