application of information technology in travel and tourism
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Application of
Information
Technology in
Travel and
TourismPrepared and Submitted by:
Sucheta Amin (M-11-02)
Sneha Sawant (M-11-51)
Roshni Nambiar (M-11-34)
Shardul Ramteke (M-11-)
Vicky Razdan (M-11-)
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Information Technology in Travel and Tourism
Introduction
The developments in computer and communication technologies have made it possible to
have rental cars with computerised driving directions and self-service video-terminals at
rental counters in high traffic airports. Fully automated rental transaction systems came into
existence. Yet another major contribution of technological developments in computers and
communication systems to tourism is the computerised reservation systems (CRS). These
systems can now inform subscribers about schedules, fares and seat availability, issue tickets
and boarding passes, record bookings, maintain waiting lists, display preferred airlines or
classes, search for the lowest fare available or the first available non-stop flight and calculatefares for domestic and international itineraries. The system can also make reservations for
other services like hotels, car rentals, cruises, railways, tours, boat charters, theatres and
sporting events. According to WTO, the Internet is revolutionising the distribution of
tourism information and sales. An increasing proportion of Internet users are buying online
and tourism will gain a larger and larger share of the online commerce market. Obviously, the
Internet is having a major impact as a source of information for tourism.
Information Needs in Tourism
Travel is a basic human instinct. Technological revolutions in the last few decades and theconsequent changes in the social systems accelerated its intensity in the current century.
Thus, tourism is presently a mass phenomenon involving every human being in the world.
They need detailed information about each place they intend to visit. The specific elements of
such information needs are:
Geographical information on location, climate, landscape, etc. Attraction features Social customs, culture and other special features of the place Accessibility though air, water, rail and road and availability of scheduled means of
transport
Accommodation, restaurant and shopping facilities Activities and entertainment facilities Seasons of visit and other unique features Quality of facilities and their standard prices including exchange rates Entry and exit formalities and restrictions if any on tourists, etc.
Though the ultimate users of this information are the consumers ie. the tourists, the actual
benefits in money terms accrue to the tourism industry consisting of the destination managers
and service providers.
For tourism businesses, the Internet offers the potential to make information and booking
facilities available to large numbers of tourists at relatively low costs. It also provides a tool
for communication between tourism suppliers, intermediaries, as well as end-consumers.
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There is, therefore, a strong competition amongst various destination countries in the world to
produce and package such information in the most attractive format to attract the consumers
from the tourist generating countries.
The travel intermediaries like travel agents, tour operators, and reservation system store such
information in respect of each destination to service their clients and improve their business.They need the information in the easiest retrieval format so that the information needs of the
clients are met as quickly as possible.
Tourists generally need both static and dynamic information. Information on those features
which do not change rapidly over time is termed as static information. It includes details
information about location, climate, attraction features, history, facilities available, etc.
Information about airline, train and bus schedules, tariffs of transport and accommodation
units and current availability of such facilities is considered as dynamic as they can change
very frequently. These items of information have to be gathered, stored and disseminated on a
real time basis. All types of reservation systems including air, rail and accommodation
sectors contain such information.
Application of Information Technologies
Till a few years ago, the basic sources of information in the tourism sector were pamphlets,
brochures, directories, guide books, etc. produced and published by different countries. These
sources prevail even today, though they are the most inefficient means of information.
The last few decades witnessed the application of computer and communication technologies
in the field of tourism. Two distinct streams of information sources viz, (i) online and (ii)
offline came into existence. Databases containing information about places, tourist attractions
and facilities became available for online access in several countries. The emergence of
computerised reservations system (CRS) opened up a new source of online information on
tourism and are being expanded continuously. The latest sources of online information is
INTERNET which contains some pages on most of the tourist destinations in the world.
Further hotel management and catering technology is fast emerging as an area of information
technology application in the field of tourism.
Electronic Commerce (EC) is an emerging area where business transactions take place via
telecommunications networks, especially the Internet. Electronic commerce describes the
process of buying and selling or exchanging of products, services, and information via
computer networks including the Internet. The Internet has emerged as a major, perhapseventually the major, worldwide distribution channel for goods, services, managerial and
professional jobs. Travel and tourism are illustrating how e-commerce can change the
structure of an industryand in the process create new business opportunities, especially in
the B2B2C arena. The tourism e-market structure, just a B2B2C application, is actually a
tourist information network linking all market participants and reflecting the economic
relationships between them; tourism e-commerce process is only the process of suppliers plus
tourist life cycle, deeply leading to distributed B2B2C application.
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Intermediation
One thing that does become clear in looking at different cases in eBusiness is that there are
different approaches to changing the value chain, and it does not always become shorter. In
some cases, it has been desirable to remove one or more links in the value chain. To take asimple example, a business that had previously sold to retailers via distributors could take a
decision to sell direct electronically, an approach known as Disintermediation. Part of the
rationale is that by shortening the Value Chain, there may be benefits in reduced costs or a
more responsive and efficient service.
Seemingly paradoxically, eBusiness has also allowed the apparent opposite of
Disintermediation in which a new step or steps are introduced to the value chain as new
players find fresh ways to add value to the process. This is known as Reintermediation and
examples here include shopping portals and electronic insurance brokers.
Cybermediation refers to the creation of new kinds of intermediaries that simply could nothave existed prior to the advent of eBusiness and the Internet, in categories including
Searching, Price Discovery, Logistics, Settlement and Trust. Some on-line businesses find
they need to control much of the value chain in order for their proposition to function
correctly.
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Computer Reservation System
A Computer Reservation System is a computerized system for saving and retrieving
information when needed related to air travel. CRS were created and used by airlines and at a
later point they were finally used in tourism intermediaries like travel agencies.
What is CRS and GDS?
There have been 3 stages of evolution the first reservation system was called an Airline
Reservation system, the second a Computer Reservation System (CRS) and the third
evolution is todays Global Distribution System (GDS).
CRS and GDS seem to have the same functions but the major difference between these two
systems is that CRS only provide information about airlines whereas by using GDS you can
reserve a ticket, a room in a hotel and also a rental car. This is why they are called Global
Distribution Systems because you can use GDS to reserve basically everything.
CRS bundle information about prices, availabilities and reservation possibilities of package
tours, flights, hotels, rented cars, ferries, cruises, courses, penalties and other products in
large computing centres. Technically by the binding of the computing centre of the CRS to
many different service providers (tour operators/airline among other things) one realizes, over
which the respective inquiries of the travel agencies are continued to lead directly to the
different offerers. The CRS takes over besides the account of the costs as well as if necessary
also the disbursement of Incentives, resulting with a reservation, thus remuneration of the
service providers for the travel agencies. The CRS supplies in addition, and offers auxiliary
products to evaluations for the Back office systems of the travel agencies for the support ofsales.
Most tourism firms process their reservations through a computerised database called
Computer Reservation System (CRS), which handles details of inventory, schedules and
prices among other details. CRSs run on mainframes, minicomputers or microcomputers and
are usually connected through data communication links to terminals within various branches
of the company. CRSs are not to be confused with global distribution systems, but are often
electronically connected to them for bookings.
Computer reservation systems are primarily used for inventory management by airlines,
hotels, and other tourism and hospitality enterprises. Enhanced and sophisticated CRSconfigurations and functionality offer companies an integrated solution for several processes
including managing sales, bookings, customer relationship management and service, other
marketing practices, yield management, payments and accounting even at a one-to-one
customer basis. Integrated CRSs aim to organize companies internally by enabling
organizational reengineering/ restructuring changes that in turn streamline processes and
foster functional efficiency and effectiveness. Moreover, the term central reservation system
refers to the CRS developed by hotel chains for centralizing the reservation process of all
their affiliated properties and enabling multichain management. The major benefits of such
systems are operational efficiencies and staff reductions.
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Briefly outlined processes, functionalities, and benefits of a CRS as follows:
* Flexible inventory booking capability
* Immediate availability update
* Overbooking management
* Complete and detail reservations screen
* Individual and group reservations and blockings* Travel agency information entry, activity reports and commission handling
* Guest information enquiry
* Reservations linked to city ledger
* Advance deposit posting and auditing
* Request for deposit and deposit received
* Modifications and cancellation confirmations
* Free-form comments field on all reservations
* System generated confirmation numbers on all reservations
* User identification
* Confirmations printed automatically or on demand
* Forecast reports* Current and future dates to five years historical information
* Detailed inventory control
* No-shows reports and handling (charging and billing)
* Customer informationpast, present, futureretained in system.
The primary reason for using computers in the handling of reservations is to increase yield
metrics, but this entirely depends on the level of systems integration. This is because CRS not
only help tremendously in processing reservations, but they also support decision-making in
marketing and sales.
Integration between CRSs and distribution channels can improve efficiency, facilitate control,
reduce personnel, and enable more rapid response time to both customers and management
requests, whilst enabling personalized service and relationship marketing. Overall, most
CRSs tend to serve several business functions as follows:
* Improve capacity management and operations efficiency
* Facilitate central room inventory control
* Provide last room availability information
* Offer yield management capability
* Provide better databases access for management purposes
* Enable extensive marketing, sales and operational reports* Facilitate marketing research and planning
* Travel agency tracking and commission payment
* Tracking of frequent flyers and repeat hotel guests
* Direct marketing and personalized service for repeat hotel guests
* Enhance handling of group bookings.
Benefits for Tour Operators & Tourism Product Suppliers
1. Processes transactions online through a shared master merchant account which save on
online merchant start up fees and monthly fees.
2. Provides booking, inventory control, sales, customer analysis and banking reports.
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3. Offer a hot seat feature: Advertise products at a discounted price and sell those last
minute empty seats.
4. Gives the end user the ability to search and compare and buy from multiple operators in
one placea place that is easy and convenient.
5. Real-time inventory booking system allows multiple distributors to sell your product
without the hassle of time-consuming callbacks and double booking.
CRSs can be exploited and identified benefits that such systems integration can provide are as
follows:
* Integration with external reservations networks: Examples here would be airline global
distribution systems, or partners corporate reservation systems. Traditionally, third party
reservation systems such as hotels.com operated by obtaining guaranteed allocations of
rooms from hotels in advance that could then be sold directly to travel agents and the public.However, inventory allocation does not allow the sale of the last available room and
disadvantages efficient multi-channel distribution and yield management strategies. To
optimize occupancy and average room rates, seamless integration between company and
external reservation systems is required so that realtime room and rate inventory is made
available to all distribution channels.
* In-house reservations networks: Hotel chains and consortia integrate their CRSs with
each property based reservation system. Seamless connectivity allows cross-selling between
hotel properties and multi-unit distribution strategies. Nowadays, intranets are increasingly
used for this purpose.
* Single-property reservations systems: These systems handle reservations that come from
different sources, e.g. telephone, letter, fax etc., solely for a hotel property. This level of
integration refers to the internal integration of the reservation system with other business
systems.
* Property management system (PMS): Integration between the CRS and PMS is required
for enhancing guest services by enabling CRM (customer relationship marketing) practices,
express check-in/out procedures as well as for increasing operational procedures, e.g.housekeeping, staff scheduling, just-in-time procurement.
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Online Transaction Processing
Online transaction processing, or OLTP, refers to a class of systems that facilitate and
manage transaction-oriented applications, typically for data entry and retrieval transaction
processing.
Requirements
OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) is a methodology to provide end users with access to
large amounts of data in an intuitive and rapid manner to assist with deductions based on
investigative reasoning.
Online Analytical Processing Online transaction processing increasingly requires support for
transactions that span a network and may include more than one company. For this reason,
new online transaction processing software uses client or server processing and brokering
software that allows transactions to run on different computer platforms in a network.
Benefits
Online Transaction Processing has two key benefits: simplicity and efficiency. Reduced
paper trails and the faster, more accurate forecasts for revenues and expenses are both
examples of how OLTP makes things simpler for businesses.
Disadvantages
As with any information processing system, security and reliability are considerations. Onlinetransaction systems are generally more susceptible to direct attack and abuse than their
offline counterparts. When organizations choose to rely on OLTP, operations can be severely
impacted if the transaction system or database is unavailable due to data corruption, systems
failure, or network availability issues. Additionally, like many modern online information
technology solutions, some systems require offline maintenance which further affects the
cost-benefit analysis.
Online Transaction Processing
Online Transaction processing database applications are optimal for managing changing data,
and usually have a large number of users who will be simultaneously performing transactionsthat change real-time data. Although individual requests by users for data tend to reference
few records, many of these requests are being made at the same time. Common examples of
these types of databases are airline ticketing systems and banking transaction systems. The
primary concerns in this type of application are the ACID Properties.
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ACID Properties
Atomicity
The atomicity property identifies that the transaction is atomic. An atomic transaction iseither fully completed, or is not begun at all. Any updates that a transaction might affect on a
system are completed in their entirety. If for any reason an error occurs and the transaction is
unable to complete all of its steps, the then system is returned to the state it was in before the
transaction was started. Atomicity ensures that all of the steps involved in a transaction
complete successfully as a group. If any step fails, no other steps should be completed. An
example of an atomic transaction is an account transfer transaction. The money is removed
from account A then placed into account B. If the system fails after removing the money
from account A, then the transaction processing system will put the money back into account
A, thus returning the system to its original state. This is known as a rollback. So when a
room is booked through internet transfer of money as well as allotment must both be done or
else the entire operation must roll back
.
Consistency
A transaction enforces consistency in the system state by ensuring that at the end of any
transaction the system is in a valid state. If the transaction completes successfully, then all
changes to the system will have been properly made, and the system will be in a valid state. If
any error occurs in a transaction, then any changes already made will be automatically rolled
back. This will return the system to its state before the transaction was started. Since thesystem was in a consistent state when the transaction was started, it will once again be in a
consistent state.
The database inside the hotel in which the room was booked needs to be in consistent even if
there is some sort of hiccup in the transaction due to any problem like internet connection etc.
Concurrency
Concurrency controls in a database system ensure that two users cannot change the same
data, or that one user cannot change a piece of data before another user is done with it. For
example, if you are talking to an airline ticket agent to reserve the last available seat on a
flight and the agent begins the process of reserving the seat in your name, another agent
should not be able to tell another passenger that the seat is available.
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Isolation
When a transaction runs in isolation, it appears to be the only action that the system iscarrying out at one time. If there are two transactions that are both performing the same
function and are running at the same time, transaction isolation will ensure that each
transaction thinks it has exclusive use of the system. This is important in that as the
transaction is being executed, the state of the system may not be consistent. The transaction
ensures that the system remains consistent after the transaction ends, but during an individual
transaction, this may not be the case. If a transaction was not running in isolation, it could
access data from the system that may not be consistent. By providing transaction isolation,
this is prevented from happening. While booking a room online the room must not be
available for booking even while the transaction is being executed.
Durability
A transaction is durable in that once it has been successfully completed, all of the changes it
made to the system are permanent. There are safeguards that will prevent the loss of
information, even in the case of system failure. By logging the steps that the transaction
performs, the state of the system can be recreated even if the hardware itself has failed. The
concept of durability allows the developer to know that a completed transaction is a
permanent part of the system, regardless of what happens to the system later on. Once a room
has been booked that room must show the status as booked (ie unavailable for booking,neither online nor at the hotel reception)
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Payment Gateway
A payment gateway is an e-commerce application service provider service that authorizes
payments for e-businesses, online retailers, bricks and clicks, or traditional brick and mortar.
It is the equivalent of a physical point of sale terminal located in most retail outlets. It is aseparate service and acts as an intermediary between the merchants' shopping cart and all the
financial networks involved with the transaction, including the customers' credit card issuer
and your merchant account. Payment gateways protect credit card details by encrypting
sensitive information, such as credit card numbers, to ensure that information is passed
securely between the customer and the merchant and also between merchant and the payment
processor. It reviews validity, encrypts transaction details, ensures they are sent to the correct
destination and then decrypts the responses which are sent back to the shopping cart.
How payment gateways work
A payment gateway facilitates the transfer of information between a payment portal (such as
a website, mobile phone or IVR service) and the Front End Processor or acquiring bank.
When a customer places an order from a payment gateway-enabled merchant, the payment
gateway performs a variety of tasks to process the transaction:
1. A customer places order on website by pressing the 'Submit Order' or equivalentbutton, or perhaps enters their card details using an automatic phone answering
service.
2. If the order is via a website, the customer's web browser encrypts the information tobe sent between the browser and the merchant's webserver. This is done via SSL
(Secure Socket Layer) encryption.3. The merchant then forwards the transaction details to their payment gateway. This is
another SSL encrypted connection to the payment server hosted by the payment
gateway.
4. The payment gateway forwards the transaction information to the payment processorused by the merchant's acquiring bank.
5. The payment processor forwards the transaction information to the card association(e.g., Visa/MasterCard)
1. If an American Express or Discover Card was used, then the processor acts asthe issuing bankand directly provides a response of approved or declined to
the payment gateway.
2. Otherwise, the card association routes the transaction to the correct cardissuing bank.
6. The credit card issuing bankreceives the authorization request and sends a responseback to the processor (via the same process as the request for authorization) with a
response code. In addition to determining the fate of the payment, (i.e. approved or
declined) the response code is used to define the reason why the transaction failed
(such as insufficient funds, or bank link not available)
7. The processor forwards the response to the payment gateway.8. The payment gateway receives the response, and forwards it on to the website (or
whatever interface was used to process the payment) where it is interpreted as a
relevant response then relayed back to the cardholder and the merchant.9. The entire process typically takes 23 seconds.
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10.The merchant submits all their approved authorizations, in a "batch", to theiracquiring bankfor settlement via their processor.
11.The acquiring bankdeposits the total of the approved funds in to the merchant'snominated account. This could be an account with the acquiring bank if the merchant
does their banking with the same bank, or an account with another bank.
12.The entire process from authorization to settlement to funding typically takes 3 days.Payment Gateway Process
The Visitor Front End
Lets start by considering the pages that your visitors see. These pages allow your visitor to
define what they are paying for, instigate the payment process, and then enter their credit card
and other
information.
First, your
visitor needs
to choose
what they are
paying for
for instance, a
ticket or hotel
room.
With a pricedefined, they then fill in a payment form with their informationat a minimum their name,
credit card information, and address.
When visitor enters their information and clicks Submit, a number of backend processes
are kicked off.
The Payment Gateway and Fraud Prevention
The first backend process is a check of the credit card to try to verify that the card and the
charge are valid.
When your visitorclicks Submit, a
processor called the
Payment Gateway
takes over. The
Payment Gateway
the little man in red
in our diagram
handles the actual
backend
communications and
transactions,
contacting the bank,
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reporting back on the results, and moving the money.
The Payment Gateway starts by checking to make sure that the credit card number is valid.
To decrease the possibility of fraud, it may also check to make sure that the address, name, or
credit card CSV code (the three digit code on the back of the card) match. Fraud is
unfortunately common even if youre just processing donations, so these checks are animportant step in the process.
If the card is rejected, the Payment Gateway sends back word to your website so that you can
notify the visitor. Otherwise, the process continues.
Merchant Account
The money is routed by the Payment Gateway into a bank account called a Merchant
Account.
When the
charge is
accepted as
valid, the
Payment
Gateway
initiates a
process by
which money
is transferred
from thecredit card
company to a
type of
specialized
bank account called a Merchant Account. A Merchant Account does nothing but hold credit
card payments, but you cant accept credit cards without one. Even if you have one for
accepting credit card payments by phone, you may need a different one for online payments.
Thanks, Receipt, and Reports
With the payment successful processed, the visitor is notified that their payment went
through, and the transaction is viewable in reporting tools.
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When the
payment
gateway
reports back
that the card
has beencharged, the
visitor is
shown a
confirmation
screen
confirming
that
everything
went through
successfully.
They are alsotypically
emailed a
receipt at this
point.
Usually, any reports are updated in real time, so that youll be able to see within seconds that
a payment was made.
Synching Data
Youll need to determine how to get the payment data from the payment processor into yourown database.
The reporting tools that
automatically show the payment
information are likely to be different
from the application you typically
use to track constituent information.
In order to synch the two sources,
you should be able to at least
manually export a text file from the
payment processing application andload that into your database. If you
have many transactions, its also
worth looking into ways that you can
automatically synch the two data
sources with the help of a
programmer.
Receiving the Money
Last but certainly not least, the money needs to be moved from the Merchant Account to your
bank account.
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FYMMS Application of Information Technology in Travel and Tourism
The money in the Merchant Account
isnt accessible to you. If the
Merchant Account is in your name,
however, the money will
automatically be deposited into your
more traditional bank account withina couple of days. If the MerchantAccount is in a vendors name, that
vendor will need to pay you. Vendors
typically pay once or twice monthly,
either via check or by wire transfer.
Putting it All Together
So here it is
all back
together
again.
Whew!
Payment
processing
isnt
straightforwar
d, but it
doesnt haveto be baffling. None of the steps are particularly technical or complicated - you just need a
sense of the big picture.
Security
Since the customer is usually required to enter personal details, the entire communicationof 'Submit Order' page (i.e. customer - payment gateway) is often carried out through
HTTPS protocol.
To validate the request of the payment page result, signed request is often used - which isthe result of the hash function in which the parameters of an application confirmed by a
secret word, known only to the merchant and payment gateway. To validate the request of the payment page result, sometimes IP of the requesting server
has to be verified.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communicationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTPShttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_(computing)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paymenthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_addresshttp://www.idealware.org/articles/images/pp_overview.gifhttp://www.idealware.org/articles/images/pp_overview.gifhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_addresshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paymenthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_(computing)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTPShttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communicationhttp://www.idealware.org/articles/images/pp_overview.gif -
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Case Study
We will study about one of these portals in detail i.e. YATRA.COM
There are many agencies that provide travel services to India, arguably one of the most
alluring locations on the globe. Yatra is one of these, and if you are thinking about visiting
that far-off and mythical land you can always try it out and see if it is what you need.
The site comes complete with all the resources you will need for arranging such an
experience, as a Book Your Trip section is prominently featured and it will let you specify
the kind of trip youre after, be it a round trip or a one way travel experience. When doing so,
you also have to set down booking details like your point of departure and your desired
destination, as well as passenger details. It is likewise possible to find flights within a short
time range if you have to travel in a hurry, either for business or for personal reasons.
Further resources include both a Lowest airfares to India and a Holidays by theme
section, alongside a travel guide which touches upon accommodation and remarkable
destinations.
Lastly, live help is provided via a chat feature that will let you engage in conversation with
travel specialists that will point you in the right direction.
Before we jump onto the technical aspect of a tourism website we need to understand
what a website is and how it works?
A website is essentially a client server application. (Providers of a resource or service arecalled servers, and service requesters are called clients). Servers are powerful computers
dedicated to managing disk drives (file servers), printers (print servers), or network traffic
(network servers). Clients are PCs or workstations on which users run applications. (In case
of a website the client is the web browser).
Websites generally follow a multi-tier architecture (often referred to as n-tier architecture) in
which thepresentation, the applicationprocessing, and the datamanagementare logically
separate processes. The number of tiers in a website varies based on the complexity of the
application.
Yatra.com
Almost all websites incorporate 3-tier architecture. The three layers are as follows -
1. The user interface (client)The client runs on the user's computer. In case of awebsite the client is the web browser on which you have opened the web site.
The site on itself is just a module for presenting information to the user. As such it
doesnt hold any processing logic. Whenever a user enters some data, the website
sends this information the middle tier. The middle tier then processes the data and
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sends a response to the client which is displayed on the website as a result of the
users actions.
However to some of the data validations do happen at the client side. For e.g. if you
enter characters in the mobile number field, the data is validated before it is sent to the
middle tier and you get an error response. This saves time and effort.
A Client-side Programming Language is used to manipulate the data on the client
interface.
2. Middle tier- It is the functional module that actually processes data. This runs on aserver and is often called the application server (any PC can act as a server, provided
it has enough RAM and processor speed to manage the data processing).
In case of a website, the web server is installed on the application server machine. A
Web server is a piece of computer software that can respond to a browser's request for
data, and deliver it to the browser through the Internet.
The website is hosted on the web server, meaning the website resides on the webserver. The web server is responsible for the transfer of data between the client and
the application server via the internet.
This tier is also the brains of the website. Based on the business logic, all the data
submitted by the user is processed and the required output is generated. The web
server then takes this output and sends it to the client, which in turn displays it to the
user.
A Server-side Programming Language is used to process the data.
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3. DBMS - A database management system (DBMS) that stores the data required by themiddle tier. This tier runs on a second server called the database server.
All the information is stored here. Generally the database server is centrally located
and is accessed by several application servers. Sometimes both the web server and the
database server reside on the same machine. Then such a setup is known as a 2-Tier
application.
In simple words
Information is presented to the user in the First Tier. The data processing or the business logic is implemented in the Second / Middle Tier. And the Database used to store all the information resides on the Third Tier.
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The below table elaborates the software used by Yatra.com to implement its computer
reservations system.
Content Management System
Liferay 5.2.3
Liferay Portal is an open source web enterprise portal
based on Java. It is a software platform for building
websites and web applications
Server-side Programming Languages
PHP
PHP is a popular scripting language for creating web
pages.
Java
Java is a general-purpose language originally
developed by Sun Microsystems.
Client-side Programming Language
JavaScript
JavaScript is a lightweight, object-oriented, cross-
platform scripting language, mainly used within web
pages.
JQuery
JQuery is a JavaScript library that simplifies HTML
document traversing, event handling and animating
Markup Languages
XHTML Transitional 1.0 & HTML
Transitional 4.0
Transitional version of XHTML. Used to design the
web site
Web Servers
Apache Tomcat
Apache Tomcat is an open source Java servlet
container that functions as a web server, developed by
the Apache Software Foundation. It provides a "pure
Java" HTTP web server environment for Java code torun.
Traffic Analysis Tool
Omniture
Omniture Web Analytics is a web site traffic analysis
service.
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CONCLUSION
Tourism industry in India is growing and it has vast potential for generating employment and
earning large amount of foreign exchange besides giving a fillip to the countrys overall
economic and social development. But much more remains to be done. Eco-tourism needs tobe promoted so that tourism in India helps in preserving and sustaining the diversity of the
India's natural and cultural environments. Tourism in India should be developed in such a
way that it accommodates and entertains visitors in a way that is minimally intrusive or
destructive to the environment and sustains & supports the native cultures in the locations it
is operating in. Moreover, since tourism is a multi-dimensional activity, and basically a
service industry, it would be necessary that all wings of the Central and State governments,
private sector and voluntary organisations become active partners in the endeavour to attain
sustainable growth in tourism if India is to become a world player in the tourism industry.
To conclude, CRSs are central to the hospitality industry and are becoming the digital
nervous system of the hospitality value chain. Due to the current technological advances and
economic development, CRSs face several challenges including: their immigration to
customer-centered services and infrastructure for providing personalized guest services and
CRM practices; adoption ofwireless solutions for guests and hotel staff services, e.g.
reservations, check-in/out on the move, mobile control and monitoring of occupancy rates;
linkages to other electronic systems of partners or third parties for enabling coopetition
models (coopetition being a judicious mixture of cooperation and competition by which
businesses can gain advantage) and boosting synergies.
On the whole it can be said that Information technology has left an indelible mark in the
application area of Tourism and Travel. In the coming years, areas like Travel RecommenderSystems, GIS, Space Tourism etc will gain popularity and will help in giving a new
dimension to the travel and tourism sector. The International market which is growing has
been given a shot in the arm with introduction of IT and will stand to gain further from it.
http://hotelmule.com/wiki/Economic-developmenthttp://hotelmule.com/wiki/Infrastructurehttp://hotelmule.com/wiki/Wirelesshttp://hotelmule.com/wiki/Wirelesshttp://hotelmule.com/wiki/Infrastructurehttp://hotelmule.com/wiki/Economic-development