Content.

Words, Pictures & Multimedia

UniBg 44111 2014-2015 .:. IT for Tourism Managers

#13 .:. Tuesday, December 16, 2014

Università degli studi di Bergamo. Area didattica di Lingue e Letterature straniere

Progettazione e gestione dei sistemi turistici / Planning and Management of Tourism Systems

Centro Studi per il Turismo e l’Interpretazione del Territorio (CeSTIT)

IfittItaly

Roberto Peretta

Content. Words, Pictures & MultimediaWhat are we talking about, today?

1. Managers…

2. … vs. Users

3. Events and Emotions

4. Multimedia, Flash, html5

5. Formats, applications, CMSs

2UniBg 44111 2014-2015 .:. IT for Tourism Managers .:. Roberto Peretta .:. December 16, 2014

Content. Words, Pictures & MultimediaManagers

3

Content is quite obviously the core of the information and communication process.

Managing content may be considered easy: Read a guidebook about a destination,

re-write or edit, and...

However, content managers

must take into consideration a

number of questions:

their tasks

the seasons

their stakeholders needs

the users’ needs

their resources

(or the Feasibility – which

BTW we don’t consider...)

UniBg 44111 2014-2015 .:. IT for Tourism Managers .:. Roberto Peretta .:. December 16, 2014

Content. Words, Pictures & MultimediaUsers

4

Users’ needs satisfaction is hard to state.

In the last instance, a destination ability to satisfy its customers’ needs should be

stated by the number of visitors

the money they bring, and

whether they return.

This involves analyzing the

actual behaviour of tourists

in the destination, in time

and, for the website, put the

analytics to good use.

What we can do with our

questionnaire is pretend to

be tourists ourselves.

UniBg 44111 2014-2015 .:. IT for Tourism Managers .:. Roberto Peretta .:. December 16, 2014

Content. Words, Pictures & MultimediaEvents and Emotions

5

After Pine and Gilmore’s studies on the role of experience and emotion in

customers’ satisfaction, it has become clear that an approach to content based on

descriptions of a destination attractions is not enough.

Therefore, stating the quality of

a destination website’s content

must involve considering

the communication of events

like concerts, exhibitions, fairs

and the like – which attract

tourists emotionally – and

the way in which attractions are

communicated: that is “warm” or

“cold”.

UniBg 44111 2014-2015 .:. IT for Tourism Managers .:. Roberto Peretta .:. December 16, 2014

Content. Words, Pictures & MultimediaPictures

6

As “temperature” is concerned, pictures are increasingly becoming the fastest way,

and perhaps the most effective, to communicate in today’s digital world.

As Susan Sontag wrote as back

as 1977 in her On Photography,

“Photography has become

one of the principal devices

for experiencing something,

for giving an appearance

of participation.”

UniBg 44111 2014-2015 .:. IT for Tourism Managers .:. Roberto Peretta .:. December 16, 2014

Content. Words, Pictures & MultimediaEasy pictures

7

The number of pictures taken has enormously increased since mobile phones

have incorporated a camera.

Due to digital techonological optimization, taking pictures has become incredibily

easy, as problems like shutter speed,

exposure and depth of field are automatically

solved (or at least simplified) by digital technologies.

Starting from Flick’r, which was introduced in 2004,

sharing pictures has become a popular behaviour.

Pictures are mass produced and shared.

Still – as underlined by Sontag – they are

a perfect tool to communicate experience.

UniBg 44111 2014-2015 .:. IT for Tourism Managers .:. Roberto Peretta .:. December 16, 2014

Content. Words, Pictures & Multimedia

Moving images – such as animations, videos or proper films – can be even more

effective than still pictures.

The problem with moving images is that their production process is by far more

difficult than for photography.

Sharing a personal video through, say, YouTube

– a community created in 2005 and bought by

Google in 2006 – is obviously easy,

but the quality level which is socially

required today is much higher than

for still pictures.

Let’s talk a look at a software

interface to process a video…

Moving images

8UniBg 44111 2014-2015 .:. IT for Tourism Managers .:. Roberto Peretta .:. December 16, 2014

Content. Words, Pictures & MultimediaAdobe Premiere

9

Moving images require not only shooting but also editing, and

titles, soundtrack and voice comment may be needed, too.

UniBg 44111 2014-2015 .:. IT for Tourism Managers .:. Roberto Peretta .:. December 16, 2014

Content. Words, Pictures & MultimediaFlash, Html 5

10

Generally speaking, applications to create and manage animations are relatively

difficult to learn.

The de facto standard to create and manage animations on the Web has

historically been Adobe Flash.

Adobe Flash has always been a proprietary software.

But in recent years an open source environment

has emerged – thanks also to the current fight

between Adobe and Apple.

This open source animations format is part of

the html5 language.

(This, by the way, is why iPhones or iPad do display

animations, but do not display Flash animations…)

UniBg 44111 2014-2015 .:. IT for Tourism Managers .:. Roberto Peretta .:. December 16, 2014

Content. Words, Pictures & MultimediaFormats, Applications

11

This lecture has mentioned two applications, by Adobe (Premiere for videos, and

Flash for animations) simply because your lecturer happens to use some

mainstream Adobe products.

But formats and applications do abound in the multimedia production world.

For instance, your lecturer shoots videos through a small HD Sony video

camera, based on a m2ts format.

In order to be seen on an old Windows XP operating system like the one I’m

using right now, my videos must be converted to a more familiar format, e.g. the

mainstream Windows wmv.

In short, formats and applications in the multimedia production world are a

jungle…

… though social networks tend to come to terms with this jungle, and now

accept a variety of different multimedia formats.

UniBg 44111 2014-2015 .:. IT for Tourism Managers .:. Roberto Peretta .:. December 16, 2014

Content. Words, Pictures & MultimediaCMSs

12

To manage dynamic multimedia websites, specialized applications and platforms

are available.

Your lecturer has long adopted a reliable application like Adobe Dreamweaver,

but now good and scalable open source CMSs are also available, like Drupal,

Joomla or WordPress.

What’s a CMS? Well, we introduced them on December 9…

It’s a Content Management System.

(As far as tourist destinations are

concerned, we’ve seen that

Destination Management Systems,

or DMSs, are also available,

though they are not simply digital...)

UniBg 44111 2014-2015 .:. IT for Tourism Managers .:. Roberto Peretta .:. December 16, 2014