redesigning the ticino destination information system

Università della Svizzera Italiana

Faculty of Communication Sciences

Redesigning the Ticino Destination

Information System

Master’s Thesis

of

Lorenzo Ghini

08-989-253

Thesis Supervisor: Prof. Marco Colombetti

Thesis Co-Supervisor: Prof. Davide Eynard

Academic Year: July 2012

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Table of Contents

LIST OF FIGURES ..................................................................................................................................... 5

LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................................................................... 7

LIST OF ACRONYMS ................................................................................................................................ 9

INTRODUCTION AND MOTIVATION ...................................................................................................... 11

CHAPTER I LITERATURE REVIEW ......................................................................................................... 14

I.1 HUMAN COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES AND TOURISM ......................................................................... 14

I.1.1 PRE CONSUMPTION – CONSUMPTION – POST CONSUMPTION ........................................................................... 15

I.2 TECHNOLOGIES AND TOURISM HISTORY ................................................................................................. 17

I.2.1 CRS ........................................................................................................................................................ 17

I.2.2 GDS ....................................................................................................................................................... 17

I.2.3 INTERNET AND THE WORLD WIDE WEB ........................................................................................................ 18

I.2.4 INTERNET PENETRATION IN EUROPE ............................................................................................................. 19

I.3 INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES IN TOURISM INDUSTRY ................................................ 21

I.3.1 ICT AND TOURISTIC ORGANIZATIONS ........................................................................................................... 22

I.3.2 ICT AND THE TOURISTIC CONSUMER ............................................................................................................ 23

I.4 DESTINATION AND MANAGEMENT ORGANIZATION ................................................................................... 25

I.4.1 DESTINATION CATEGORIES.......................................................................................................................... 27

I.4.2 DESTINATION PRODUCTS ............................................................................................................................ 27

I.4.3 DESTINATION TRAVELERS ........................................................................................................................... 28

I.4.4 DESTINATION MARKETING .......................................................................................................................... 28

I.4.5 DESTINATION STRATEGIES .......................................................................................................................... 29

I.5 DESTINATION MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS .................................................................................................. 30

I.5.1 STAKEHOLDERS AND SUCCESS CRITERIA ......................................................................................................... 30

I.5.2 QUALITY OF INFORMATION ......................................................................................................................... 32

I.5.3 PUBLIC AND PRIVATE ROLES........................................................................................................................ 33

I.5.4 DATABASE MARKETING .............................................................................................................................. 33

I.6 BACKGROUND .................................................................................................................................. 35

I.6.1 TICINO TOURISM ....................................................................................................................................... 35

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I.6.2 TICINOINFO AND THE DESTINATION INFORMATION SYSTEM .............................................................................. 38

CHAPTER II RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .............................................................................................. 45

II.1 STRUCTURAL AND ARCHITECTURAL ANALYSIS .......................................................................................... 46

II.2 QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS ................................................................................................................... 47

II.3 QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS ..................................................................................................................... 49

II.3.1 LINGUISTIC, SELECTION AND EVALUATION CRITERIA ........................................................................................ 51

II.4 CASE STUDIES ANALYSIS ..................................................................................................................... 53

II.4.1 TISCOVER PROJECT ................................................................................................................................... 53

II.4.2 SWITZERLAND TOURISM ............................................................................................................................ 53

II.4.3 TANDEM PROJECT .................................................................................................................................. 53

II.5 REQUIREMENTS ENGINEERING ............................................................................................................ 54

II.5.1 ONE-TO-ONE INTERVIEWS AND ONLINE SURVEY............................................................................................. 54

II.5.2 IDENTIFICATION OF STAKEHOLDERS ............................................................................................................. 58

II.5.3 IDENTIFICATION OF GOALS ......................................................................................................................... 60

II.5.4 IDENTIFICATION OF REQUIREMENTS ............................................................................................................ 61

CHAPTER III DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROJECT ..................................................................................... 63

III.1 STRUCTURAL AND ARCHITECTURAL ANALYSIS ......................................................................................... 63

III.1.1 STRUCTURE OF TOURISTIC DATA ................................................................................................................ 65

III.1.2 DATABASE SCHEMA ................................................................................................................................. 66

III.1.3 DATABASE ENTITIES ................................................................................................................................. 66

III.2 QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS .................................................................................................................. 71

III.2.1 DATABASE ITEM DIVISION ......................................................................................................................... 71

III.2.2 ITEM TOTAL DISTRIBUTION ........................................................................................................................ 72

III.2.3 ITEM DISTRIBUTION WITHOUT EVENTS ........................................................................................................ 73

III.2.4 ITEM ACCOMMODATION DISTRIBUTION ...................................................................................................... 75

III.2.5 ACTIVE AND NON-ACTIVE ITEMS ................................................................................................................ 76

III.2.6 REGIONAL ITEM DIVISION ......................................................................................................................... 83

III.3 QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS .................................................................................................................... 84

III.3.1 QUALITY LEVEL – TOTAL SCORE ................................................................................................................. 85

III.3.2 QUALITY LEVEL – HEURISTICS AVERAGE ...................................................................................................... 86

III.3.3 QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS – DETAIL OF ITEM RESULTS ....................................................................................... 86

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III.3.4 QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS – HEURISTICS DETAIL ............................................................................................... 89

III.4 CASE STUDIES ................................................................................................................................ 92

III.4.1 SWITZERLAND TOURISM ........................................................................................................................... 92

III.4.2 TANDEM PROJECT ................................................................................................................................. 93

III.4.3 TISCOVER PROJECT .................................................................................................................................. 95

III.5 REQUIREMENTS ENGINEERING ............................................................................................................ 96

III.5.1 STAKEHOLDER IDENTIFICATION ................................................................................................................ 105

III.5.2 IDENTIFICATION OF GOALS ...................................................................................................................... 110

III.5.3 IDENTIFICATION OF REQUIREMENTS ......................................................................................................... 117

CHAPTER IV DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS ................................................................................... 133

BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................................................... 135

ANNEXES ........................................................................................................................................... 137

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List of f igures

Figure I.1 The three phases of information consumption for a tourist

Figure I-2 The wheel of digital information between GDS and travel industry

Figure I-3 The internet affected tourism industry chain (GDS, Travel agents, Tour

Operators, Destination and Tourist / Visitors)

Figure I-4 European Interactive Advertising Association Mediascope Europe – Statistic data

are referred to 2010

Figure I-5 New Media Trend Watch with top 10 European internet travel markets - Statistic

data are referred to 2011

Figure I-6 GDS, destinations, structures, infrastructures and tourists are all playing within

internet and ICT environment

Figure I-7 Regional Destination Stakeholder map

Figure I-8 Interactions between stakeholders and the Destination management system

Figure I-9 Virtuous cycle schema by Robert Shaw

Figure I-10 Ticino Tourism Official Organization Chart – March 2012

Figure I-11 Ticino tourism hierarchical organization (regional and local communities)

Figure I-12 Ticinoinfo destination information system sources (yellow boxes) and

distribution entities (blue and white boxes). Distribution entities are either

websites and mobile application (iPhone app)

Figure II-1 Waterfall Model

Figure II-2 Entity and Properties

Figure II-3 Relationship between entities graphical representation

Figure III-1 Ticino destination information system – ER schema

Figure III-2 Class based structure graphical representation

Figure III-3 ER schema of Ticinoinfo DIS

Figure III-4 Database Item total distribution graphical representation

Figure III-5 Database item distribution without events graphical representation

Figure III-6 Distribution of “Accommodation” entities

Figure III-7 Distribution of not active statuses (Archived, basket, other) between database

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elements

Figure III-8 Total active and not active items graphical representation

Figure III-9 Event and organizer items interesting findings and observations. Active

elements are colored in blue; Not active elements are colored in red.

Figure III-10 Regional item distribution in database archive graphical representation

Figure III-11 Qualitative level of database archive

Figure III-12 Qualitative level of database archive, heuristic detail (1= Very Good - 2= Good -

3= Sufficient - 4= Insufficient)

Figure III-13 Organizer item qualitative weaknesses (detail of heuristics)

Figure III-14 Restaurant item qualitative weaknesses (detail of heuristics)

Figure III-15 Common item qualitative weaknesses (detail of heuristics)

Figure III-16 Event item qualitative weaknesses (detail of heuristics)

Figure III-17 Holiday House item qualitative weaknesses (detail of heuristics)

Figure III-18 Database authority heuristic detailed evaluation

Figure III-19 Database accuracy heuristic detailed evaluation

Figure III-20 Database multimedia consistency heuristic detailed evaluation

Figure III-21 Myswitzerland.com data workflow

Figure III-22 TANDEM project subscriber’s options for data website integration

Figure III-23 Answers for question 1 graphical representation








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List of tables

Table I-1 Inter and Intra Organizational Communication and functions facilitated by

Information Technologies

Table I-2 Destination management Organization roles and target

Table I-3 Destination Management Organization functions and explanation

Table I-4 Destination Management System success criteria

Table II-1 Milestones and Outcomes of Ticino destination information system project

deliveries

Table II-2 Database type, location and status of the elements (active / inactive)

Table II-3 Heuristics for qualitative analysis and deep explanation

Table II-4 Qualitative analysis statistical distribution of the items

Table II-5 Name, surname and function of the 7 most influencing people in managing,

creating, updating content

Table II-6 List of questions for personal interviews and their mapping with the main

objectives identified

Table II-7 List of questions for the online survey

Table II-8 Stakeholder priority scale and value. Symbol is used graphically to point out the

importance of each stakeholder while value is the numerical representation of

priority

Table II-9 Baseline stakeholders, client and suppliers

Table II-10 Baseline stakeholder profiles

Table II-11 Goal benefits scale and value. Symbol is used graphically to point out the

importance of each goal while value is the numerical representation of benefit

Table II-12 Goal priority scale

Table II-13 Requirement importance scale and value. Symbol is used graphically to point out

the importance of each requirement while value is the numerical representation

of importance

Table II-14 Requirement priority scale

Table III-1 Ticino destination information system database entities, information provided

and information providers

Table III-2 Item entity table with a description of the properties

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Table III-3 Database item distribution between different entities

Table III-4 Database item distribution (not considering event entity)

Table III-5 Item distribution grid between active and not active elements

Table III-6 Distribution of active and not active elements within each entity

Table III-7 The Mile+ heuristics considered in the qualitative analysis

Table III-8 Stakeholder priority scale and value. Symbol is used graphically to point out the

importance of each stakeholder while value is the numerical representation of

priority

Table III-9 Matrix for the identification of client stakeholders

Table III-10 Matrix for the identification of supplier stakeholders

Table III-11 Goal benefits scale and value. Symbol is used graphically to point out the

importance of each goal while value is the numerical representation of benefit

Table III-12 Matrix for the identification of goals

Table III-13 Critic goals over 100 score

Table III-14 Important goals from 91 to 99 score

Table III-15 Minor goals over 100 score

Table III-16 Requirement importance scale and value. Symbol is used graphically to point out

the importance of each requirement while value is the numerical representation

of importance

Table III-17 Matrix for the identification of requirements

Table III-18 Final list of Critic requirements

Table III-19 Final list of important requirements. The table has been divided in two parts

with the purpose of facilitate reading

Table III-20 Final list of important requirements. The table has been divided in two parts

with the purpose of facilitate reading

Table III-21 Final list of minor requirements. The table has been divided in two parts with the

purpose of facilitate reading

Table III-22 Final list of minor requirements. The table has been divided in two parts with the

purpose of facilitate reading

Table IV-1 Critic requirements - Requirements underlined in grey have been integrated in

ticinoinfo sa official project documentation

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List of acronyms

ICT Information and Communication Technologies

IT Information Technologies

DMO Destination Management Organization

DMS Destination Management System

DIS Destination Information System

CRS Computer Reservation System

GDS Global Distribution System

GPS Global Positioning System

WI-FI Wireless-Fidelity

EIAA European Interactive Advertising Association

WTO World Tourism Organization

MICE Meetings Incentives Conferences Exhibitions

OTA Online Travel Agents

TO Tour Operators

TA Travel Agents

ETT Ente Turistico Ticinese (Ticino touristic board)

ETL Ente Turistico Locale (Local touristic board)

AGR Arti Grafiche Rezzonico (Rezzonico Graphic Arts)

FTIA Federazione Ticinese Integrazione Handicap (Ticinese Federation for the

integration of disabled people)

ETLM Ente Turistico Lago Maggiore (Lake Maggiore touristic board)

ETMBC Ente Turistico Mendrisiotto e Basso Ceresio (Mendrisiotto touristic board)

ETB Ente Turistico Bellinzona (Bellinzona touristic board)

RSI Radiotelevisione della Svizzera Italiana (Switzerland Italian television broadcast)

SQL Structured Query Language

E-R Entity Relationship

DBMS Data Base Management System

RDBMS Relational Data Base Management System

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MiLE+ Milano-Lugano Evaluation

TEC-Lab Technology Enhanced Communication Laboratory

HOC-Lab Hypermedia Open Center Laboratory

FHS Fachhochschule

EFRE Europäischer Fonds für regionale Entwicklung

TIGS Tourism Info Gate Salzburg

EU European Union

RE Requirements Engineering

AWARE Analysis of Web Application Requirements

JSP Java Server Pages

HTML Hypertext Markup Language

XML Extensible Markup Language

ID Identification

IT Italian

EN English

DE German

FR French

ST Switzerland Tourism

CH Switzerland

STNet Switzerland Tourism Network

RSS Really Simple Syndication

ATOM Atom Syndication Format

CRM Customer Relationship Management

CMS Content Management System

STC Switzerland Travel Center

SEO Search Engine Optimization

B2B Business to Business

DAM Digital Asset Management

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Introduction and Motivation

Human communication technologies and tourism is an inseparable binomial in the modern travel

industry. Most researchers tried to analyze how those two worlds interact creating an

environment where both customers and suppliers have benefits.

Destination management organization (DMO) is one of the institutions where the adoption of

information and communication technologies (ICT) had the major impact, giving the possibility to

manage all processes in a more efficient and effective manner. From the touristic side, the

possibility to have an archived selection of information about the destination gave a reliable

source of information to draw from specific needs.

This digitalized source of information became a specific field of research and analysis, namely

Destination management system (DMS). However, during the entire research we will define Ticino

destination database of information a Destination information system (DIS) different from DMS

concept in its lack of managing data.

The idea for this research comes from a real project, currently in progress and financed by the

Ticinese Federal Department of Economics, the renewal of Ticino Destination information system,

owned by the society (ticinoinfo sa) where the researcher is working since 2010.

Ticino destination information system (DIS), the digitalized archive of information for Ticino

destination, was developed fourteen years ago and never restructured or readapted for the

modern travel and tourism industry. As a matter of fact, its structure is conceived as a digitalized

source of touristic data entry and data distribution.

The need for a new technologically advanced application able to follow the evolution of tourism

and ICT represents the first reason behind the submission of the project for DIS renewal.

In October 2010, Ticino website, as well as Ascona-Locarno website have been completely

restructured, starting a process that other local destinations followed (Mendrisio Turismo

launched a new version of the website in 2011) and integrating data coming from the DIS. The

renewal of those destination websites design did not follow a coordinated redesign and overall

quality check of DIS, the source where the websites draw on for the structured data. As a

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consequence, Ticino local and regional destinations highlighted the limits of the current DIS asking

for a new structured and reliable source of information.

The need for an evolution in data structure, a complete data qualitative problems elicitation and

the management of data introduction represents the second motivation for the development of

this research.

Therefore, the scientific objectives of this research are on the one hand to find a reliable

methodology for destination information system analysis and qualitative evaluation, on the other

hand to find a methodology for destination information system final definition of requirements

and planning for the future renewal.

An additional objective of this research is to give a deep understanding of how Ticino regional

destination information system is organized and what are his structural, quantitative and

qualitative weaknesses.

The case study and analysis of Ticino destination information system leads to other research

questions, representing the focal point of research:

- How does a destination information system (DIS) need to be structured for modern travel

and tourism industry?

- What are the main objectives that a destination needs to consider strategically for the

design of a destination information system planning its evolution in a destination

management system?

During the research we will see how difficult is the task of planning strategically the requirements

for the renewal of an already existing application (with structural and qualitative limits) involving

different stakeholders with different interests. The final list of requirements for the Destination

information system as well as the engineering-methodology approach will give the final answer to

the research questions raised.

In the first part (Chapter I) we will introduce an analysis of Tourism and Information and

Communication Technologies, passing through a complete definition of what is a Destination

management Organization and how it operates.

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In the second part (Chapter II) we will proceed by laying the foundation of a methodology, that will

be developed in practice during the third part (Chapter III), where we will proceed to a complete

analysis (structural, quantitative, qualitative) of Ticino destination information system database.

The case studies will represent the benchmarking phase useful to find new and innovative ideas

for the renewal of DIS. Afterwards, we will proceed in the definition of the stakeholders involved

in the project renewal of Ticino destination information system and we will define and prioritize

the goals of the project. Those phases are prior to the identification of requirements where we will

follow an engineering methodology to find those that are critical, important and minor for the

project renewal of the DIS.

Final discussions and conclusions (Chapter IV) will give the answers to the research questions.

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Chapter I Literature Review

I .1 Human Communication Technologies and Tourism

In the definition of Human communication technologies we have to consider all the branches of

Technologies that can be adopted for the use of communication and information.

Internet and the online world are a part of those technologies together with computer

applications and software developments that are helpful for the Communication and information

area.

Tourism, on the other hand, means travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. The World

Tourism Organization defines tourists as people "traveling to and staying in places outside their

usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other

purposes” (World tourism organization, 1995).

Those two complex fields of study are strictly connected nowadays: Technologies are, at some

extent, increasingly affecting the tourism industry more every year.

The concept of Pre consumption – consumption and post consumption (Chapter I.1.1) will be

useful to understand the important role of information within the travel experience and

represents the starting point of the literature review, that will explore technologies and tourism

evolution (Chapter I.2) from first reservation systems (CRS) to modern GDS until recent years with

the explosion of internet and its impact in European travel industry. Chapter I.3 will give an

overview of how information and communication technologies are used at every level of a

touristic organization like a destination management organization, whose main structures and

roles will be analyzed during Chapter I.4. The destination management data system and the

possibilities of integration in a destination management organization structure will be necessary to

introduce the theoretical basis of the research thesis project. Chapter I.6 will finally give

background information regarding Ticino destination management organization structure and

Ticinoinfo DIS role as digitalized source of touristic information.

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I.1.1 Pre consumption – consumption – post consumption

In order to explain how Technologies for Communication are now close to tourist’s needs and

modify his behavior, comes the concepts of Pre-, during- and post- consumption (Gretzel,

Fesenmaier and O’Leary - 2006).

Tourism is undoubtedly an experience different from any other field involving goods and services.

The consumption is the last step of a planning process (pre-consumption) that is part of the

holiday itself in which the tourist have a need of information that has to be fulfilled. The ultimate

phase of post-consumption (sharing of the experience) need also to be evaluated in order to

attract new visitors.

Gretzel, Fesenmaier and O’Leary have identified three different levels:

1- Pre-consumption

2- Consumption

3- Post-consumption

Tourists have a need of information in those three steps described by Gretzel, Fesenmaier and

O’Leary and Human Communication Technologies can play a key role in satisfying these needs.

Figure I-1 The three phases of information consumption for a tourist

- Pre-consumption phase includes the decision processes involved before the holiday /

travel. Visitors will use technologies to plan the travel experience and evaluate the

preference for a destination rather than another. They will also compare different travel

options and establish diverse connections with intermediaries before committing the

transactions and complete the booking process.

Pre-consumption

Consumption Post -

Consumption

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- Consumption phase is the completion of the experience, where Technologies for

Communication are used to build a connection between tourists and tourism industry

chain to gather every kind of information. WI-FI connection, Mobile devices, GPS are just

some examples on how a tourist can make advantage of the use of technologies and be

driven during his experience

- Post consumption phase mark-out the end of the travel experience and the beginning of

the sharing stage. Tourist here needs to tell to friends or familiars his personal point of

view about the visit, uploading new content (textual / multimedia) in social networks or

recommendation systems (Gretzel, Fesenmaier and O’Leary - 2006).

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I .2 Technologies and Tourism History

I.2.1 CRS

A computer reservations system (or central reservation system) is a database which enables a

tourism organization to manage its inventory and make it accessible to its partners (Buhalis. Jun,

2011).

CRS appeared for the first time in 1970s in order to organize the distribution of Airlines, they

pioneered the presence of technologies in tourism, building central databases managing the

different options of Airline tickets with a remote distribution to intermediaries and travel agents.

The airlines firstly introduced this technological innovation but were followed by Hotel chains and

Tour Operators, contributing enormously to the operational and strategic management of the

tourism chain.

I.2.2 GDS

Global Distribution Systems appeared in 1980s as an evolution of CRS, that evolved both

horizontally opening the market to other airline systems and vertically incorporating other travel

products like accommodations, touristic services and infrastructures, entertainment.

Global Distribution Systems allowed building a concept of travel mix, offering diverse packages

and products related to a touristic destination.

The Globalization of the tourism industry increased efficiency and reliability enabling principals to

distribute and manage their reservations globally by bridging consumer needs with the tourism

supply (Buhalis, 1998).

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Figure I-2 The wheel of digital information between GDS and travel industry

I.2.3 Internet and the World Wide Web

The global impact of internet radically improved the power of this network and exchange of data,

shortening the distance from the final consumer.

Internet provided unexpected opportunities for GDS distribution, enabling the exchange of widely

different products and services. Those opportunities were grabbed by intermediaries and travel

agents for the offer and comparison of the enormous volume of data collected by GDS.

Figure I-3 The internet affected tourism industry chain (GDS, Travel agents, Tour Operators, Destination and Tourist / Visitors)

GDS

Air Tickets

Database

Transport Database

Entertainement

Database

Hotel Database

GDS Travel Agents

Tour Operators

Destination Tourists / Visitors

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I.2.4 Internet Penetration in Europe

EIAA (European Interactive Advertising Association) provided more recent and interesting data

about the percentage of use for the internet in Europe.

Figure I-4 - European Interactive Advertising Association Mediascope Europe – Statistic data are referred to 2010

The internet penetration in Europe affected considerably the travel and tourism industry market.

The number of European visitors to the travel sector in April 2011 grew 11% in 2010, according to

comScore.

Travel properties, which include online travel agents, destination information sites, and

transportation and accommodation sites, in 2011 attracted 44% of the European internet

audience, a 5% point increase from 2010.

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

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In the graphic below, we can see the top 10 European markets by % reach of travel properties:

Figure I-5 - New Media Trend Watch with top 10 European internet travel markets - Statistic data are referred to 2011

66.50%

58.70%

57.30%

56.60%

56%

50.90%

50.50%

47.30%

47.20%

45.40%

UK

Ireland

Spain

Netherlands

France

Switzerland

Germany

Sweden

Italy

Belgium

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I .3 Information and Communication Technologies in

Tourism Industry

In the previous section we focused the attention on the history and evolution of technologies and

tourism, underlying the fact that from 1970s to present, the Information and communication

technology has radically changed and shaped tourism from the perspective of touristic

organization and touristic consumer.

Both kinds of users (organizations and consumers) are able to make use of informatics to create

and easily access information with the networked potential of the internet that in early 1980s has

improved the connectivity between those entities.

Figure I-6 GDS, destinations, structures, infrastructures and tourists are all playing within internet and ICT environment

In the environment described in figure I-6, as World Travel Organization (WTO) argues, “the key to

success lies in the quick identification of consumer needs and in reaching potential clients with

comprehensive, personalized and up-to-date information”.

Tourist

GDS

Infra

structures

Structures

Destination

Internet and ICT

environment

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I.3.1 ICT and Touristic Organizations

It is essential nowadays for a touristic organization to adopt the use of ICT and internet at all levels

of the structure and in every department.

Dimitrios Buhalis and Soo Hyun Jun tried to make a list of all benefits for a touristic organization in

the adoption of technologies that can be summarized in a substantial reduction of costs for the

organization, a better knowledge management and an increased speed and rapidity of all

functions (Buhalis, Jun, 2011).

A good strategy for the integration of Information and communication technologies in a touristic

organization will furthermore facilitate a number of intra organizational processes increasing the

productivity and returning time and cost effective.

The table below, provided by Dimitrios Buhalis in his Strategic use of information technologies in

the tourism industry (Buhalis, 1998) summarizes the tourism industry communication patterns

and functions facilitated by IT’s

Intra - Organizational Communication and functions Inter Organizational Communication

and functions

Management

- Strategic planning

- Competition analysis

- Financial planning and control

- Marketing research

- Marketing strategy & implementation

- Pricing decision and tactics

- Middle term planning & feedback management

- statistics/reports and operational control

management functions

Pre travel Arrangements

- General information

- Availability/prices inquiries

- Negotiations and bargaining

- Reservations & confirmations

- Ancillary services

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Communication between departments

- Networking & information exchange

- Co-ordination of staff

- Operational planning

- Accounting/billing

- Payroll

- Supplies management

Travel related documentation

- Lists of groups/visitors

- Receipts/documents

- Vouchers & tickets production

Communication and functions with branches

- Co-ordination of operations

- Availability/prices/information

- Orders from headquarters/administration

- Share of common resource databases for

customer and operational information

Post travel arrangements

- Payments & commissions

- Feedback & suggestions

- Complaint handling

Table I-1 Inter and Intra Organizational Communication and functions facilitated by Information Technologies

ICT will benefit, as explained in table I-1 at an Inter Organizational level, enhancing communication

and connectivity between business structures.

As the ICT world evolves rapidly and constantly, the organization will furthermore need to employ

qualified professionals with competences and experience in the IT field in order to move forward

in develop new business.

I.3.2 ICT and the Touristic Consumer

ICT in travel industry has dramatically changed the perspective of the traveler experience. Prior to

the diffusion of internet the tourist was getting used to address the touristic agency for the

complete organization of the travel (flight, accommodation, etc..)

Within the internet advent the tourist is the subject that can make its own decisions: compare

destinations, air tickets prices, hotels, before and during the consumption of the travel.

Search engines such as Google and Yahoo provided unprecedented capability to find anything,

including destination and product information. An electronic marketplace has gradually emerged

and suppliers have developed Internet interfaces to communicate with clientele and partners to

sell directly (Buhalis, 1998). Dynamic packaging has evolved in this ecosystem making possible to

book an air ticket together with a hotel accommodation in the desired destination.

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ICT consumers benefits in tourism industry have been listed by Dimitrios Buhalis and Soo Hyun Jun

(Buhalis, Jun, 2011) and can be summarized in more opportunities for selection of travel choices,

immediacy in transaction for buying different touristic related products at any time from any place

and customization of products and services.

Touristic organization have consequently started to think about customization of the offer and 1:1

online marketing and online assistance techniques in order to satisfy tourist demand.

Information technologies have been slowly transformed from customer centric to customer

driven, giving to the customer the possibility to play a stronger role in creating and sharing his own

travel experience.

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I .4 Destination and Management Organization

Destinations are amalgams of tourism products, offering an integrated experience to consumers.

Traditionally, destinations are regarded as well-defined geographical areas, such as a country, an

island or a town (Hall, 2000; Davidson & Maitland, 1997)

From a touristic perspective, we can define a destination as a geographical region, political

jurisdiction, or major attraction, which seeks to provide visitors with a range of satisfying to

memorable visitation experiences (Bornhorsta et al., 2008).

Hence, a destination is an amalgam of touristic products located in a specific area on a country,

regional or local level, with a wide range of roles summarized in the table below:

Role Target

Coordination and Cooperation Touristic institutions

Leadership and advocacy Local communities

Development Tourism facilities

Visitor Services Tourist / Visitors

Organization liaison External Organization assistance

Table I-2 Destination management Organization roles and target

The roles of the organization match accordingly with the functions that destination has the

commission to accomplish:

Function Explanation

Marketing and Promotion Marketing of the destination and promotion of

all its touristic products

Manage / Development of products Info managing and promotion of current

products plus development of new touristic

products

Strategic definitions Future strategic definition for positioning the

destination in the travel market

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Financial Management Managing the public / private funds and

investments in tourism industry

Public Relations Build, maintain and develop stable relation

with local and international media (journalists

visiting and speaking about the destination) as

well as with tour operators

Image Creation Build a positive image of a destination

Leisure and Business travelers satisfaction Create and distribute material for drive leisure

and business tourists of the destination

Stakeholders relationship orientation Leader and manage relationship with

stakeholders

Table I-3 Destination Management Organization functions and explanation

Leading and managing relationships with stakeholders is one of the main responsibilities of

destination managers and the degree of managerial success of the destination will influence

stakeholders.

DMO will need therefore to attract and retain good employees that are professional, accountable

and respected by other tourism stakeholders in the destination. This stakeholder confidence in the

DMO will further improve the DMO’s ability to attract secure sources of funding, partnerships and

collaboration that lead to greater resources to fulfill its mandate (Bornhorsta et al., 2008).

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Below we provide a reconstruction schema of a regional destination stakeholder map:

I.4.1 Destination Categories

Dimitrios Buhalis, in his article “Marketing the competitive destination of the future” (Buhalis,

2000) recognize different categories of touristic destinations:

- Urban destinations equipped with conference and exhibition halls and transportation and

accommodation infrastructure to facilitate the organization of larger events.

- Alpine destinations for leisure travelers that love skiing and natural attractions

- Seaside destinations and resorts usually serving travelers from northern regions that like

sun and sea sports

- Rural destinations attracting people that appreciate nature and traditional products

- Authentic (Undeveloped) destinations for adventurous and brave travelers

- Unique / Exotic destinations that have built the image of uniqueness and exclusivity in the

mind of travelers

I.4.2 Destination Products

The destinations listed here encompass a variety of products and services (like accommodation,

gastronomy, transportation, events, etc..) that the destination organization has to manage and

National Destination Management Organization

Local communities and Regional infrastructures

Regional Travelers

- Business

- Leisure

- Domestic and

International

Tourism Destination

- Facilities

- Institutions

- Organizations

Regional Suppliers

- Tour Operators

- Accommodation

- Touristic products

Figure I-7 Regional Destination Stakeholder map

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promote, enhancing partnerships between the local and private sector and cooperation between

all local suppliers.

The selection of touristic products is altered according to the purpose and features of the trip,

elements of the external environment, the characteristics of the traveler and the particularities

and attributes of destinations (Buhalis, 2000).

I.4.3 Destination Travelers

The profile of the traveler is therefore pivotal for the definition of products and delivering of the

right information. Dimitrios Buhalis defines the profile of the business traveler, often referred to

the Meetings Incentives Conferences Exhibitions (MICE).

Business traveler does not pay much attention on price and is more willing to visit destinations

providing a high degree of efficiency and safety, while leisure traveler have a much higher price

elasticity and therefore price is a key element in his decision making process.

Business travelers will be influenced indirectly by people who are responsible for arranging

business meetings and conferences in the destination organization. In this environment, strong

links with the local business and academic communities will be required.

On the other hand, leisure travelers will need a direct relation with the touristic organization

including the representation of brochures and promotional material in travel agencies.

I.4.4 Destination Marketing

Delivering the right products to the right target in the right market is part of the tasks that a

destination needs to accomplish. Managers of the organization will need to build relations with

marketing experts in order to create a dynamic process of always up-to-date research driving the

consequent development of the right products for the evolving market.

There are two different marketing approaches that a destination can adopt in his organization,

namely “above the line” and “below the line”.

Dimitrios Buhalis describes the above the line technique as the set of promotional activities

including advertising on television, radio, and press as well as poster campaigns while below the

line includes the participation in international travel and tourism fairs where delegates of the

destination have the opportunity to meet intermediaries and members of the public to promote

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their offerings. The destination produces brochures, which are distributed to all partners in the

industry and to prospective consumers who require information on the destination (Buhalis,

2000).

New technologies and innovations in a touristic environment where internet is increasing every

year his importance in the market will finally help the destination marketing professionals to

achieve strategic objectives.

I.4.5 Destination Strategies

But how are the strategic objectives selected by destination and destination managers? What

elements should be considered in evaluating how should be positioned the destination respect to

competition?

The literature on this subject is extensive, mainly Michael Porter (Porter, 1985) detected different

frameworks that are willing to describe how firms and destinations can achieve value –

competitive advantages:

- A Price management strategy for minimizing costs and standardizing products. This

strategy adopts a “high volume low profit margin” approach where the destination aim will

be to sell products at a lower price with respect to competitors

- A Value creation strategy where tourists will perceive the added value of the destination

depending on the uniqueness and differentiation of its products. This strategy adapts a

“low volume high profit margin” approach and the consumer willing to pay will be driven

by the peculiarities of the selected products.

Evans, Fox & Johnson (Evans et al., 1995) argue that in both cases tourism strategies should not

only concentrate on visitation, but also include the entire range of impacts such as overcrowding,

environmental problems, visitor safety and security, seasonality problems, and sensitivity to local

culture.

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I .5 Destination Management System s

Dimitrios Buhalis defines DMSs as “a collection of computerized information, interactively

accessible, about a destination" (Buhalis, Spada, 2000).

Effectively, tourists request a wide variety of information on areas, facilities, attractions, and

activities at destinations before departure and once at the destination. That information is

managed through a destination management system (Buhalis, Spada, 2000).

The destination management system represents in other words the collection of digitalized data

pertaining to a touristic destination and can be used for very different purposes. Marketing of the

destination products and services; distribution of data to local communities, stakeholders and

suppliers; cooperation between destination, tour operators and travel agents are just some of the

developments that this Information and communication technology application can have in travel

industry.

I.5.1 Stakeholders and success criteria

There are a variety of entities involved in the creation of a destination management system:

customer / Visitors, Tourism Suppliers, Public Sector and Investors, Tour Operators, and Travel

Agents are the stakeholders selected by Buhalis and Spada to assess the list of success criteria

(table below):

Destination Management System

Stakeholder Success criteria

Public sector - Use of DMS as a promotional tool

- Use of DMSs to support SMTEs

- DMSs economic benefits

- Reduction of seasonality

- Use of DMSs for strategic alliances

- Reduction of IT costs

- Reliability of information / accuracy

- Quality / Information unbiased

- Use of DMSs as management tools

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Investors - DMSs ability to make a profit


- Private / Public sectors partnership

- Operating efficiency of the system

- DMSs ability to embrace new technologies

- Profitability of membership fees

Customer/Visitors - Comprehensive destination information before, during and after the trip

- Speedy transactions

- Secure payment methods

- User friendly system

- Multi-channel access

- Options to conduct virtual tours

- Late availability information

- Online booking facility

- Online booking confirmation

- Online help functions

- Availability of a range of prices

Tour Operators - Reduction of distribution costs

- Reduction of communication costs

- DMS’s support for market information

- Reduction of seasonality

- Use of DMS’s as marketing tools

- DMS’s ability to manage inventory

- Minimum membership fees



Travel Agents - Reliability of information / accuracy

- Real time availability information

- Commission rates

- Use of DMSs to compete with TOs


- Ability to make online reservations


- Guaranteed bookings

- Depth of information

Tourism Suppliers - Reduction of seasonality

- Use of DMS as a promotional tool

- Provisions of guaranteed bookings

- DMS ability to distribute information globally

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- Market information collection


- Cost of commission fees


- Reliability of information / accuracy

- DMS’s multi – channel delivery

Table I-4 Destination Management System success criteria

In the figure below we can see a schema with the inter-relations of all stakeholders with the

destination management system

I.5.2 Quality of information

Destination management systems are designed to reproduce in an archived and structured list of

data the complexity of the touristic offer. Information about Accommodation opportunities,

Destination Management System

Structured

data

Public Sector

Data

interaction

Investor

Data market

and diffusion

Visitors

Fruition of

information

Tour O.

Data

interaction

Travel A.

Data

interaction

Suppliers

Data

interaction

Figure I-8 Interactions between stakeholders and the Destination management system

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activities, facilities, products and services should be oriented to the continuous improving for

quality of products and processes. Hence, quality needs to become a responsibility of everyone

who is involved with the creation or consumption of the information.

In relation to this issue Buhalis and Spada underlined the need for reliable and accurate

information (Buhalis, Spada, 2000) for which destination management systems need to assure

that data is constantly controlled and verified; in addition to reliability and accuracy, neutrality and

standardization of information should guarantee that data are structured for diffusion in a variety

of distribution channels.

I.5.3 Public and Private Roles

Public and private sectors play different but important roles in the creation and modeling of a

destination management system.

The private sectors need to make sure that the final product will have profit opportunities and

consequently give an effort for the “Return On Investment” and future profitability philosophy.

On the other hand, the considerable degree of influence that the public sector can have through

planning, legislation, and incentives represents a unique tool for fostering cooperativeness among

the various stakeholders at the destination region.

Public sector is therefore responsible for ensuring coordination and cooperation between all

entities involved in the destination management organization, trying to create a team spirit rather

than a local competition on stakeholders.

I.5.4 Database Marketing

DMSs should play a key role in marketing the destination. This can be achieved through increasing

awareness and visitor levels due to the ability of DMSs to distribute information and services

globally (Buhalis, Spada, 2000). The digitalized archive of information (destination management

system) regarding the touristic destination will become a more powerful and marketing oriented

tool when mixed to a database of information about traveler / customers of the destination.

The database marketing archive will have the function to collect personalized information about

visitors, and will be a tool used for monitoring and reporting, analysis and research, planning and

budgeting, contacts, follow up information, feedback (Davies, 1992)

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Figure I-9 Virtuous cycle schema by Robert Shaw

In his text “The Essential Guide to Database Marketing”, J. Davies lists the contents of an effective

database marketing strategy:

“Database marketing involves at least the following elements: managing a computerized relational

data-base system, in real time, of comprehensive, up-to-date, relevant data on customers,

inquiries, prospects and suspects, to identify your most responsive customers for the purpose of

developing a high-quality, long-standing relationship of repeat business, by developing predictive

models..”

Customer Database archive

Monitoring and

reporting

Analysis and research

Contacts Planning

and budgeting

Follow up information

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I .6 Background

I.6.1 Ticino Tourism

Ticino Tourism is the destination management organization (DMO) for Ticino. Ticino is the

southernmost canton of Switzerland. Named after the Ticino river, it is the only canton in which

Italian is the only official language.

Ticino borders the Canton of Uri to the north, Valais to the west, Graubünden to the northeast,

Italy's regions of Piedmont and Lombardy to the south. It is representing the so-called Italian

Switzerland.

The Organization for Tourism in Ticino (Ticino Tourism or ETT) is a law corporation audience with

the task of promoting tourism throughout the canton, enhancing the regional diversity and

ensuring the guests and the public necessary information and assistance.

Ticino Tourism accomplishes all the different functions that we described in Chapter I.5:

1- The political department has the commitment to enhance Cooperation and Coordination

between Local Communities (ETL) and suppliers

2- The communication department has the function to maintain relation with local and

international media (journalists)

3- The promotion, product and services department, responsible for the management,

promotion and development of new Ticino touristic products, divided in water, nature,

culture and events. This section is also responsible for assistance and relations with leisure

and business travelers (Chapter I.4.3)

4- The marketing department, divided in priority market and traditional / potential markets,

enhancing above the line and below the line marketing techniques (Chapter I.4.4)

5- The administrative / financial department, with accountancy tasks

Ticino tourism up-to-date official organization chart and representatives is available in figure I-10.

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Figure I-10 Ticino Tourism Official Organization Chart – March 2012

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Ticino tourism touristic strategies are externally driven at a national level by Switzerland tourism.

Internally, there is a hierarchical organization between Ticino tourism and the eleven touristic

local communities (ETL) responsible for the management and promotion of local destinations and

relations with guests (Lugano Tourism, Malcantone Tourism, Mendrisiotto tourism, Ascona –

Locarno tourism, Tenero and Val Verzasca tourism, Gambarogno Tourism, Vallemaggia Tourism,

Bellinzona Tourism, Blenio Tourism, Leventina Tourism, Biasca and Riviera tourism). Local

communities are grouped in the four main Ticino regions:

1- Lake Maggiore and Valleys

2- Lake Lugano

3- Bellinzona and Upper Ticino

4- Mendrisiotto and Basso Ceresio

Figure I-11 Ticino tourism hierarchical organization (regional and local communities)

Ticino Tourism

Lake Lugano

Lugano Tourism

Malcantone Tourism

Mendrisiotto and Basso Ceresio

Mendrisiotto Tourism

Lake Maggiore and Valleys

Ascona -Locarno Tourism

Tenero and Val Verzasca Tourism

Gambarogno Tourism

Vallemaggia Tourism

Bellinzona and Upper Ticino

Bellinzona Tourism

Blenio Tourism

Leventina Tourism

Biasca and Riviera Tourism

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I.6.2 Ticinoinfo and the destination information system

Ticinoinfo sa is a society born in 1997 with the intention to manage and distribute tourism and

leisure oriented data in Canton Ticino. The main asset of the society is the management of the

digitalized archive of data (database) pertaining to Ticino touristic destination.

Ticinoinfo sa manages a database of touristic information relative to the destination main

products and services. The main objective of the society is to rationalize the collection of data and

distribute to partners / stakeholders interested to make use of the content.

The database is the central asset of the society collecting, managing and distributing structured

contents coming from ticinoinfo sa stakeholders.

Ticinoinfo sa – History in brief

The database shared with partners and stakeholders has been developed in 1997 and in fifteen

years has been a datum point for the collection and rationalization of touristic oriented data in

Canton Ticino.

In the last 15 years the society made several step forward to strengthen and enrich ticinoinfo

database. The project named ticinoinfo II started in 2004 with three main objectives:

1. The technological and organizational redesign

2. The economic recovery

3. The repositioning of the company on the touristic market

Thanks to the development of this project and the achievement of those three objectives

stakeholders had the possibility to actively contribute to the enrichment of database with

structured content.

Ticinoinfo sa – Modern times

The project ticinoinfo III, started in 2009 as a result of shareholders enlargement, had two main

objectives:

1. The diffusion of ticinoinfo database to all Ticino touristic local communities (ETL)

2. The adoption of central /cost effective investments in new technologies for the benefit of

Ticino tourism industry

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The central database allows a wide diffusion of data for leisure and tourism in different websites

of touristic stakeholders that will benefit from the updating of the same piece of structured

information in all websites.

Lake Maggiore official website, Ticino Turismo website, Mendrisiotto tourism website are some of

the examples of touristic entities that integrated ticinoinfo database structured data with a

substantial reduction of time and investments in programming and data entry.

The destination information system, representing the touristic complexity of Ticino destination,

has a huge number of data sources that contributes to the enrichment of ticinoinfo database and

distribution entities, representing the stakeholders involved in the reception of data from Ticino

destination information system

Data Sources Entities

Cartografia

Cartografia is a useful source for providing data from Google maps.

Swiss Meteo

Swiss Meteo is the national weather service of Switzerland, providing meteorological and

climatological services and weather information.

AGR (Arti Grafiche Rezzonico)

AGR has the duty to build the events agenda and work on the redistribution of the news in

Switzerland also for the off line communication.

Gastroticino

Gastroticino (federation operators Hotels Ticino) is the largest hotel and shopkeeper industry

association in Canton Ticino, providing restaurant data. It is divided into four regional sections:

1. GastroLago Maggiore e Valli

2. GastroBellinzona Alto Ticino

3. GastroLugano

4. GastroMendrisiotto

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ETT (Ente Ticino Turismo, regional tourist board )

Ticino Turismo board, the top institution for touristic promotion of Canton Ticino, providing

touristic data (included data for hotel).

ETL (Ente Turistico Locale, local tourist board)

ETL make contributions for data on holiday houses. It has the duty to provide guest assistance and

information at a local level, approaching the real needs of the guests. ETLM (Lake Maggiore

Tourism), Mendrisiotto Tourism and Bellinzona Tourism are now sharing their data inside

Ticinoinfo database platform.

FTIA (Ticinese Federation for the integration of disabled people)

FTIA (Federazione Ticinese per l’Integrazione degli Andicappati) is providing useful data for

accessible tourism.

Booking Hotel and Holiday Houses

Booking Hotel and Holiday Houses is partner of Switzerland Tourism that has a shared booking

engine platform.

Booking Theatres

The section for booking theatres connected with the official tickets booking Swiss platform

www.ticketcorner.ch.

EarthTV | RSI

Earth TV | RSI is the webcam section of the website Ticino.ch, the second visit source on the

website.

- RSI provides the distribution of snapshots for the cities of Locarno, Comano, Ascona, Catto,

Lugano, Vernate, Bellinzona, Locarno, Monte Generoso.

Earth TV provides live webcam with panoramic views available for Lugano and Ascona,

with the possibility to switch on:

eLive - Prerecorded webcam for the cities of Lugano and Ascona

Last 48 hours - Previously recorded 48 hours short movies divided in time slots

(morning, afternoon, night)

Best of - The group of the best short film (13” duration)

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Motion Timelapse - Video section speeded up for Lugano and Ascona

Promotional Video - Ticino Promotional Video

Data Distribution Entities

Vallemaggia

Vallemaggia Tourism is one of the touristic platforms where all data coming in ticinoinfo sa

database are redistributed. The website is divided in different sections related to news and events,

travel ideas and suggestions, accommodation and culture.

Lugano Tourism

Lugano Tourism is the website of the municipality of Lugano with touristic data. Booking engine

services coming in ticinoinfo sa database are redistributed to this institution.

Bellinzona Tourism

Bellinzona Tourism is the website for touristic promotion of Bellinzona region. Touristic data are

integrated in the website through web services.

Mendrisio Tourism

Mendrisio Tourism is the official website of the Tourist Board of the region of Mendrisiotto and

Lower Ceresio. Touristic data are shared through web services.

Ascona Municipality

The website of Ascona Municipality has the aim to supply information for citizens and visitors in

order to learn more about the city and meet the cultural offerings and regional tourism proposals.

Ascona municipality shares touristic data coming from ticinoinfo sa database.

Lugano City

The website of Lugano. All touristic data coming from ticinoinfo sa database are redistributed in

Lugano City platform.

Banca Stato

Banca Stato has accepted the agreement with ticinoinfo sa for the furniture of touristic data via

web services. Banca Stato in Canton Ticino has the mission to promote economic development in

Ticino and offer the opportunity to invest savings safely and profitably.

Hotellerie Suisse Ticino

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Hotellerie Suisse Ticino takes and implements touristic data from ticinoinfo sa database in its

website. The mission for Hotellerie Suisse Ticino in brief is to:

- Act in the interest of quality tourism in collaboration with Ticino Tourism

- Supporting hoteliers in matters of analysis and management providing necessary support

- Develop new media with new information technologies.

Gastroticino

Gastroticino is the platform used to search and find restaurants, hotels, recipes, food and wines of

Ticino and Switzerland. The distribution of touristic data in the website platform is coming from

ticinoinfo sa database.

Regio Insubrica

The community Regio Insubrica has the mission to promote cross-border cooperation between

Italy - Switzerland and “Tre Laghi Prealpini”.

Svizzera Turismo

MySwitzerland is the national marketing and sales organization for Switzerland. MySwitzerland is

entirely devoted to all visitors and works in close collaboration with tourism partners and suppliers

at home, and their subsidiaries abroad. Touristic data coming from ticinoinfo sa database are

redistributed on Switzerland Tourism touristic platform.

Walking Ticino

Walking Helsana Ticino has the aim of creating events of national importance. Sponsored by the

association under the auspices of Allez Hop and Health Promotion Switzerland and the support of

Helsana, Raiffeisen Athleticum and Lake Maggiore Tourist routes and distances for all offers.

Trade Corner (Tour Operators) & MICE (Meeting and Incentive)

Trade Corner is the area of the website Ticino.ch enabled to share information with touristic

partners and stakeholders across the world. Meeting and Incentive is the section of Ticino.ch

dedicated to the organization of seminars and congresses devoted to spread Ticino touristic

activities and programs around the world. Both websites implement data coming from ticinoinfo

sa database. Graphic design and Layout modifications will be realized within the new Ticino.ch

platform.

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Media Corner & Institutional Area

The Media Corner and the Institutional area of the website Ticino.ch is specifically designed to

provide information, services and support to international and local media for tourism sector.

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Figure I-12 Ticinoinfo destination information system sources (yellow boxes) and distribution entities (blue and white boxes). Distribution entities are either websites or mobile application (iPhone app)

Ticinoinfo DIS

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Chapter II Research Methodology

The research followed different steps of analysis and evaluation. Mainly we can indicate six phases

that have been delivered in the order below:

Milestones Outcomes

1- Structural and architectural analysis E-R Model of the DIS

2- Quantitative analysis DIS data quantitative statistics

3- Qualitative analysis Overall quality of data (DIS)

4- Case studies analysis Best practices and ideas

5- Requirements engineering Definition of requirements

Table II-1 Milestones and Outcomes of Ticino destination information system project deliveries

During the research we will provide a detailed description of the phases described in Table II-1.

Those milestones will be followed by other stages, namely innovation design, implementation,

verification and maintenance of the proposed innovation. In this case we refer to the Waterfall

model, a sequential design process, often used in software development, where progress is a

chain constituted by the different phases of Definition of Requirements, Innovation design,

Implementation, Verification, Maintenance (Figure II-1).

Figure II-1 Waterfall Model

Definition of Requirements

Innovation design

Implementation

Verification

Maintenance

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II .1 Structural and architectural Analysis

The architectural analysis of the destination information system has been carried out during a

meeting with the software engineer responsible of the DIS and allowed to understand the

different level of technological complexity behind the DIS. The description of the architecture, fully

explained in Chapter III.1 is useful to understand that a modification in the database, at the lower

stage of the architecture, can affect as a result the entire process of data distribution (domino

effect).

The structural analysis of the Ticino destination information system has started in October 2011,

when we first proceeded to a reconstruction of the database structure through the use of the SQL

(Structured Query Language) file.

SQL is a language used to design, read, modify and manage data memorized in a DBMS (Data Base

Management System) based on the relational model RDBMS (Relational Data Base Management

System).

During the analysis we used a reverse engineering process to draw the entire Entity Relationship

structure of the database. In informatics, Entity Relationship (E-R) is a model for the conceptual

representation of data often used to design a new database.

Entities represent class of objects that have common properties and can be uniquely identified.

Following Peter Pin-Shan Chen we should distinguish between an entity and an entity-type. An

entity-type is a category while an entity, strictly speaking, is an instance of a given entity-type

(Chen, 1976).

Graphically, an entity is usually represented by a rectangle containing the name of the relative

category and its properties:

Entity_Name

Property 1 Property 2 Property 3

Figure II-2 Entity and Properties

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Relationships represent the types of interactions between entities. Relationships capture the level

and the type of connection of an entity with another entity and usually are graphically

represented.

by a rhombus:

II .2 Quantitative Analysis

The entities founded during the structural and architectural analysis of the destination information

system have been examined statistically in order to find useful clues about their usage (see

Chapter III.1 for further details).

In the structural analysis we identified the most relevant properties of each element in the

database structure: the type of the entity whom the element is referenced (type), the location of

the element (location) and the status of the element determining the visibility in a public search

(active) and its restrictions determining the impossibility to be visualized in a public search

(inactive).

As a consequence, we drove the quantitative analysis following the four different paths detailed in

Table II-2, where we need to anticipate some of the outcomes coming from the structural analysis:

- Type, including the entire range of entity variables

- Location, including the different sites of Ticino destination

- Active, including the elements in the digitalized archive of information that are public

- Inactive, including the elements in the digitalized archive of information that are hidden to the

public.

Entity_Name1

Property 1

Property 2

Property 3

Entity_Name2

Property 1

Property 2

Property 3

Relationship

Figure II-3 Relationship between entities graphical representation

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Path Variables

TYPE

(What)

Event, Farmhouse, Hotel, Common, Bed and

Breakfast, Business, Campground, Alpine Hut,

Holiday House, Discotheque, Organizer, Special

offer, Hostel, Restaurant, Tour

LOCATION

(Where)

Lake Lugano: Lugano, Valli di Lugano,

Malcantone, Mendrisiotto

Bellinzona and Upper ticino: Valle Leventina,

Valle di Blenio, Riviera (Biasca), Bellinzonese,

Bellinzona

Lake Maggiore and Valley: Ascona, Locarno,

Brissago Islands, Centovalli and Onsernone,

Vallemaggia, Valle Verzasca, Tenero,

Gambarogno

ACTIVE

(Visible in public search)

Level 1 – Level of priority 1 (Low)

Level 2 – Level of priority 2 (Medium)

Level 3 – Level of priority 3 (Good)

Level 4 – Level of priority 4 (High)

INACTIVE

(Not visible in public search)

Archived – The element and its data is archived

for later use

Basket – The element and its data is on the

basket (not deleted)

Pending translation – The element is pending

translation in different languages

Suspended – The element is a draft

New – The new element is empty

Table II-2 Database type, location and status of the elements (active / inactive)

During the first step of the analysis we extracted the total number of the elements relative to each

entity, in the second step we identified the distribution between the different locations listed in

Table II – 2, while in the last phase we concentrated on the status numerical allotment of the

elements in the database archive.

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II .3 Qualitative Analysis

The qualitative analysis of Ticino destination information system has been carried out with an

application independent analysis of data using MiLE+ (Milano-Lugano Evaluation) method.

MiLE+ is the fruit of common research performed by TEC-Lab (University of Lugano) and HOC-Lab

(Politecnico of Milan). MiLE+ is a usability inspection framework for web applications that strikes a

healthy balance between heuristic evaluation and task driven techniques (Triacca, Inversini,

Bolchini, 2005).

In this research we decided to perform an application independent analysis, meaning that we

evaluated from an unbiased point of view (out of its context) data of the Ticino destination

information system.

Making an Application Independent Analysis in fact involves the analysis of the features of a web

application that can be evaluated even without knowing the purposes and the users of the

application. In this analysis there are technical aspects that should comply with general usability

parameters (heuristics) (Triacca, Inversini, Bolchini, 2005).

The qualitative analysis has been performed tailoring MiLE+ model for the needs (time and costs)

of the researcher. We therefore decided to make only a Technical Inspection to underline the

weak points of data (DIS).

We referred to the heuristic checklists (technical heuristic’s library) taking into account only the

quality level of content information provided by the application.

The content level analyzes the quality of the content (in terms of efficacy of the communication)

and it allows for verifying whether contents and their structure match the expectations of the

users.

The goal of the content heuristics was to verify the “technical” quality of the content presented in

web applications (Triacca, Inversini, Bolchini, 2005). Features and explanation of all the heuristics

considered in the analysis are listed and described in the table below

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Quality of information – TEXT and GENERAL COMMUNICATION QUALITY

Heuristic Explanation

Accuracy The accuracy states if a text describes adequately the referenced world, and

if it is consistent in itself.

Currency The electronic communication over the web is supposed to be delivered in

the precise moment the reader accesses it; thus the offered content must

be current as the addressee perceives it, or must clearly show when it was

published and the time scope of its validity.

Coverage The coverage defines the borders of the topics covered by the given

website. It must be clear what the text is speaking about and what is

supposed to be covered.

Content

Objectivity

The content objectivity indicates the commitment of the sender with

respect to the conveyed content. For example, it must be clear if a message

is an advertise or not (if the sender is paid to say something, I do not think

that he must be really convinced of what he is saying…).

Authority Authority could be divided in two parts: adequacy of the author to the text

(the competence of the author) and adequacy of the author to the reader

(the goodwill predisposition of the author towards the reader). The author

could be either a person or an institution.

Conciseness People rarely read Web pages word by word: they prefer to read on the

screen few lines (15-25 lines). In this sense, conciseness is one of the most

important aspects of the art of web-writing. For this reason it is very

important to write an effective “short” and concise text.

Text Errors The written text should not present grammatical errors.

Multimedia

Consistency

All the multimedia files must be consistent with the subject of the page.

Table II-3 Heuristics for qualitative analysis and deep explanation

We took a representative sample of data (150 elements) to analyze Ticino destination information

system. 100 elements have been representative of the statistic distribution of data (without

events) found during the quantitative analysis while 50 elements were relevant to event subset of

data as a sample for the distribution of event entity, representing 72.30% of the entire database

(Chapter III.2.1, Database item division).

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The first 100 files are representing the percentage division of the database items founded in the

quantitative analysis:

Number of files analyzed Item Title Distribution

percentage

50 (representative sample) Event Items 72.30%

45 Common Items 45%

18 Restaurant Items 18%

16 Holiday House items 16%

7 Organizer items 7%

5 Hotel Items 5%

3 Offer Items 3%

1 Tour, Farmhouse, Alpine Hut,

Hostel, Business

1%

Table II-4 Qualitative analysis statistical distribution of the items

II.3.1 Linguistic, selection and evaluation criteria

In the strategic definition of the qualitative criteria for the analyzed items we decided to include

only the Italian language content even if a lot of elements are presented in four languages (Italian,

English, German, and French). This decision is due to the lack of linguistic expertise of the

researcher (Italian mother tongue).

In the next step we figure out how to select the search criteria in order to avoid partial

examination of data. We found the best solution in a completely random search of Active files in

database. We tried to find a reasonable number of data to analyze consistent to the time at our

disposal and the demand of an evaluation as complete as possible. We therefore analyzed 150

files:

- 100 files representing Items with no events considered (chapter V.1.1)

- 50 files representing a sample of event item files (V.1.2)

During the evaluation of the technical heuristics, we adopted a scoring scale from one to four:

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1- Insufficient – The element considered does not match with the heuristic

2- Sufficient – The element considered matches with the heuristic but can be improved

3- Good – The element considered matches with the heuristic

4- Very Good – The element considered represents a best practice (matches perfectly with

the heuristic).

Each element analyzed was integrated in an evaluation matrix composed by a field for a score and

space for comments / observations.

It is important to specify that we performed the analysis in a specific period (December 2011) and

a considerable number of elements might be changed now.

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II .4 Case studies analysis

Three different destination management systems were analyzed in order to find best practices and

re-adapt useful ideas to Ticino destination management system. We found best practices at an

international level analyzing Tiscover, at a national level evaluating the Switzerland Tourism

example, while we considered TANDEM project as very innovative at a local destination level.

Below we will provide a short description of the use cases that will be analyzed in details in the

following Chapter III.4.

II.4.1 Tiscover project

Tiscover was founded in 1991 through a partnership with the Tirol Tourist Board and has evolved

into a leading provider of e-tourism solutions to Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) and

tourism businesses throughout Europe and Southern Africa. The company is headquartered in

Innsbruck, Austria, with wholly-owned subsidiaries in Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom. It

provides in particular Destination Management Systems (DMSs), the “IT infrastructure” of a

destination. In this field, Tiscover was world-market leader in 2006 with over 2,000 DMO

customers (Karcher, 2008)

II.4.2 Switzerland Tourism

MySwitzerland.com is the official website of the Swiss National Tourist Office. The destination

management system gives the destination a set of structured touristic data about Switzerland.

Switzerland Tourism, being the reference at the national level for other Swiss regional

destinations, has been evaluated with particular attention, with the perspective to maintain

consistency between the strategic organization at the national and local level and find

opportunities for collaboration and cooperation.

II.4.3 TANDEM project

The Department for Tourism Research of the FHS-Forschungsgesellschaft mbH has developed a

prototypical web solution using funds from the EFRE Innovative Measures program. The project,

originally conceived under the research project named TIGS (Tourism Info Gate Salzburg), was,

after evaluation, acclaimed by the EU as being particularly innovative.

TANDEM is a web solution that permits the structural decentralized networking of the individual

actors in tourism industry. The aim of TANDEM is to develop a platform to present destination-

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related information and to make this information available automatically as “content-to-go” for

integration into third-party websites (Egger, 2007)

II .5 Requirements Engineering

One of the most important parts of Ticino destination information system renewal project was the

requirements elicitation. During the requirements specification phase we followed four different

steps, namely:

1- One-to-one interviews and Online survey

2- Identification of Stakeholders

3- Identification of Goals

4- Identification of Requirements

We used a mix of different models, tailoring (as we did during the qualitative analysis) every model

to our need.

II.5.1 One-to-one interviews and online survey

In the requirements engineering elicitation we divided the analysis in two parts: one-to-one

interviews directed to people administrators involved in the enrichment of the database and

online surveys directed to people owners of the touristic structures that has a reference on the

current database .

Personal Interviews to selected client stakeholders

According to (Bevan, Maguire, 2002) interview is a commonly used technique where users,

stakeholders and domain experts are questioned to gain information about their needs or

requirements in relation to the new system. Interviews are usually semi-structured based on a

series of fixed questions with scope for the user to expand on their responses.

We detected a selection of nine questions, with each question directed to find a unique objective,

and we interviewed the seven most important people / stakeholders that directly influence the

daily work and maintenance / administration of the backend application (DIS).

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In the strategic definition of the interviews we carefully selected people to involve in this part of

the analysis. Seven people working constantly and contributing to the database daily enrichment

participated to the interviews:

Name and Surname Function

Carlo Pea Content Manager Ticino Turismo

Antonio Conciatori IT responsible Ascona Locarno Turismo

Giulia Cereghetti IT responsible Mendrisio Turismo

Esther Dagani Ticinoinfo Chief Editor for Rezzonico Editore

Julia Roos Product Manager Ticino Turismo

Alessia Bernasconi MICE Responsible Ticino Turismo

Martina Wallimann Country Manager Assistant Ticino Turismo

Table II-5 Name, surname and function of the 7 most influencing people in managing, creating, updating content

Every single question was than selected as corresponding to a specific objective of the project.

During the gathering of objectives, researcher within ticinoinfo sa collaborators tried to empathize

with people whose interviews were addressed following an approach aimed at picking out general

and specific problems of the current database together with possible proposal for intervention.

Objectives Questions

Understand the quality perception of the

current database

1) How do you evaluate the quality of ticinoinfo

sa database?

Understand the quality perception of every

single item

2) Evaluation of every single item (Hotel, Hostel,

Holiday Houses, etc..)

Understand what are the priorities of

intervention for a future planning

3) Can you list the first five priority intervention

on the current database?

Understand if contributors are satisfied from

the current database structure

4) Do you see a need to a different organization

of touristic data?

Understand what kind of data can be modified

in the current database structure

5) What kind of touristic data you wish to add /

eliminate / modify? Why?

Understand if contributors find difficulties in

the current usage of the database, thus limiting

6) What kind of activities is more difficult to

perform in the current database? Creation,

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their editorial freedom Modification, Elimination..

Understand what are the activities that the

contributors wants to be performed in the

database

7) What kind of activities in the database you

wish to be performed?

Identify usability degree on the current

database

8) From 1 (Very easy) to 5 (Very difficult) how

do you evaluate the usability of the current

database?

Understand the contributors level of

expectation from the revision work on the

current database

9) What are your expectations respects to the

work of revision on the current database?

Table II-6 List of questions for personal interviews and their mapping with the main objectives identified

It is important to specify that the style adopted in the interviews went in the direction of a

professional talk more than a formal interview. Sometimes the questions listed were answered

spontaneously; in other cases the researcher followed different paths according to the personality

of the interviewee.

As a result we had some primary guidelines that all people identified answering to the questions

listed in Table II-6 and variable / personal observation equally considered in the research study.

Online Questionnaire directed to supplier stakeholders

According to (Bevan, Maguire, 2002) user surveys involve administering a set of written questions

to a sample population of users. Surveys can help determine the needs of users, current work

practices and attitudes to new system ideas. We selected a list of nine questions and, through the

use of a newsletter software, we sent direct emails to a list of 956 supplier and organizations

(obtaining 120 total responses) that make advantage of the “Front end” destination information

system (people having data of their structures distributed in different websites).

The survey has been divided in two lists of questions:

1- Introductory Analysis

2- Requirement Analysis

In the strategic definition of questions we tried to maintain a balance between the precision of

responses (all questions have been settled mandatory) and the simplicity of the survey in order to

maximize the answer rate from the users.

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The final survey is presented below (Table II-7).

Online Survey

Introductory Analysis

Questions Notes

1) Category of tourism facility Please select the category of your tourism

facility

2) How do you evaluate your knowledge degree

of new technologies?

Please select a value from 1 (Very low) to 5

(Professional)

3) Do you lean on external services for your

communication / promotion or online selling?

Multiple choice: OTA - Online Travel Agents (i.e.

Booking.com); Sectorial Websites (i.e.

Swisshotels.com); Regional DMO (Destination

Management Organization); Local DMO

(Destination Management Organization);

National DMO (Destination Management

Organization); others

4) How is important the web for your activity? Please indicate over a scale from 1 (Low

impact) to 5 (High impact)

5) Did you know to have your tourism facility

on ticinoinfo sa database?

Choice: Yes / No

Requirements Analysis

Questions Notes

6) Would you like to manage content of your

tourism facility on ticinoinfo sa database?

Choice: Yes / No

7) What kind of content would you like to add

to your tourism facility on ticinoinfo sa

database?

Multiple choice: Promotional Documentation;

Images ; texts ; video ; other

8) Would you like to make online promotion of

your tourism facility (holded on ticinoinfo sa

database) over the web?

Choice: Yes / No

Observations / Comments Text field to insert Observations / Comments

Table II-7 List of questions for the online survey

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II.5.2 Identification of Stakeholders

In software engineering, stakeholders are defined as people or organizations who will be affected

by the system and who have a direct or indirect influence on the system requirements.

In order to manage, interpret and balance stakeholder importance within Ticino destination

information system we defined the priority (impact) of each stakeholders on the project scored in

Table II-8. Stakeholders were evaluated differently depending on authority (f.i. Ticino Turismo

respect to tourism local entities) and their importance within the database project renewal.

Three level of priority (critical, important, and minor) have been considered as sufficient to

determine the weight of stakeholders’ complexity involved in the project and facilitate the priority

categorization.

Stakeholder priority level Symbol Priority value

Critical !!! 3

Important !! 2

Minor ! 1

Table II-8 Stakeholder priority scale and value. Symbol is used graphically to point out the importance of each stakeholder while value is the numerical representation of priority

Taking into account those dimensions we afterwards grouped stakeholders in different categories,

following the Sharp, Finkelstein & Galal method:

Baseline Stakeholders - Categories

Stakeholder Role

Supplier stakeholders People / Organizations that make advantage of the “Front end”

destination information system (having data of their structures

distributed in different websites)

Client stakeholders People / Organizations involved in the “Back end” structure and

processes of the destination information system (enriching the

database)

Table II-9 Baseline stakeholders, client and suppliers

Inside the category of the baseline stakeholder Sharp, Finkelstein & Galal acknowledged the

existence of a wide range of different profiles that were all identified during our research: users,

developers, legislators and decision-makers (Sharp, Finkelstein & Galal, 1999)

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Baseline Stakeholders - Details

Stakeholder Profile

Users The people, groups or companies who will interact with the

software and control it directly, and those who will use the

products (information, results etc..) of the system

Developers The developers of the system are stakeholders in the RE process,

but their stake in the final requirements specification, or indeed

in the system itself, are different from the users described

above.

Legislators Professional bodies, government agencies, trade unions, legal

representatives, safety executives, quality assurance auditors

and so on may produce guidelines for operation that will affect

the development and/or operation of the system. Some of these

will be local to the domain, others will be national or

international; others will be local to the organization.

Decision Makers Within the development organization and the user organization,

there will be decision-making structures that relate to the

system under development. The kinds of stakeholder here

would include managers of the development team, user

managers and financial controllers in both the developer and the

user organization.

Table II-10 Baseline stakeholder profiles

During the process of identification of the stakeholders, we followed those different steps:

1. Identification of the baseline supplier and client stakeholder’s group

Identification of stakeholder’s macro-categories, the first step in stakeholder elicitation.

2. Identification of Users, developers, Legislators and decision makers specific profile

The macro-categories in turn are assigned to subset of stakeholders (users, developers, decision

makers) and every profile is described in details.

3. Identification of each stakeholder priority

The two phases of identification are prior to the assignment of priority for each stakeholder.

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II.5.3 Identification of Goals

The first step in the identification of goals was the selection of goal’s list, where we collected the

results of the structural, quantitative and qualitative evaluation and the most important outcomes

of personal interviews and the online survey.

For the identification of goals and inter-relations to each stakeholder, we applied the AWARE

(Bolchini, Paolini, 2004) method. AWARE (Analysis of Web Application Requirements) model offers

simple primitives enabling users to document and specify goal-oriented requirements and design

rationale.

AWARE recognizes the central role of the stakeholders and their goals as in traditional goal-based

approach. Goal in this model is a representation of stakeholder’s objectives within the application

and is evaluated matching his priority with occurrences in stakeholders’ entities and weighing

stakeholder’s importance. In the use of AWARE method has been used only a subset of concepts

in order to facilitate the analysis respect to the strategic objectives of research.

In order to deliver an objective evaluation of the different goals, during the analysis we assigned a

score to each goal, providing a scale for the benefit level of preselected goal for each stakeholder

(Table II-11). The division in high, medium and low benefit of goals has been determined by the

researcher in order to categorize the results of research within the stakeholder importance.

Goal Benefit Level Symbol Benefit value

High Benefit *** 3

Medium benefit ** 2

Low benefit * 1

Table II-11 Goal benefit scale and value. Symbol is used graphically to point out the importance of each goal while value is the numerical representation of benefit

Afterwards, we matched each goal with stakeholders in a matrix where columns are representing

stakeholders and rows are representing goals.

We calculated the value of each goal by matching the weight of stakeholder (priority level) with

the benefit level using the values identified in Table II-8 and Table II-11.

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This formula, discovered by the researcher, have been used to preserve consistency with the prior

value assignments finding an absolute value (based on 1-2-3 pre-selected scale) for each goal

representative of the priority of each stakeholder and its benefit on the project.

The absolute value of each goal has been later evaluated as the sum of values for each

stakeholder, having as a result a reliable list of the high level goals within the project.

The absolute value of high level goals of the project have been used to divide in critic, important

and minor goals, using the scale described in the table below:

Goal Importance Level Score Importance value

Critic Over 100 3

Important From 91 to 99 2

Minor 90 or less 1

Table II-12 Goal priority scale

The importance value (1-2-3 scale) is coherent with the previous value assignment and has been

decided together with the ranking score (over 100, from 91 to 99, 90 or less) by the researcher to

categorize the absolute values of each goal.

II.5.4 Identification of Requirements

The first step in the identification of requirements was the selection of the requirement’s list,

where the researcher recognized 51 requirements belonging to the pre-selected high level goals.

The elicitation of requirements is a detailed description of the interventions necessary for the

renewal project and translated into a language more suitable for software developers.

In order to arrive to the final list of requirements, we integrated goals and requirements into a

matrix where rows are representing requirements and columns are representing goals. Every

requirement was finally evaluated assigning a score and a value of importance for the fulfillment

of the assigned goal:

Requirement importance

Level

Symbol Importance value

Critic xxx 3

Important xx 2

Minor x 1

Table II-13 Requirement importance scale and value. Symbol is used graphically to point out the importance of each requirement while value is the numerical representation of importance

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The absolute value of all requirements matched within its importance level for the fulfillment of

the goal gave a final list of prioritized elements.

The absolute value of each requirement has been calculated as a result of the importance value of

each requirement for the fulfillment of each goal.

The absolute value of each requirement has been later evaluated as the sum of the occurrences of

the above mentioned equation values on the pre-selected goals.

The final result was a complete list of requirements divided in critic, important and minor for the

realization of Ticino destination information system renewal project.

Requirement Importance Level Score

Critic Over 55

Important From 40 to 54

Minor 39 or less

Table II-14 Requirement priority scale

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Chapter III Development of the project

III .1 Structural and architec tural analysis

The ticinoinfo database (DIS) consists of over 60 thousand files of touristic interest. The entities in

the database are of different types (Events, farmhouses, hotels, restaurants etc..).

The architecture is multi-level client-server. The web pages are made of JSP (Java Server Pages).

Java Server Pages is a Java technology for developing Web applications that provide dynamic

content in HTML or XML.

Access to data is completely managed through the Web Service. The Web Service provides a

software interface using other systems (administrative applications) interacting with the database

at the same stage of placing and receiving data.

JBoss was chosen as an application server (infrastructure and support capabilities, development

and execution of applications and server components) in combination with Hibernate, middleware

platform for the management of persistence and mapping objects. The database server used is

MySQL, an open source system for managing relational databases.

In the figure below, we have an architectural overview of the system managing data in database

and giving them available via web service:

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I. Database 1 processes an automatic duplication of data in database 2

II. Jboss is a multiplatform application server that supports Java

III. The structure of tables is managed by Hibernate (Object Relational Mapping)

IV. Tomcat is the interface with the websites

Tomcat Websites Tomcat Websites

Tomcat Web Services «Session Bean Client»

Tomcat Web Services «Session Bean Client»

Jboss + Hybernate Jboss + Hybernate

Cluster

Data duplication

Database 1 Database 2

Figure III-1 Ticino destination information system – ER schema

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III.1.1 Structure of Touristic data

Ticinoinfo sa database has a class – based structure. We have a general class called Items and

different more specific classes that inherit some of his properties adding some others to the

subclasses.

There are several important items in the database structure that have “accessory” tables used for

specific needs. The creation of those tables improves the flexibility of the general structure for the

creation of new categories or characteristic of the items.

The 14 entities included in the below schema represent the heart of the database (not considering

tour item, not directly managed by ticinoinfo sa).

Figure III-2 Class based structure graphical representation

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III.1.2 Database Schema

The database schema has been extracted analyzing the original .sql file. Every single table of the

database has been reconstructed in order to have the picture of the current architectural

organization of touristic data (Annex 1.a.). The database is now organized with a macro-structure

defined with table items. The core of the current database is composed by 14 entities (not

considering tour item, not directly managed by ticinoinfo sa)

III.1.3 Database entities

The entity represents the categorization of ticinoinfo sa database from which there is the

possibility to generate a new structured element (enriched with denomination, description, etc..)

Database

Entities

Information provided Information provider

Event The main source of events in Canton Ticino AGR (Arti Grafiche Rezzonico)

and ticinoinfo sa

Organizer The organizer are mainly used as superitems

to define who is the organizer of an event

AGR (Arti Grafiche Rezzonico)

and ticinoinfo sa

Hotel The digitalized archive of the hotel structures

in Canton Ticino

Hotelleriesuisse Ticino and

ticinoinfo sa

Special Offer Special Offer related to accommodations.

Special Offers are detected by Local Touristic

Entities

Hotel structures in Ticino and

ticinoinfo sa

Holiday House Holiday Houses in Canton Ticino. ETT, ETL and ticinoinfo sa

Restaurant Restaurants in Canton Ticino Gastroticino association and

ticinoinfo sa

Business

structure

MICE (Meetings, Incentive, Conferences,

Exhibition) structures

Ticino Turismo and ticinoinfo

sa

Alpine Hut Alpine Huts in Canton Ticino. Managed by

Local Touristic Entities and ticinoinfo sa

ETT, ETL and ticinoinfo sa.

Data source:

http://www.capanneti.ch

Camping Camping in Canton Ticino. ETT, ETL and ticinoinfo sa

Discotheque Discotheque in Canton Ticino ETT, ETL and ticinoinfo sa

Youth Hostel Youth Hostel in Canton Ticino ETT, ETL and ticinoinfo sa

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Touristic

Argument

Touristic argument are used to define every

touristic object that does not belong to one of

the categories presented in this list


Bed and

Breakfast

Bed and Breakfast accommodations. Managed

by Local Touristic Entities and ticinoinfo sa.

Data usually come from http://www.bnb.ch/


Data source:

http://www.bnb.ch/

Farmhouse Farmhouse accommodations Data usually

come from http://www.agriturismo.ch/


Data source:

http://www.agriturismo.ch/

Table III-1 Ticino destination information system database entities, information provided and information providers

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Figure III-3 ER schema of Ticinoinfo DIS

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Item

The most important entity is “Item”. This defines the complete structure of the database and is

composed by the basic information that every single touristic object (Item) must have.

In the figure below we can easily understand the importance of the itemId, that defines the

identification number of every single item and is unique.

Items Entity

Detail of properties

ID Identification number (UNIQUE)

Denomination (IT) Title – italian language

Denomination (EN) Title – English language

Denomination (DE) Title – German language

Denomination (FR) Title – French language

Superitem Identification number ID of an external element

Level (from 1 to 4) – Archived, discarded, On

translation, Suspended or new

Level of the element defining the priority of

search

Type (Hotel, Holiday House, common, etc..) Type of the element, possibility to select the

type of entity

Web site (Associated website) Web site associated to the element

Internal Notes Not used

Name of the owner Owner name of the associated element

Surname of the owner Owner surname of the associated element

Park – 4 languages Parking availability (4 languages)

Date of creation Date specification for the creation of the

element

Date of last modification Date specification of the last modification of the

element

Counter of visits Not used

Coordinates Latitude Latitude coordinates to geo-locate the element

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Coordinates Longitude Longitude coordinates to geo-locate the

element

Scale of map zoom Specification of zoom level of the map

Table III-2 Item entity table with a description of the properties

In the attached file (Annex 1.a.) a full representation of the entities we found during the drawing

of Entity Relationship model is available.

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III .2 Quantitative Analysis

Ticinoinfo database is a complex structure where different types of items (15, see table III-2) are

representing the core of Ticino touristic environment. In the quantitative analysis we have

proceeded by analyzing how the 66.023 elements in the database are divided between those

entities.

III.2.1 Database Item division

The first part of the analysis has been devoted to understand how the items are partitioned in the

current database. Therefore, for every single item we calculated the number of corresponding

elements.

Here the most important outcomes are listed:

1- The majority of hosted elements in database are Events (72.30% out of the total)

2- “Common” is the second most important item of database (12.46%).

Date of the analysis: 13.10.2011 – it is important to notice that data might be changed now.

Item Number of files %

Event 47.732 72,30

Farmhouse 105 0,16

Hotel 841 1,27

Common 8.229 12,46

Bed and Breakfast 126 0,19

Business 250 0,38

Campground 47 0,07

Alpine Hut 116 0,18

Holiday House 2.986 4,52

Discotheque 82 0,12

Organizer 1.333 2,02

Offer 601 0,91

Hostel 113 0,17

Restaurant 3.200 4,85

Tour 262 0,40

item total 66.023

Table III-3 Database item distribution between different entities

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III.2.2 Item total distribution

In the graphic below we have a picture of the current database files distribution. It is important to

notice how Event is the most relevant item (72%) of the entire database, while the rest (28%) is

represented by all the other items.

Figure III-4 Database Item total distribution graphical representation

Events

Farmhouses

Hotels

Common

Bed and Breakfast

Business

Campgrounds

Alpine Huts

Holiday Houses

Discoteques Organizers

Special Offers Hostels Restaurant Tour

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III.2.3 Item distribution without Events

The distinction between item including events and total item without events has been made in

order to clarify the real importance of every single item in ticinoinfo database (DIS).

Item Number of files %

Farmhouse 105 0,55

Hotel 841 4,45

Common 8.229 43,56

Bed and Breakfast 126 0,66

Business 250 1,32

Campground 47 0,24

Alpine Hut 116 0,61

Holiday House 2.986 15,8

Discotheque 82 0,43

Organizer 1.333 7,05

Offer 601 3,18

Hostel 113 0,59

Restaurant 3.200 16,9

Tour 262 1,38

Item total 18891

Table III-4 Database item distribution (not considering event entity)

The outcomes from this part of the analysis are listed below:

1- Common Items is the most used category to identify the elements in database that cannot

be traced back as Events, Accommodation, Tour, Organizer, Offer or Dancing items. This

outcome reflects a need to create a structure able to represent real touristic complexity of

tourism in Ticino

2- Holiday House item has a strong presence, together with Restaurant item, on the current

database

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Figure III-5 Database item distribution without events graphical representation

Farmhouses

Hotels

Common

Bed and Breakfast Business Campgrounds

Alpine Huts

Holiday Houses

Discoteques

Organizers

Special Offers

Hostels

Restaurant

Tour

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III.2.4 Item Accommodation distribution

In the graphic below we can see how the accommodation elements in database are distributed.

We proceeded isolating the following items: Holiday House, Hostel, Alpine Hut, Bed and breakfast,

Hotel, Business, and Farmhouse.

The outcomes of the analysis are listed here:

1- Holiday House is the most used item in database (65%)

2- Hotel is the second most important item between accommodations (18%)

Figure III-6 Distribution of “Accommodation” entities

65%

3%

3%

18%

3% 5%

2% 1%

Holiday House Hotels

Alpine Hut

Hostel

Bed and breakfast Business

Farmhouse

Campground

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III.2.5 Active and non-active items

In ticinoinfo database data is represented in different levels of relevance (from 1 to 4), defining

the public search priority. Items pertaining to one of those levels are Active, meaning that they can

appear in a public search on ticinoinfo database.

Rather, Non active files can be either archived, discarded, pending translation, suspended or new.

Here the most relevant outcomes coming from this investigation are listed:

1- The database is composed in majority by Non active elements (81%)

2- Between active elements, the majority is Level 1 (32%), but the distribution between

different item states is consistent

3- The most relevant part of Active events are submitted to Level 2 (1.041)

4- Non active events represent the most relevant part of database (46.670)

5- The biggest number of Active data (5.164) are submitted as Common Items

6- Pending Translation and New are the item states less used (197)

7- Dancing is the most rarely used item to classify a touristic element

8- Organizer items and Restaurant items are folded in item state level 1 (3483)

77 | P a g e

Item

Active

Not active

Number of

elements

Level 1

Level 2

Level 3

Level 4

Archived

Discarded

Pending

translation

Suspended

New

Event -

1.041 - -

46.670 11 - - 10 47.732

Farmhouse - -

80

5

9 11 - - - 105

Hotel

45

4

497

9

188 69 - 24 5 841

Common

484

936

1.447

2.297

2.775 142 3 48 97

8.229

Bed and

Breakfast - -

45

62

15 4 - - - 126

Business - -

217

2

25 4 - 2 - 250

Campground - -

36

2

5 4 - - -

47

Alpine Hut - -

85

16

12 3 - - - 116

Holiday House

51 -

813

158

771 1.110 - 82 1

2.986

Discotheque

61 - -

3

16 - - - 2

82

78 | P a g e

Organizer

1.314 - - -

6 9 - - 4

1.333

Offer -

31

115

2

445 7 - - 1 601

Hostel - -

70

34

7 1 - 1 - 113

Restaurant

2.169

1

356

68

147 42 - 343 74

3.200

Tour -

262 - -

- - - - 262

item Total /

level

4.124

2.275

3.761

2.658

51.091 1.417 3 500 194 66.023

Table III-5 Item distribution grid between active and not active elements

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Not Active – TOTAL

The most relevant part of non-active data is represented by archived files (96%); the rest is a

minimum percentage out of the total (4%)

Figure III-7 Distribution of not active statuses (Archived, basket, other) between database elements

96%

3% 1%

Archived

Basket

Other

80 | P a g e

Active / Not Active items – TOTAL

This step has been useful to export statistics of Active and Non active data in ticinoinfo database

(DIS). The graphic below shows that the majority of items, when those data have been

investigated (13.10.2011) are non-active (81%). Currently, only 12.818 (19%) items are running on

database.

Figure III-8 Total active and not active items graphical representation

19%

81%

Active

Not active

81 | P a g e

Active / Not Active – Items detail

In this analysis we have identified, for any single item, the percentage of active and non-active

files.

Item Files Number Active Non Active

Event 47.732 1.041 46.691

Farmhouse 105 85 20

Hotel 841 555 286

Common 8.229 5.164 3.065

Bed and Breakfast 126 107 19

Business 250 219 31

Campground 47 38 9

Alpine Hut 116 101 15

Holiday House 2.986 1.022 1.964

Discotheque 82 64 18

Organizer 1.333 1.314 19

Offer 601 148 453

Hostel 113 104 9

Restaurant 3.200 2.594 606

Tour 262 262 -

item Total / level 66.023

Table III-6 Distribution of active and not active elements within each entity

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Active / Not Active – Event and Organizer

In the graphic below a curious comparison between event and organizer items active and non-

active elements. An event in database, every time it is created, is associated to an organizer, which

specifies the exact location of the event. Events are created and discarded soon after (when they

expire), while organizers are preserved active until next event. This is the reason of the anomaly

we can see from the graphics below.

Observations: 98% of event items are not

active.

Observations: 99% of organizer items are

active

Figure III-9 Event and organizer items interesting findings and observations. Active elements are colored in blue; not active elements are colored in red.

The complete list of Active and Not Active Items is available in Annex 2.a.

2%

98%

Event

99%

1%

Organizer

83 | P a g e

III.2.6 Regional Item Division

Touristic environment in Ticino is represented by four major regions:

1- Lake Lugano

2- Mendrisio

3- Bellinzona and Upper Ticino

4- Lake Maggiore and Valleys

This step of the analysis has been devoted to evaluate what is the percentage of the elements for

each region (complete documentation available in Annex 2.b.). Database structure does not

reflect this simple division; it has been organized in different locations (included in those macro

regional areas). This is the reason why the analysis has been extremely difficult.

In fact, for every single location (28 in total) we exported all the elements and subsequently we

reconstructed the regional division; the result is indicated in the graphic below (Figure III-10):

Figure III-10 Regional item distribution in database archive graphical representation

32%

15%

20%

33%

Lake Lugano

Mendrisiotto



84 | P a g e

III .3 Qualitative Analysis

The objective of the qualitative analysis of ticinoinfo sa database (DIS) is to understand the

Accuracy Level of data. In the statistical qualitative analysis we strategically decided (Chapter II.3)

to take MiLE+ heuristics for the evaluation of database content. The MiLE+ content level analyzes

the quality of the content (in terms of efficacy of the communication) and it allows for verifying

weather the contents and their structure correspond with the expectations of the users.

The results of the analysis underlined an insufficient general quality of the database.

Quality of information – TEXT and GENERAL COMMUNICATION QUALITY

Heuristic Explanation

Accuracy The accuracy states if a text describes adequately the referenced world, and

if it is consistent in itself.

Currency The electronic communication over the web is supposed to be delivered in

the precise moment the reader accesses it; thus the offered content must

be current as the addressee perceives it, or must clearly show when it was

published and the time scope of its validity.

Coverage The coverage defines the borders of the topics covered by the given

website. It must be clear what the text is speaking about and what it is

supposed to be covered.

Content

Objectivity

The content objectivity indicates the commitment of the sender with

respect to the conveyed content. For example, it must be clear if a message

is advertised or not (if the sender is paid to say something, I do not think

that he must be really convinced of what he is saying…).

Authority Authority could be seen under two respects: adequacy of the author to the

text (the competence of the author) and adequacy of the author to the

reader (the goodwill predisposition of the author towards the reader). The

author could be either a person or an institution.

Text Errors The written text should not present grammatical errors.

Multimedia

Consistency

All the multimedia files must be consistent with the subject of the page.

Table III-7 - The Mile+ heuristics considered in the qualitative analysis

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III.3.1 Quality Level – Total Score

The graphic below is representative of the 150 elements analyzed and calculates the percentage of

total scores for the 7 heuristics considered. The different colors represent the general scores of

the analysis

Figure III-11 Qualitative level of database archive

Approximately half the elements (45%) have been evaluated as insufficient while 20% barely

sufficient. This means that we are far from an acceptable qualitative level of data. Complete

documentation used for event items qualitative analysis is available in Annex 3.a. while

documentation relative to qualitative analysis of the other items is available in Annex 3.b.

24%

11%

20%

45% Quality Level - Total Very Good

Quality Level - Total Good

Quality Level - Total Sufficient

Quality Level - Total Insufficient

86 | P a g e

III.3.2 Quality Level – Heuristics Average

The graphic below has been created looking at the average votes of the 150 elements considered

in the analysis. The blue line inserted in the graphic shows how 5 out of the 7 heuristics are

insufficient (above score 3).

Figure III-12 Qualitative level of database archive, heuristic detail (1= Very Good - 2= Good - 3= Sufficient - 4= Insufficient)

III.3.3 Qualitative analysis – Detail of Item Results

In the analysis we have extracted the quality level of single items in order to come up with a (close

to reality) snapshot of the current database and underline the critical situations that this project

intends to fix.

This chapter will underline the items that need a total review in order to be considered at least

acceptable by the end users consumers of the information contained in database archive.

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

Accuracy Currency Coverage ContentObjectivity

Authority Text Errors Multimediaconsistency

87 | P a g e

Organizer Item

The “Organizer” item has been isolated and has the worst ranking. Accuracy, Coverage, Content

Objectivity and Multimedia Consistency had an average of 4 (insufficient) scores.

Figure III-13 Organizer item qualitative weaknesses (detail of heuristics)

Restaurant Item

Considering the number of the elements (3.200) included in database archive and the importance

of this touristic product for Ticino, the “Restaurant” Item is the second quality problem on

database. The heuristics Accuracy, Coverage, Content Objectivity and Authority are profusely

under a sufficient acceptable level.

Figure III-14 Restaurant item qualitative weaknesses (detail of heuristics)

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4



Organizer Item

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4



Restaurant Item

88 | P a g e

Common Item

Common item, statistically recognized as one of the mainly used in the database archive, is

included in the list of critical priority situations. With 8.229 elements it represents the 12.46% of

the entire database. Level of currency is under the sufficient level of quality while the other

heuristics have an average score close to 3 and barely acceptable (sufficient).

Figure III-15 Common item qualitative weaknesses (detail of heuristics)

Event Item

The “event” Item represents the 72,30% of the entire database and is unfortunately included in

the list of critic situations. Authority is very close to an insufficient score, while accuracy and

multimedia consistency are under a sufficient level of quality. The good score of currency testifies

otherwise that events are continuously updated.

Figure III-16 Event item qualitative weaknesses (detail of heuristics)

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4



Common Item

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4



Event Item

89 | P a g e

Holiday House Item

“Holiday House” Item, with 2.986 elements on ticinoinfo sa, represents the 4,52% of the entire

database. Accuracy, Coverage, Content Objectivity and Authority are the heuristics under the

sufficient score underlined in the graphic below by the white circle.

Figure III-17 Holiday House item qualitative weaknesses (detail of heuristics)

III.3.4 Qualitative analysis – Heuristics Detail

In the analysis we isolated the single heuristics of MiLE+ method trying to understand which

quality level has to be considered with more attention. This chapter will therefore underline the

heuristics that need to come at the top of the attention when we proceed to a total revision of the

current database.

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4



Holiday House Item

90 | P a g e

Authority Heuristic

Authority is the worst ranked heuristic in database. Authority has seen fewer than two respects:

adequacy of the author to the text (the competence of the author) and adequacy of the author to

the reader (the goodwill predisposition of the author towards the reader). In this case we have a

general insufficient level of text authority, because 62% of the analyzed elements are considered

insufficient.

Figure III-18 Database authority heuristic detailed evaluation

Accuracy Heuristic

The accuracy states if a text describes adequately the referenced world, and if it is consistent in

itself. The statistics that came over the analysis are showing a bad level of accuracy. 58% of the

analyzed elements had a score of 4 (Insufficient) while 20% barely sufficient.

Figure III-19 Database accuracy heuristic detailed evaluation

10%

11%

17% 62%

Authority Very Good

Authority Good

Authority Sufficient

Authority Insufficient

10%

12%

20% 58%

Accuracy Very Good

Accuracy Good

Accuracy Sufficient

Accuracy Insufficient

91 | P a g e

Multimedia Consistency Heuristic

Multimedia Consistency represents the level of consistency of all the multimedia files with the

subject of the page. This bad result (58% insufficient) emphasizes a multimedia problem in the

database. We observed that the majority of files analyzed did not have any image or pdf brochure,

with a total lack of attention to this important element for the touristic market.

Figure III-20 Database multimedia consistency heuristic detailed evaluation

16%

1%

25% 58%

Multimedia ConsistencyVery Good

Multimedia ConsistencyGood

Multimedia ConsistencySufficient

Multimedia ConsistencyInsufficient

92 | P a g e

III .4 Case studies

This “benchmarking” phase has been conducted in order to find new ideas and business

opportunities regarding the renewal of Ticinoinfo destination information system. Hence, we

provide an outstanding examination of 3 different examples of destination management systems:

G-admin (Switzerland Tourism), Tiscover and TANDEM projects

III.4.1 Switzerland Tourism

Switzerland Tourism (ST) is a complex organization whose main aim is marketing products and

services for Swiss tourism in a given number of markets. ST is divided into six different units:

1- Markets and meetings

2- Portal management eMarketing and IT

3- Corporate communication, media and market research

4- Marketing and strategic partnerships

5- Business development

6- Finance, controlling, and human resources

The online communication department (included in the second unit) is responsible for the flow of

information coming from: regions / stakeholders (sourced from touristic partners), custom content

(in house created, verified and checked by the content management team) and promotional

content.

This flow of information provides up-to-date and reliable content that is published on

Myswitzerland.com website.

MySwitzerland.com is based on a proprietary technology Destination Management System (G-

Admin) designed and developed by a company located in Zurich (CH) named PIXELTEX.

The DMS works on a double interface: stakeholders such as regional destinations or cities (and

even the ST itself) insert contents on the STNet Datanetwork through the G-Admin interface; the

content is then approved by the portal managers, goes live on the portal, and is also syndicated on

partner websites and mobile applications (Inversini, Bruelhart, Cantoni, 2011).

93 | P a g e

Figure III-21 Myswitzerland.com data workflow

Advantages of this system are undoubtedly from the one side the reliability of the information

enhanced by the approval workflow of the information before being published and, from the

other side, the multichannel opportunities (Websites, Mobile applications, Social media, etc..).

The workflow approval of data is the characteristic of STNet Datanetwork that has been

considered afterwards in the requirements identification to solve the current qualitative problems

of Ticinoinfo DIS.

III.4.2 TANDEM Project

TANDEM is a web solution that permits the structural decentralized networking of the individual

actors in tourism industry.

The TANDEM system acts as a virtual interface between content providers (attractions and

activities) and content subscribers (accommodation enterprises). A web interface can be used by

content providers to make available the information to the other partners. Content subscribers in

turn select from the data available the installation packages that are to be shown on their

websites. The content subscriber creates a kind of subscription with destination information

according to target-group specific, geographical or seasonal relevance (Egger, 2007).

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In the figure below we have a mock – up showing how information can be displayed in a

“subscriber” website that decides to gather data from TANDEM

Figure III-22 TANDEM project subscriber’s options for data website integration

There are two different conceptions of data provided by TANDEM system, one is static (rarely

changes, such as contact information or geographical location), another is dynamic (frequently

change prices, availability, opening hours, etc..).

Technologically speaking, TANDEM adopts RSS and ATOM for content syndication, making possible

the integration of content packages in subscriber’s websites.

Advantages on the adoption of this technology are from a business perspective the possibility to

have a wider diffusion of data between supplier / stakeholder / partners of the destination

management system content plus the opening of new business opportunities by selling data while

from a technological perspective the simplicity given by the portable export format of data ready

to use in other websites platforms.

The transformation of data in format suitable for the integration in third party websites has been

considered during the requirements identification as an innovative contribution to the database

renewal project.

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III.4.3 Tiscover Project

Tiscover services and offerings can be summarized in three important groups:

1- DMS Solutions: Tiscover provides DMSs solutions to DMOs at national, regional and local

levels. The DMS includes a wide range of modules to support a DMO’s internal, partner and

consumer communication, including accommodation booking, brochure processing, and

customer relationship management (CRM)

2- Web solutions: At the core of the Tiscover proposition is a Content Management System

(CMS), which allows DMOs and tourism suppliers to build websites where they can feature

destination content and search facilities for the tourism suppliers in the destination, including

accommodation, restaurants, attractions and conference venues.

3- eMarketing solutions: Tiscover has a number of consumer-facing sites including the main

Tiscover.com portal as well as the national portals, Tiscover.at, Tiscover.co.uk, Tiscover.de,

Tiscover.sa and Tiscover.it. Users can register on the sites, and the company undertakes

extensive consumer marketing principally through its online newsletter for which there are in

excess of half a million active subscribers.

Advantages on the adoption of this system are the multichannel capabilities with different

platforms due to the diffusion of this technology throughout DMO’s organizations and partners.

The multichannel interoperability allows the realization of different eMarketing activities.

The eMarketing power of Tiscover technology has been considered during the requirements

identification to enhance the possibilities for the promotion of Ticino destination data.

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III .5 Requirements engineering

One to one interviews had the aim to draw back the first list of requirements from people involved

in the “back end” processes (those that are daily contributing to the data enrichment) of the Ticino

destination information system.

Although the interviews have been recorded and analyzed for the requirements elicitation, below

we provide some general quotations in order to give an idea of the most important feedback

collected:

- “There are two lines of text for each event”

- “The quality of the database is quite poor, there are many things that should be modified”

- “I wish we will abandon GPS tracks route itineraries or adopt a different technology where we

can control and modify tours”

- “The editing and the creation of the attributes to assign to each element must be made more

flexible”

- “We must define clear and identifiable roles .. If I delete an apartment all interested parties

should be informed”

- “It must be clear the time for update, create and drop an element from a database site”

- “Each year ticinoinfo sa takes the latest house brochure and updates throughout. Efforts

should also be decentralized, because the ETL have closer contact with suppliers”

- “We need to make a regular export of email addresses and send notifications to facilities for

updating their data”

The online survey has been submitted to the structures that make use of the current database in

order to understand their insights and perception regarding Ticino destination information system.

In the graphic list below the report of the eight questions submitted and considered during the

requirements specification; every question with overall statistics have been isolated and the

outcomes have been commented.

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Question 1: Category of tourism facility


In this graphic we can easily understand that the majority of the answers arrived from hotel (26%)

and Holiday Houses (16%). The category less interested in the survey was Hostel, with just 1% of

response percentage. It is important to specify that we had a relevant number of people

answering “Don’t know”, to be considered realistically as structures not connected to the list

provided in the questionnaire and not part of accommodation’s category.

Holiday House 16%

Hotel 26%

Bed and Breakfast 12%

Hostel 1%

Campground 2%

Alpine Hut 8%

Farmhouse 9%

Restaurant 3%

Other 14%

Don't Know 9%

98 | P a g e

Question 2: How do you evaluate your knowledge degree of new technologies?


In this question we can see that 75% of respondents believe to have a degree of knowledge of new

technologies between sufficient and very good. This means that our audience is inclined to the use

of Information and Communication Technologies.

Poor 3%

Barely Sufficient 14%

Sufficient 42%

Good 27%

Very Good 6%

Don't know 8%

99 | P a g e

Question 3: Do you lean on external services for your communication / promotion or

online selling?


From this graphic we can see how the impact of the Regional, national and local Destination

Management Organization in the online communication and promotion (only 34% out of the total)

is perceived with respect to other Sectorial Websites and Online Travel Agents that established the

mostly diffused practice in this market segment (51%).

OTA - Online Travel Agents

23%

Sectorial Websites 28%

Regional DMO 15%

Local DMO 11%

National DMO 8%

Other 15%

100 | P a g e

Question 4: How is important the Web for your activity?


This question highlighted how touristic suppliers perceive the importance of the web for their

market. 52% defined the web between important and very important while a high rate (33%)

defined it as critical for the existence of the structure.

Not important 3% Low importance

5%

Important 23%

Very Important 28%

Critical 33%

Don't Know 8%

101 | P a g e

Question 5: Did you know your tourism facility is on ticinoinfo sa database?


The outcome of this question was easy to understand and confirm the low level of authority that

Ticino Destination information system has established through touristic suppliers, having a 69% of

interviewed that do not know to have their data on ticinoinfo sa database.

Yes 31%

No 30%

Don't Know 39%

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Question 6: Would you like to manage content of your tourism facility on ticinoinfo sa

database?


Half of the people directly consulted by the survey (49%) liked the possibility to manage the

content of the tourism facility.

Yes 49%

No 13%

Don't know 38%

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Question 7: What kind of content would you like to add to your tourism facility on

ticinoinfo sa database?


It is interesting to understand how the impact of new technologies and the diffusion of rich media

digitalized material affected in this question the proportion of answers that would like to adopt

favorably images and promotional documentation (58%) beside texts (28%). The usage of video is

perceived as less important (8%) even if in the touristic market is the marketing tool that produces

more emotions between traveler and tourists.

Promotional Documentation

20%

Images 38%

Texts 28%

Video 6%

Other 8%

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Question 8: Would you like to make online promotion of your tourism facility (on

ticinoinfo sa database) over the web?


Being the web of paramount importance for the activity of the consulted suppliers, this question

addresses the need for online promotion activities of single structures within the help of the

Regional destination management organization.

Yes 46%

No 16%

Don't Know 38%

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III.5.1 Stakeholder Identification

In order to manage, interpret and balance stakeholder importance within Ticino destination

information system we defined the priority (impact) of each stakeholders on the project scored in

Table III-8. Stakeholders were evaluated differently depending on authority (f.i. Ticino Turismo

respect to tourism local entities) and their importance within the database project renewal.

Three level of priority (critical, important, and minor) have been considered as sufficient to

determine the weight of stakeholders’ complexity involved in the project and facilitate the priority

categorization.

Stakeholder priority level Symbol Priority value

Critical !!! 3

Important !! 2

Minor ! 1

Table III-8 Stakeholder priority scale and value. Symbol is used graphically to point out the importance of each stakeholder while value is the numerical representation of priority

In the Stakeholder identification (Table III-9 and Table III-10) we distinguish between those users

(Client) directly involved in the process of enriching and maintaining the database from other

users who make advantage by the Destination information system distribution of data in different

websites (“Front end”).

In the first column the name of the stakeholder is included in a stakeholder group, the details of

roles and description of each stakeholder is in the second column. Third column contains the level

of priority (P), while the last column is for comment / observations.

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Client Stakeholders

Client Stakeholders

Users (Back end)

Role P Observations

AGR (Arti Grafiche Rezzonico) Events entity supplier !!! Events represent 72.30% of the total DIS archive. AGR responsible has been

interviewed

ETT (Ente Turistico Ticinese)

DIS data distribution entity

Regional DMO !!! Responsible for accuracy of all data (unique responsible of business items)

People from the organization have been selected for the interview

ETMBC (Ente Turistico

Mendrisiotto e Basso Ceresio)


Local DMO !! Responsible for ETMBC accuracy of data - IT responsible selected for the

interview

ETLM (Ente Turistico

Mendrisiotto e Basso Ceresio)


Local DMO !! Responsible for ETLM accuracy of data - IT responsible selected for the

interview

ETB (Ente Turistico Bellinzona)


Local DMO !! Responsible for ETB accuracy of data - Not answered to our request for

interview

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Vallemaggia Tourism


Local DMO ! Responsible for Vallemaggia Tourism accuracy of data

Gambarogno Tourism


Local DMO ! Responsible for Gambarogno Tourism accuracy of data

Developers

Role P Observations

Tinext SA Tech Partner !!! Tinext sa has developed the first and the second version of the DIS It is the

stakeholder that will directly design, implement and test the final list of

requirements identified

Ticinoinfo sa DIS owner !!! Project management of Destination information system renewal

Legislators

Role P Observations

Gastroticino Category Association ! Responsible for Restaurants

Hotelleriesuisse Ticino Category Association !!! Rresponsible for Hotel Structures in Ticino

Decision Makers

Role P Observations

Lorenzo Ghini - ticinoinfo sa Online Manager !!! Head of the project

Alessandro Inversini - ticinoinfo Director !!! Head of the project

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sa

Serse Bonvini Project Manager Tinext !!

Maurizio Mueller

Head of Engineers

Tinext

!!

Table III-9 Matrix for the identification of client stakeholders

Supplier Stakeholders

Supplier Stakeholders

Users (Front end)

Role P Observations

Hotel Structures Hotel and Special Offers

entity facilities

!! Hospitality is frequently connected to Hotel structures, without any doubt one of the

most important sectors of influence for tourism industry

Holiday House Structures Holiday House entitiy

facilities

!! Holiday House has the highest statistical representation in database (65%) and is a

unique Ticinese product

Youth Hostel Structures Youth Hostel entity

facilities

!

Alpine Huts Structures Alpine Hut entity facilities !

Bed and Breakfast Structures Bed and Breakfast entity

facilities

!

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Farmhouses Structures Farmhouse entity

facilities

!

Campgrounds Structures Campgrounds entity

facilities

!

Restaurant Structures Restaurant entity facilities !! Restaurants, as well as Holiday Houses, have a strong representation in the digital

archive and need to be considered carefully

Table III-10 Matrix for the identification of supplier stakeholders

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III.5.2 Identification of Goals

In the identification of goals we proceeded by extracting a list of objectives using the different

previously described analysis. We therefore extracted a list of 14 goals coming from structural,

quantitative and qualitative analysis, One to one interviews and online survey.

Structural Analysis

Goal 1 – Increase the flexibility of the database structure.

The database structure needs to be flexible in order to limit the restrictions of the client and

supplier stakeholders in its maintenance.

Goal 2 – Program a database structure able to follow the evolution of the tourism industry.

The database structure needs to be scalable in order to support future developments in ICT and

concurrent progress of the tourism industry.

Goal 3 – Simplify in a more User friendly perspective the Administrative Client.

Database structure, architecture and client application need to be structured thinking about the

user needs.

Goal 4 – Readapt the structure of every single item to the modern tourism industry.

The structural analysis highlighted the need for a complete revision of the item’s entities and

properties envisioning the modern tourism industry needs.

Quantitative Analysis

Goal 5- Improve the management of elements inside entities.

Quantitative analysis highlighted the need for a better organization of the information archived in

the database. People involved in maintenance need to perceive the management of single

elements as a priority and behave consequently.

Qualitative Analysis

Goal 6 – Improve the quality level of database.

The qualitative analysis highlighted a general insufficient qualitative level of the database, whose

elements need to increase in reliability.

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Goal 7 – Optimize the management of events.

Events, representing 72.30 % of the elements in database, are in the major part responsible for

the scarce quality of data in the database archive. Optimization and management of this specific

entity is therefore basic for the resolution of database’s qualitative problems.

One to One interviews

Goal 8 – Simplify the work of the people involved in the daily maintenance of database.

In this point the administrator’s need for a technology that, instead of raising the time of update

and maintenance, is adapting dynamically to their needs is highlighted.

Goal 9 – Clarify the authority level of the contributors and their roles.

Interviews outlined a general confusion of roles and levels of authority in the Destination

management processes. There is a real need for a complete guide with all specifications.

Goal 10 – Decentralize the working effort to suppliers of single destinations.

Administrator’s / back end users of the DIS would like to see an active involvement in database

maintenance. In this vision, local destinations and tourism suppliers (products and services) need

to be continuously engaged and stimulated in the updating process of the digital archive.

Online Survey

Goal 11 – Increase the impact of the Regional destination information system on online

communication and promotion activities of suppliers.

Regional destination information system has been evaluated only by 15% of people as important

for communication / promotion and online selling activity. This perception rate needs to be

improved in the future, giving suppliers the possibility to communicate and sell their structure in

the travel market.

Goal 12 – Spread the knowledge of ticinoinfo sa and the destination information system through all

suppliers.

112 | P a g e

The survey outlined a gap of communication in ticinoinfo sa and its destination information system

activities that needs to be fulfilled.

Goal 13 – Give all suppliers the possibility to modify content on the destination information system.

Half of the people expressed their will to administrate the content of the structure / facility on the

destination information system.

Goal 14 – Give all suppliers the possibility to manage multimedia material (images and

promotional documentation) on the destination information system.

Texts (multi-language description), promotional documentation (like digital brochures), and

images have been evaluated as paramount importance for the communication and promotion of

the structure. Therefore, it is very important to give to the structures the right tools for

management of this material.

In the matrix (Table III-12) we assigned a score to each goal, providing a scale for the benefit level

for each stakeholder. Below, with the purpose to facilitate the reader, we report the calculation

process fully explained in Chapter II.5.

Goal Benefit Level Symbol Benefit value

High Benefit *** 3

Medium benefit ** 2

Low benefit * 1

Table III-11 Goal benefit scale and value. Symbol is used graphically to point out the importance of each goal while value is the numerical representation of benefit

We calculated the value of each goal by matching the weight of stakeholder (priority level) with its

benefit level.

The absolute value of each goal has been later evaluated as the sum of values for each

stakeholder, having as a result a reliable list of the high level goals within the project.

113 | P a g e

Goals / Stakeholder

Stakeholder Goal1 Goal2 Goal3 Goal4 Goal5 Goal6 Goal7 Goal8 Goal9 Goal

10

Goal

11

Goal

12

Goal

13

Goal

14

Users (Back end)

AGR (!!!) * * ** * ** * *** ** ** ** * * * *

ETT (!!!) ** *** *** *** ** *** *** ** ** *** *** ** ** **

ETMBC (!!) ** *** *** *** ** *** *** *** ** *** ** * ** **

ETLM (!!) *** *** *** ** ** *** *** *** *** ** ** * ** **

ETB (!) ** ** *** ** * *** *** *** ** * ** * * *

Vallemaggia Tourism (!) * ** *** *** * *** ** *** * * ** * * *

Gambarogno Tourism (!) * ** *** *** * *** ** *** * * ** * * *

Developers

Tinext SA (!!!) ** *** * ** ** ** * *** ** * * ** * *

Ticinoinfo sa (!!!) *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

114 | P a g e

Legislators

Gastroticino (!) * ** ** * * ** * * *** * * ** ** **

Hotelleriesuisse Ticino (!!!) * *** ** ** ** *** * ** *** *** *** *** *** ***

Decision Makers

Lorenzo Ghini - ticinoinfo sa

(!!!)

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

Alessandro Inversini - ticinoinfo

sa (!!!)

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

Serse Bonvini (!!) ** ** *** *** ** *** *** ** *** * * ** * *

Maurizio Mueller (!!) ** ** *** *** *** * * ** *** * * ** * *

Users (Front end)

Hotel Structures (!!) * *** *** *** * *** * * * *** *** ** *** ***

Holiday House Structures (!!) * *** *** *** * *** * * * *** *** ** *** ***

Youth Hostel Structures (!) * *** *** *** * *** * * * *** *** ** *** ***

Alpine Huts Structures (!) * *** *** *** * *** * * * *** *** ** *** ***

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Bed and Breakfast Structures (!) * *** *** *** * *** * * * *** *** ** *** ***

Farmhouses Structures (!) * *** *** *** * *** * * * *** *** ** *** ***

Campgrounds Structures (!) * *** *** *** * *** * * * *** *** ** *** ***

Restaurant Structures (!!) * *** *** *** * *** * * * *** *** ** *** ***

Table III–12 Matrix for the identification of goals

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In Annex 4.a. is available the complete calculation of the absolute value for single goals

Below the list of the final calculation and definition of High, important and minor goals of the

renewal project for Ticinoinfo destination information system.

Critic Goal – Over 100 Score

Ranking Description Absolute Score

1 GOAL 3: Simplify in a more User friendly perspective the

Administrative Client

119

2 / 3 GOAL 6: Improve the quality level of database 118

2 / 3 GOAL 2: Program a database structure able to follow the

evolution of the tourism industry

118

4 GOAL 4: Readapt the structure of every single item to the

modern tourism industry

115

5 GOAL 10: Decentralize the working effort to suppliers of single

destinations

105

6 GOAL 11: Increase the impact of the Regional destination

information system on online communication and promotion

activities of suppliers

103

Table III–13 Critic goals over 100 score

Important Goal – From 91 to 99 Score


1 / 2 GOAL 14: Give all suppliers the possibility to manage

multimedia material (images and promotional documentation)

on the destination information system

98

1 / 2 GOAL 13: Give all suppliers the possibility to modify content on

the destination information system

98

3 GOAL 7: Optimize the management of events 96

4 GOAL 8: Simplify the work of the people involved in the daily

maintenance of database

95

5 GOAL 9: Clarify the authority level of the contributors and their

roles

94

Table III–14 Important goals from 91 to 99 score

Minor Goal – 90 or less score


1 GOAL 12: Spread the knowledge of ticinoinfo sa and the

destination information system through all suppliers

90

2 GOAL 5: Improve the management of the elements inside 84

117 | P a g e

entities

3 GOAL 1: Increase the flexibility of the database structure 79

Table III–15 Minor goals over 100 score

III.5.3 Identification of Requirements

In the identification of requirements we have proceeded by translating High level goals in tasks

easily understandable by software developers involved in the project. Therefore, we made a list of

requirements for every goal while here we report the final list of requirements identified:

Requirement 1 – Reorganize entities and entity - relationships of DIS for the modern online

tourism industry enhancing flexibility and data interoperability (prepare for future modifications).

Requirement 2 – Reorganize the properties of the entities of DIS enhancing flexibility and data

interoperability (prepare for future modifications).

Requirement 3 - Reorganize attributes of DIS enhancing flexibility and data interoperability

(prepare for future modifications).

Requirement 4 – Build a modular structure open to the attachment of different functionalities to

make diverse use of data.

Requirement 5 – Decrease the software developers effort (time) for structural modifications on

database.

Requirement 6 – Make the structure of Ticino DIS scalable (ability of a system, network, or

process, to handle growing amount of work in a capable manner or its ability to be enlarged to

accommodate that growth).

Requirement 7 - Drop the current Administrative desktop application Client building a Web

application for back end and front end administrative access by client and suppliers stakeholder.

Requirement 8 – Build a guide / manual for DIS use.

Requirement 9 – Simplify all data entry processes on DIS for Client and supplier stakeholder.

Requirement 10 – Build a simple design front end application explaining in detail which kind of

information have to be provided for each property.

118 | P a g e

Requirement 11 – Analyze different contents on common items and evaluate the possibility to

split the entity.

Requirement 12 – Provide incentives for database (DIS) enrichment of all kind of accommodations.

Requirement 13 – Provide solutions to manage effectively non active elements (archived,

discarded, pending translation, suspended or new).

Requirement 14 – Provide solutions to manage effectively and logically levels (from 1 to 4) and

clarify their role.

Requirement 15 - Coordinate with ETL a total revision of the current database content.

Requirement 16 - Improve the overall quality (accuracy, Authority and multimedia consistency) for

the Event entity content.

Requirement 17 - Improve the overall quality (accuracy, coverage, content objectivity, authority)

for Restaurant entity content.

Requirement 18 - Improve the overall quality (accuracy, coverage, content objectivity, authority)

for Holiday House entity content.

Requirement 19 - Schedule with ETL recurrent upgrading of all DIS data entity properties.

Requirement 20 - Give the possibility to assign special offers to every accommodation entity.

Requirement 21 – Improve the overall quality (Currency, multimedia consistency) for Common

entity content.

Requirement 22 – Provide solutions to manage effectively Organizer Item (current function of

support for event and common item).

Requirement 23 - Improve the authority, accuracy and multimedia consistency (heuristics) quality

level of DIS data content.

Requirement 24 – Create a Workflow approval process for data validation (Switzerland Tourism

example).

Requirement 25 – Introduce a personalization layer allowing suppliers the modification of event

entity properties.

119 | P a g e

Requirement 26 – Separate ticinoinfo DIS archive of data from AGR database.

Requirement 27 – Build an HTML editor for editing text data.

Requirement 28 - Build a collaboration tool for team work and task assignment between the

administrators.

Requirement 29 – Build a simple designed back end application explaining in detail which kind of

information have to be provided for each property.

Requirement 30 - Drop the current DIS multimedia management system and substitute with a

modern DAM (Digital Asset Management).

Requirement 31 - Speed-up the process of update from database to websites.

Requirement 32 - Update availability and price fields of all accommodation items.

Requirement 33 - Reorganize User roles and privileges enhancing flexibility (prepare for future

modifications).

Requirement 34 – Distinguish between authors (people that can edit / write on DIS) and publishers

(people that can approve / publish on DIS).

Requirement 35 – Provide an Online Booking System for all accommodation entities.

Requirement 36 - Build a collaboration tool for team work and task assignment from

administrators to suppliers.

Requirement 37 - Decentralize the recurrent upgrading process of supplier stakeholders (prices,

availability).

Requirement 38 – Connect the Ticino Regional DIS with online promotion tools (Adwords, Ad

server, Newsletter Software).

Requirement 39 - Connect the Ticino Regional DIS to online communication channels for data

source (Ticketcorner, Interhome / eDomizil, Capanneti.ch, Bnb.ch, Agriturismo.ch, STC channel

manager) and data distribution (Gadmin / STnet, Online Tour Operators, Online Travel Agencies).

Requirement 40 - Open the touristic data content of the Regional DIS to online communication

multimedia channels (Mobile devices, mobile applications, tablet, Social media).

120 | P a g e

Requirement 41 - Build a Notification management system able to track Supplier and Client

stakeholder’s modification on data entity properties.

Requirement 42 – Build a Statistics management system able to track visits on entities, attributes

and single elements (also detailed visits on websites where data are distributed).

Requirement 43 – Attach the possibility to define metadata on single elements (Title, description,

keywords) for SEO purposes at a supplier and client stakeholder level.

Requirement 44 – Build a Location Based service system with event as driver showing structures

and facilities for end users in 1 / 2 Km perimeter surrounding area.

Requirement 45 – Build a unified system for the management of Snow and Summer bulletin

(touristic suppliers offer in winter and summer season).

Requirement 46 – Create an eCRM (Switzerland Tourism example) database marketing system

(Monitoring and reporting, Analysis and research, Contacts, 1:1 marketing activities, follow up

information) for customer (end users) relationship management and based on customer touristic

preferences.

Requirement 47 - Item versioning: build a system that allows the creation of multiple versions of

the same object.

Requirement 48 – Build a system for Content Syndication (TANDEM example) allowing supplier’s

stakeholder content subscription and integration of content packages (data subsets) in

subscriber’s websites.

Requirement 49 – Integration of Trade (Trade corner) entity in Ticino DIS structure for the

enhancement of B2B communication with Tour Operators and Travel Agents.

Requirement 50 – Build a form management system to administrate the creation of

questionnaires (directed to supplier or client stakeholders) for different purposes (contact,

marketing research, etc..).

Requirement 51 - Develop an offline communication channel between ticinoinfo sa and suppliers

(Help line, Operator, etc..).

In order to arrive to the final list of requirements, we integrated goals and requirements into the

matrix (Table III-17) where rows are representing requirements and columns are representing

121 | P a g e

goals. Below, with the purpose to facilitate the reader, we report the calculation process fully

explained in Chapter II.5.

Every requirement has been evaluated assigning a score and a value of importance for the

fulfillment of the assigned goal:

Requirement importance

Level

Symbol Importance value

Critic Xxx 3

Important Xx 2

Minor X 1

Table III–16 Requirement importance scale and value. Symbol is used graphically to point out the importance of each requirement while value is the numerical representation of importance

The absolute value of all requirements matched within its importance level for the fulfillment of

the goal gave a final list of prioritized elements.

The absolute value of each requirement has been calculated as a result of the importance value of

each requirement for the fulfillment of each goal.

The absolute value of each requirement has been later evaluated as the sum of the occurrences of

the above mentioned equation values on the pre-selected goals.

122 | P a g e

Identification of Requirements / Goals

Requirements

Critic Goals Important Goals Minor Goals

Goal 3 Goal 6 Goal 2 Goal 4 Goal 10 Goal 11 Goal 14 Goal 13 Goal 7 Goal 8 Goal 9 Goal 12 Goal 5 Goal 1

1 x xx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx

Req 2 x xx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx


Req 4 xx xx xxx xxx xx xxx xxx xxx xx x xx xxx

Req 5 x xxx xx x xxx

Req 6 x xxx xx xx xx x xx xx xx xxx

Req 7 xxx xx xx x xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xx xx xx xxx

Req 8 xxx xx xx xx xx xxx xxx xxx xxx x x

Req 9 xxx xx xxx x xxx xxx xxx xx

Req 10 xxx xx xxx xx xxx xxx xxx x

Req 11 x xxx xxx xxx xx xxx xx

Req 12 xxx xx xxx xx xxx xxx

Req 13 xxx xxx x x xxx xxx xx

123 | P a g e


Req 15 xxx xxx xx xx xxx xxx

Req 16 xxx xxx xxx xxx

Req 17 xxx xxx xxx

Req 18 xxx xxx xxx


Req 20 xxx xx xxx xx xxx xxx xxx xxx

Req 21 xxx xxx xxx

Req 22 xxx xxx x xxx xxx xx xxx

124 | P a g e

Requirements



Req 23 xxx xx xxx xxx xxx

Req 24 xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx

Req 25 xxx xx xx xx xxx xxx xx xxx xxx

Req 26 xxx xx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx

Req 27 xxx xxx xx xx x xxx xxx xxx

Req 28 xx xx xxx xxx xx

Req 29 xxx xx xx xxx xxx x xxx x xx xx

Req 30 xxx xxx xx x xxx xxx xx xx xxx xxx xx

Req 31 x xx xxx xx

Req 32 xx xxx xxx x xxx xxx

Req 33 xxx xx xxx xxx x xx xxx xxx xxx xxx xx xxx xxx

Req 34 xx xxx x xxx xx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx

Req 35 xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xx

125 | P a g e

Req 36 xxx xx xxx xx xxx xxx xx x xxx

Req 37 xx xx xxx xx xx xxx x xx xxx

Req 38 x xxx xxx xxx xxx

Req 39 xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx

Req 40 xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx

Req 41 xxx xxx xx xxx xxx xxx xxx xx xxx

Req 42 xx xx xxx xxx xxx xxx

Req 43 xx xxx xxx x xxx xxx xxx xxx

Req 44 xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx x xx

126 | P a g e

Requirements



Req 45 xxx x xxx x xxx xxx x

Req 46 xxx xxx xxx xx xxx x xxx xxx

Req 47 xxx xxx x xxx xx xxx xxx xxx xxx

Req 48 x xxx xx xxx xxx x xx xxx xxx x xxx

Req 49 xx x xxx xxx x xx xxx xxx xx

Req 50 xx xxx xx x xxx xx xxx

Req 51 x xx x x xxx x x xxx x

Table III–17 Matrix for the identification of requirements

127 | P a g e

The final result is a complete list of requirements divided in critic, important and minor for the

realization of Ticino destination information system renewal. Below we provide the final list of

requirements divided for its priority:

Critic Requirements – Priority Level 1 – Score over 55

Requirement

number

Requirement Description Absolute

score

33 Reorganize User roles and privileges enhancing flexibility (prepare for

future modifications)

72

7 Drop the current Administrative desktop application Client building a

Web application for back end and front end administrative access by

client and suppliers stakeholder

71

4 Build a modular structure open to the attachment of different

functionalities to make diverse use of data

68

30 Drop the current DIS multimedia management system and substitute

with a modern DAM (Digital Asset Management)

61

34 Distinguish between authors (people that can edit / write on DIS) and

publishers (people that can approve / publish on DIS)

58

24 Create a Workflow approval process for data validation (Switzerland

Tourism example)

57

39 Connect the Ticino Regional DIS to online communication channels for

data source (Ticketcorner, Interhome / eDomizil, Capanneti.ch,

Bnb.ch, Agriturismo.ch, STC channel manager) and data distribution

(Gadmin / STnet, Online Tour Operators, Online Travel Agencies)

57

48 Build a system for Content Syndication (TANDEM example) allowing

supplier’s stakeholder content subscription and integration of content

packages (data subsets) in subscriber’s websites

57

Table III–18 Final list of Critic requirements

128 | P a g e

Important Requirements – Priority Level 2 – Score from 40 to 54

Requirement

number


score

47 Item versioning: build a system that allows the creation of multiple

versions of the same object

52

8 Build a guide / manual for DIS use 52

41 Build a Notification management system able to track Supplier and

Client stakeholder’s modification on data entity properties

51

46 Create an eCRM (Switzerland Tourism example) database marketing

system (Monitoring and reporting, Analysis and research, Contacts,

1:1 marketing activities, follow up information) for customer (end

users) relationship management and based on customer touristic

preferences

50

29 Build a simple designed back end application explaining in detail

which kind of information have to be provided for each property

50

10 Build a simple design front end application explaining in detail which

kind of information have to be provided for each property

49

25 Introduce a personalization layer allowing suppliers the modification

of event entity properties

49

27 Build and HTML editor for editing text data 48

43 Attach the possibility to define metadata on single elements (Title,

description, keywords) for SEO purposes at a supplier and client

stakeholder level

48

36 Build a collaboration tool for team work and task assignment from

administrators to suppliers

48

44 Build a Location Based service system with event as driver showing

structures and facilities for end users in 1 / 2 Km perimeter

surrounding area

48

49 Integration of Trade (Trade corner) entity in Ticino DIS structure for

the enhancement of B2B communication with Tour Operators and

Travel Agents

47

9 Simplify all data entry processes on DIS for Client and supplier

stakeholder

47

6 Make the structure of Ticino DIS scalable (ability of a system, network,

or process, to handle growing amount of work in a capable manner or

its ability to be enlarged to accommodate that growth)

45

20 Give the possibility to assign special offers to every accommodation

entity

45

Table III–19 Final list of important requirements. The table has been divided in two parts with the purpose of facilitate reading

129 | P a g e

Important Requirements – Priority Level 2 – Score from 40 to 54

Requirement

number


score

26 Separate ticinoinfo DIS archive of data from AGR database 45

37 Decentralize the recurrent upgrading process of supplier stakeholders

(prices, availability)

44

22 Provide solutions to manage effectively Organizer Item (current

function of support for event and common item)

43

1 Reorganize entities and entity - relationships of DIS for the modern

online tourism industry enhancing flexibility and data interoperability

(prepare for future modifications)

42

2 Reorganize the properties of the entities of DIS enhancing flexibility

and data interoperability (prepare for future modifications)

42

3 Reorganize attributes of DIS enhancing flexibility and data

interoperability (prepare for future modifications)

42

35 Provide an Online Booking System for all accommodation entities 41

Table III–20 Final list of important requirements. The table has been divided in two parts with the purpose of facilitate reading

Minor Requirements – Priority level 3 – Score 39 or less

Requirement

number


score

11 Analyze different contents on common items and evaluate the

possibility to split the entity

39

15 Coordinate with ETL a total revision of the current database content 37

19 Schedule with ETL recurrent upgrading of all DIS data entity properties 37

45 Build a unified system for the management of Snow and Summer

bulletin (touristic suppliers offer in Winter and Summer season)

37

12 Provide incentives for database (DIS) enrichment of all kind of

accommodations

36

50 Build a form management system to administrate the creation of

questionnaires (directed to supplier or client stakeholders) for

different purposes (contact, marketing research, etc..)

36

32 Update availability and price fields of all accommodation items 36

14 Provide solutions to manage effectively and logically levels (from 1 to

4) and clarify their role

35

13 Provide solutions to manage effectively non active elements

(archived, discarded, pending translation, suspended or new)

35

Table III–21 Final list of minor requirements. The table has been divided in two parts with the purpose of facilitate reading

130 | P a g e

Minor Requirements – Priority level 3 – Score 39 or less

Requirement

number


score

42 Build a Statistics management system able to track visits on entities,

attributes and single elements (also detailed visits on websites where

data are distributed)

33

40 Open the touristic data content of the Regional DIS to online

communication multimedia channels (Mobile devices, mobile

applications, tablet, Social media)

33

23 Improve the authority, accuracy and multimedia consistency

(heuristics) quality level of DIS data content

33

16 Improve the overall quality (accuracy, Authority and multimedia

consistency) for the Event entity content

27

51 Develop an offline communication channel between ticinoinfo sa and

suppliers (Help line, Operator, etc..)

27

38 Connect the Ticino Regional DIS with online promotion tools

(Adwords, Ad server, Newsletter Software)

27

28 Build a collaboration tool for team work and task assignment between

the administrators

24

5 Decrease the software developers effort (time) for structural

modifications on database

24

21 Improve the overall quality (Currency, multimedia consistency) for

Common entity content

21

18 Improve the overall quality (accuracy, coverage, content objectivity,

authority) for Holiday House entity content

21

17 Improve the overall quality (accuracy, coverage, content objectivity,

authority) for Restaurant entity content

21

31 Speed-up the process of update from database to websites 15

Table III–22 Final list of minor requirements. The table has been divided in two parts with the purpose of facilitate reading

The critic requirements identified in this research have been compared with the list of

requirements contained in ticinoinfo sa official documentation available in Annex 5. delivered to

his technological partner (Tinext sa) for the implementation. Considering that the researcher

influenced from the one hand the results of this research and on the other hand the ticinoinfo sa

official documentation of the project (as part of the working team), it is recommended to evaluate

this subjective “imprint” in both cases.

131 | P a g e

The official documentation has divided the project in two lines of intervention. The first part

including the consolidation of the database with an evolution of the current administrative client

desktop application in behalf of a modular web application, the second part its innovative aspects.

During the first part, after several meetings within the technical parties involved in the

implementation of the project five requirements that will consolidate the current database and

increase its effectiveness and efficiency have been identified:

I. The reorganization of the touristic suite of user management and permissions

During the consolidation phase, the database ticinoinfo sa refines its own special features to

facilitate user management and editorial permissions on items. The goal of a more atomic users

and permissions is to facilitate the updating item process and decentralize (where possible) its

management.

II. Workflow approval process of the content (quality check) introduction

The introduction of a workflow system for approval / publishing online content added / modified

by the client. An item will be able to support different item states (creation, modification, pending

approval, approved, rejected).

III. The revision of the structured content items

Metadata (metadescription, meta title, meta keyword) will be introduced for all items. A

versioning will take the history of all modifications on single items. The concept of quality index

will be used to understand the qualitative level of a single item; in case the qualitative level of an

item will not respect ticinoinfo sa pre-selected basic information procedures will be hidden on

public search.

IV. The introduction of an advanced system for management of items web analytics

Statistics on items will be provided through the use of a dashboard to derive information on the

number of times an item has been called from the database (divided in the different channels

where touristic data is pushed).

132 | P a g e

V. The management of digital asset through the use of a modern DAM (Digital Asset

Management) system

Ticino regional destination information system will manage the digitalized content archive making

use of a modern DAM (Digital Asset Management). DAM will give the possibility for the publication

of digital assets in a selection of social media channels

Matching those requirements with the critic requirements identified during the research, we can

easily notice how the requirements underlined in Table IV-I are connected with the five

requirements included in the ticinoinfo sa official documentation.

Critic Requirements – Priority Level 1 – Score over 55

Requirement

number


score

33 Reorganize User roles and privileges enhancing flexibility (prepare for

future modifications)

72

7 Drop the current Administrative desktop application Client building a

Web application for back end and front end administrative access by

client and suppliers stakeholder

71

4 Build a modular structure open to the attachment of different

functionalities to make diverse use of data

68

30 Drop the current DIS multimedia management system and substitute

with a modern DAM (Digital Asset Management)

61

34 Distinguish between authors (people that can edit / write on DIS) and

publishers (people that can approve / publish on DIS)

58

24 Create a Workflow approval process for data validation (Switzerland

Tourism example)

57

39 Connect the Ticino Regional DIS to online communication channels for

data source (Ticketcorner, Interhome / eDomizil, Capanneti.ch,

Bnb.ch, Agriturismo.ch, STC channel manager) and data distribution

(Gadmin / STnet, Online Tour Operators, Online Travel Agencies)

57

48 Build a system for Content Syndication (TANDEM example) allowing

supplier’s stakeholder content subscription and integration of content

packages (data subsets) in subscriber’s websites

57

Table III-1 Critic requirements - Requirements underlined in grey have been integrated in ticinoinfo sa official project documentation

133 | P a g e

Chapter IV Discussion and conclusions

During the definition of goals and requirements we understood how is important for a destination

information system to consider strategically the possibility of future developments and integration

of new technologies. Answering to the first research question – How does a destination

information system need to be structured for modern travel and tourism industry – we can argue

that a modern DIS have to be conceived in a “work in progress”, modular and scalable perspective,

leaving a broad space of interventions for further developments.

Additionally, designers and developers need to take into account all levels and the entire

complexity of a destination management organization avoiding considering the DIS only a source

of information. Destination information systems are instead databases of information with an

enormous potential of interaction with suppliers and customers / travelers.

This interaction is essential for the evolution of the DIS and represents the answer of the second

research question – What are the main objectives that a destination needs to consider

strategically for the design of a destination information system planning its evolution in a

destination management system – As a matter of fact, a destination information system evolution

with respect on the above mentioned “guidelines” will naturally become a destination

management system.

Future developments of this research will follow both the evolution of the touristic market and the

transformation of Information and Communication Technology. This is the reason why, following

the actual trends of the internet, it is possible to predict just some of the future improvements of

the new Ticino destination management system.

In the first place the mobile and tablet market, growing fast and increasing every year its impact

also in the travel and tourism industry. The selection of data for multiple devices (mobile and

tablet) is nowadays extremely important and the new Ticino destination management system will

need to consider the possibility to redesign strategically its huge amount of digitalized content in a

form suitable for those kind of technologies.

Secondly, the development of a database with leisure and business traveler contacts, giving a huge

amount of opportunities for e-Marketing and online traveler assistance during all phases of the

134 | P a g e

experience (before, during and after the travel). The possibility to deliver targeted information to

an extremely targeted audience is the real challenge of the new Ticino destination management

system.

Social media like facebook, flickr, youtube and twitter as a matter of fact are increasingly

expanding every year, covering business and private life issues. A future improvement of the

touristic data archive will consider extensively all those aspects, enhancing data sharing between

users and businesses.

Finally, the semantic redesign of Ticino destination management system digitalized archive with its

potential to increase interoperability between different travel systems giving intelligence to digital

data, driving profiled and accurate travel solutions to customers.

As we can see there are several directions that the new Ticino destination management system

can follow in order to open possibilities of data evolution addressing the needs of both travelers

and business entities.

The final lists of requirements identified in this research have the purpose to become a milestone

for future technological progress of Ticino destination digitalized archive of data. The material

presented, apart from being useful for the innovations adopted in the current database of Ticino

touristic information, wants to be also a valid support for any further development in the database

of the future.

135 | P a g e

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Egger, R., (2007) Restructuring the destination management system paradigm, Salzburg: Salzburg

University of Applied Sciences.

Evans, M., Fox, J., Johnson R., (1995). Identifying competitive strategies for successful tourism

destination development, UK: Taylor & Francis.

Gretzel, U., Fesenmaier, D. R., & O'Leary, J. T., (2006) The transformation of consumer behavior, in

Tourism Business Frontiers, Oxford: Elsevier .

136 | P a g e

Inversini, A., Bruelhart, C., Cantoni, L., (2011) Myswiterland.com: Analysis of Online

communication and promotion, in Information Technology & Tourism, USA: Cognizant

Commmunication Corporation, vol. 13, pp. 39-49.

Karcher, K., (2008) Destination Management System: Tiscover Europe, Bournenouth:

Bournemouth eprints.

Porter, M., (1985), Competitive advantage, New York: Free Press.

Sharp, H., Finkelstein & Galal Galal, A., (1999) Stakeholder Identification in the Requirements

Engineering Process in Database and Expert Systems Applications, 1999. Proceedings. Tenth

International Workshop on, pp. 387 - 391.

Triacca, L., Inversini, A., Bolchini, D., (2005) Evaluating Web Usability With Mile+ in Web Site

Evolution, 2005. (WSE 2005). Seventh IEEE International Symposium on, pp. 22 - 29.

World tourism organization (WTO), (1995) Collection of tourism expenditure statistics.

Comscore, available online on http://www.comscore.com/.

New Media Trend Watch, available online on http://www.newmediatrendwatch.com/regional-

overview/103-europe.

137 | P a g e

Annexes

1. Structural Analysis

a. The entities of Ticino DIS and their structure

2. Quantitative Analysis

a. Active / Not active items

b. Regional and local item distribution

3. Qualitative Analysis

a. Qualitative analysis event items (50 elements)

b. Qualitative analysis items without events (100 elements)

4. Identification of Goals

a. Matrix for the identification of goal’s absolute value

b. Matrix for the identification of requirement’s absolute value

5. Official Documentation database renewal project ticinoinfo sa

138 | P a g e

Università della Svizzera Italiana

Faculty of Communication Sciences

Redesigning the Ticino Destination

Information System Master’s Thesis

of

Lorenzo Ghini

08-989-253

Annexes

1. Structural Analysis

a. The entities of Ticino DIS and their structure

2. Quantitative Analysis

a. Active / Not active items

b. Regional and local item distribution

3. Qualitative Analysis

a. Qualitative analysis event items (50 elements)

b. Qualitative analysis items without events (100 elements)

4. Identification of Goals

a. Matrix for the identification of goal’s absolute value

b. Matrix for the identification of requirement’s absolute value


139 | P a g e

1.a. The entities analyzed and its structure

Hotel

Field Name - Properties Type

Category (stars) Dropdown menu

Url of the website Text

URL of the website label Text

URL booking Text

Label booking Text

URL booking (alternative) Text

Label booking (alternative) Text

Description

Italian Text

German Text

French Text

English Text

Availability

Closed from Data

Closed until Data

Availability (Free, occupied, closed) Dropdown menu

Prices

Double room (minimum price) num

Double room (maximum price) num

Single room (minimum price) num

140 | P a g e

Single room (maximum price) num

Extra bed (minimum price) num

Extra bed (maximum price) num

Half board (price) num

Full board (price num

Beds and Rooms

Number of rooms num

Number of beds num

Owner Text

ID STC (used to establish connection with Switzerland Travel Center and make the structure bookable)

Num

Holiday Houses


Description

Italian Text

German Text

French Text

English Text

Arrival / Departure days

Italian Text

German Text

French Text

English Text

Extra Tax (Used for adding an extra staying fee)

141 | P a g e

Italian Text

German Text

French Text

English Text

Prices

Per person (minimum) Text

Per person (maximum) Text

Daily (minimum) Text

Daily (maximum) Text

Half board (price) Text

Full board (price Text

Type of house Dropdown menu

Category Dropdown menu

Opened from Data

Opened until Data

Organizer Num



URL booking Text

Label booking Text



Number of rooms Num

Number of beds Num

142 | P a g e

Maximum number of beds Num

Minimum stay Num


Num

Owner

Name Text

Address Text

Venue Text

Telephone num

Mobile num

Fax num

eMail text

Youth Hostels





URL booking Text

Label booking Text

Description

Italian Text

German Text

143 | P a g e

French Text

English Text

Prices

Double room (minimum price) Num

Double room (maximum price) Num



Opened from Data

Opened until Data

Number of rooms num

Number of beds num

Alpine Huts


Description

Italian Text

German Text

French Text

English Text

Prices



144 | P a g e





Menu (Minimum) Num

Menu (Maximum) Num

Opened from Data

Opened until Data



Number of rooms num

Number of beds num

Number of places Num

Owner

Name Text

Address Text

Venue Text

Telephone num

Fax num

email text

Daily Opening specifications

Monday Text

Tuesday Text

Wednesday Text

145 | P a g e

Thursday Text

Friday Text

Saturday Text

Sunday Text

Bed and Breakfast





URL booking Text

Label booking Text



Description

Italian Text

German Text

French Text

English Text

Availability

Closed from Data

Closed until Data

146 | P a g e


Prices





Beds and Rooms

Number of rooms num

Number of beds num

Owner Text


Num

Farmhouses





URL booking Text

Label booking Text



Description

147 | P a g e

Italian Text

German Text

French Text

English Text

Availability

Closed from Data

Closed until Data


Prices



Extra bed (minimum price) num

Extra bed (maximum price) num

Double room (minimum price) Num

Double room (maximum price) Num



Beds and Rooms

Number of rooms num

Number of beds num

Owner Text


Num

148 | P a g e

Campgrounds



Opened from Data

Opened until Data



Number of places num

Description

Italian Text

German Text

French Text

English Text

Prices







Owner

Name Text

Address Text

149 | P a g e

Venue Text

Telephone num

Fax num


Monday Text

Tuesday Text

Wednesday Text

Thursday Text

Friday Text

Saturday Text

Sunday Text

Business (Meetings – Incentives – Conferences – Exhibitions)


Description

Italian Text

German Text

French Text

English Text




Number of rooms num

Number of beds num

150 | P a g e

Halls (System for the management of convention halls. Add, modify and delete rooms. Name, Price, Size, Area, Height, Banquet, Concert, Reception, Seminars, Projector, Microphone, conditioner, Internet, Disabled)

Events


Description

Italian Text

German Text

French Text

English Text

Valid from Data

Valid until Data

Organizer Num



URL online booking Text

URL online booking label Text

Duration Text

Venue Text

Daily Opening specifications (Hours)

151 | P a g e

Monday Text

Tuesday Text

Wednesday Text

Thursday Text

Friday Text

Saturday Text

Sunday Text

Tickets

Italian Text

German Text

French Text

English Text

Further description

Italian Text

German Text

French Text

English Text

Travel means of transport

Italian Text

German Text

French Text

English Text

152 | P a g e

Organizers


Description

Italian Text

German Text

French Text

English Text

Organizer Text



Tickets

Italian Text

German Text

French Text

English Text


Italian Text

German Text

French Text

English Text

153 | P a g e

Restaurants


Description

Italian Text

German Text

French Text

English Text

Prices

Menu (minimum) Num

Menu (maximum) Num

Menu of the day

Italian Text

German Text

French Text

English Text


Monday Text

Tuesday Text

Wednesday Text

Thursday Text

Friday Text

Saturday Text

Sunday Text

154 | P a g e



Open from data

Open until data

Discotheque


Description

Italian Text

German Text

French Text

English Text


Monday Text

Tuesday Text

Wednesday Text

Thursday Text

Friday Text

Saturday Text

Sunday Text

Valid from Data

Valid until Data


155 | P a g e


Special Offers


Description

Italian Text

German Text

French Text

English Text


Italian Text

German Text

French Text

English Text

Valid from Data

Valid until Data

Common


Description

Italian Text

German Text

156 | P a g e

French Text

English Text

Valid from data

Valid until data

Booking



Duration Text


Monday Text

Tuesday Text

Wednesday Text

Thursday Text

Friday Text

Saturday Text

Sunday Text




Italian Text

German Text

French Text

English Text

157 | P a g e

Tickets

Italian Text

German Text

French Text

English Text

158 | P a g e

2.a. – Active / Not Active items

Active elements = Blue color

Not active elements = Red color

Observations: Only 19 (15%) non active

elements

Observations: 31 elements (12%) are not

active

Observations: There are only 47 campgrounds

in database. 38 are active while 9 are not

active

Observations: Most of the alpine hut (101) are

active in current database

85%

15%

Bed and Breakfast

88%

12%

Business

81%

19%

Campground

87%

13%

Capanne alpine

159 | P a g e

Observations: 2/3 of Holiday house items

(1964) are not active

Observations: Dancing items (only 82 in total)

are mostly active

Observations: Farmhouse items (105 in total)

are mostly active elements

Observations: 2/3 of common items (5.164)

are active in database

34%

66%

Holiday House

78%

22%

Discoteche e night club

81%

19%

Farmhouse

63%

37%

Common

160 | P a g e

Observations: 92% (104) are active elements Observations: 81% (2594) elements are active

92%

8%

Hostel

81%

19%

Restaurant

161 | P a g e

2.b. – Regional and local item distribution

Agend

a

Farmhou

se Hotels Common

Bed&Break

fast

Busine

ss Campgro

unds Alpine Huts

Holiday Houses

Discotheque Organizer

Special

Offers

Hostels

Restaurants

Tour

Total / Region

Ticino 46'905

105

841

7'442

126

184

47

106

2'984

82

1'307

561

113

3'133

262

64'198

Lake Lugano

19'390

46

318

2'842

44

87

20

13

779

30

651

233

17

1'624

92

26'186

Lugano 8

199

1'625

16

58

4

8

409

21

419

120

5

955 -

3'847

Lugano Valleys

68

1

4

45

1

-

-

-

11

-

2

2

-

13

37

184

Malcantone

2'253

8

58

358

9

11

12

1

239

1

56

43

3

201

29

3'282

Mendrisiotto

6'352

29

61

808

18

17

4

4

118

8

174

44

9

455

26

8'127

Bellinzona and upper Ticino

8'565

26

134

1'375

10

29

10

56

287

13

194

31

56

640

77

11'503

Leventina valley

1'443

6

67

267

5

6

2

17

132

1

21

13

18

160

25

2'183

Blenio valley

770

3

19

228

1

2

2

17

76

-

16

5

23

65

15

1'242

Riviera (Biasca)

650

3

10

187

1

3

1

9

14

4

17

1

5

92

10

1'007

Bellinzonese

5'701

14

38

669

3

18

5

12

65

8

140

8

10

323

27

7'041

Bellinzona

-

-

-

9

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

- -

9

162 | P a g e


12'598

33

384

2'048

72

62

17

35

1'899

37

449

154

39

869

88

18'784

Ascona and surroundings

2'930

1

81

273

6

16

2

1

320

16

86

53

4

175

10

3'974

Locarno and surroundings

5'722

1

112

567

24

27

1

3

283

14

211

53

3

278

31

7'330

Brissago and Islands

713

1

36

95

3

4

-

1

136

2

21

4

-

66 -

1'082

Centovalli and Onsernone

878

3

43

184

14

5

-

4

74

-

17

8

8

82 -

1'320

Maggia valley

779

11

43

293

13

4

2

13

365

-

32

9

15

97

28

1'704

Lavizzara valley

101

5

7

40

1

-

-

4

43

-

4

-

4

15 -

224

Bavona valley

26

-

2

6

-

1

-

3

6

-

-

-

1

5 -

50

Rovana valley

102

1

8

33

-

1

-

2

52

-

4

4

4

14 -

225

Lower Maggia valley

537

5

26

132

12

2

2

4

261

-

24

4

6

63 -

1'078

Verzasca valley

152

7

14

109

5

1

-

12

169

-

6

1

4

37

8

525

Tenero -

163 | P a g e

732 4 23 157 - 5 10 - 171 3 42 1 2 62 1'212

Gambarogno

683

5

32

141

6

-

1

1

381

2

34

11

3

72

11

1'383

Grigioni 722

-

-

65

-

1

-

6

-

-

21

-

-

17 -

832

Moesano

614

-

-

56

-

1

-

5

-

-

17

-

-

15 -

708

Valposchiavo

83

-

-

1

-

-

-

-

-

-

3

-

-

1 -

88

Italy 105

-

-

616

-

64

-

1

-

-

1

27

-

36 -

850

Como 4

-

-

95

-

48

-

1

-

-

-

-

-

4 -

152

Lecco 9

-

-

90

-

1

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

2 -

102

Novara 73

-

-

124

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

1 -

198

Varese 1

-

-

103

-

10

-

-

-

-

1

-

-

1 -

116

Verbano 16

-

-

114

-

5

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

- -

135

Other -

-

-

20

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

- -

20

Total 47'732

105

841

8'143

126

249

47

113

2'984

82

1'329

588

113

3'186

262

65'900

Total back

47'732

105

841

8'229

126

250

47

116

2'986

82

1'333

601

113

3'200

262

66'023

Differences total

-

-

-

86

-

1

-

3

2

-

4

13

-

14 -

123

164 | P a g e

Agend

a

Farmhou

se Hotels Common

Bed&Break

fast

Busine

ss Campgro

unds Alpine Huts

Holiday Houses

Discotheque Organizer

Special

Offers

Hostels

Restaurants

Tour

Total / Region

Ticino 46'905

105

841

7'442

126

184

47

106

2'984

82

1'307

561

113

3'133

262

64'198

Lake Lugano

13'038

17

257

2'034

26

70

16

9

661

22

477

189

8

1'169

66

18'059

Mendrisiotto

6'352

29

61

808

18

17

4

4

118

8

174

44

9

455

26

8'127


8'565

26

134

1'375

10

29

10

56

287

13

194

31

56

640

77

11'503


12'598

33

384

2'048

72

62

17

35

1'899

37

449

154

39

869

88

18'784

Grigioni 722

-

-

65

-

1

-

6

-

-

21

-

-

17 -

832

Italy 105

-

-

616

-

64

-

1

-

-

1

27

-

36 -

850

Other -

-

-

20

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

- -

20

Total 47'732

105

841

8'143

126

249

47

113

2'984

82

1'329

588

113

3'186

262

65'900

Total Ticino regions

40'553

105

836

6'265

126

178

47

104

2'965

80

1'294

418

112

3'133

257

56'473

Total difference regions

6'352

-

5

1'177

-

6

-

2

19

2

13

143

1

-

5

7'725

165 | P a g e

and Ticino

3.a. – Qualitative analysis event items (50 elements)

ID DENOMINATION (ITA)

DATA OF THE ANALYSIS Accuracy Currency Coverage Content Objectivity Authority Text Errors

Multimedia consistency

27374 Scambio dell'usato 01.12.2011 4 1 4 3 4 2 4

31664 Museo comico 16.12.2011 2 1 2 3 3 1 1

42373 Palco ai giovani - Winter Session 01.12.2011 4 3 3 4 4 4 4

53655 Rassegna gastronomica Valle Verzasca e Piano 01.12.2011 3 2 3 2 3 2 1

61603 Pranzo per gli Asconesi della terza età 01.12.2011 4 1 4 2 4 2 4

68515 Mercatino di Natale 01.12.2011 4 2 4 4 4 1 4

78676 Locarno on Ice 16.12.2011 1 1 1 1 2 1 1

82940 Lanternata dell'Avvento 16.12.2011 3 1 2 2 4 1 4

83505 Edmondo Dobrzanski - Gli anni '50 e '60 16.12.2011 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

95147 Settesale per Setteartisti 16.12.2011 4 1 4 4 4 1 4

98729 Earl Bynum & As We Are, feat. Sister Cora Armstrong - Gospel & Spirituals 16.12.2011 4 1 3 3 4 1 4

98737 Larry Jones Gospel Quintett - Gospel & Spirituals 01.12.2011 4 3 4 4 4 1 4

99047 Daniel Buren "Voir. Se Voir. Savoir" & Lawrence Carroll "another life" 01.12.2011 4 1 4 4 4 3 1

166 | P a g e

100855 Mercantico, la brocante bellinzonese 01.12.2011 1 3 1 2 3 2 1

102421 Museo Luigi Rossi 01.12.2011 3 3 3 4 4 1 4

104914 2. Edizione di Granfondo San Gottardo 01.12.2011 2 4 2 2 3 2 4

106655 L'arte del dubbio - Stagione teatrale Locarno 2011/2012 16.12.2011 4 3 3 3 4 1 4

108001 Bellinzona in Luce 16.12.2011 3 1 2 2 3 4 1

109288 Trasparenze. L'acquarello tra Romanticismo e Belle Epoque 16.12.2011 1 1 1 1 2 2 1

110105 Mercatino delle pulci natalizio 16.12.2011 2 1 3 2 3 1 4

110462 Fausto Tommasina 16.12.2011 4 1 4 4 4 2 4

111013 15. Locarno Camelie 16.12.2011 2 1 2 2 3 1 1

111673 L'altro sguardo 16.12.2011 4 1 3 2 4 1 4

112105 Musikverein Buch (SH) 16.12.2011 4 3 4 4 4 3 4

112996 Ciclo di incontri - Maestri milanesi 16.12.2011 4 1 4 4 4 1 4

113706 Nel giardino incantato - Richard Seewald 01.12.2011 2 1 3 2 3 4 1

113926 Leggere al Museo 01.12.2011 4 1 3 3 4 2 4

114223 Punti di vista sulla montagna 01.12.2011 4 3 4 4 4 1 4

114503 I bambini alla scoperta di parole e musica 01.12.2011 3 3 3 4 4 1 4

114610 Collezione. Opere dal XVI al XX secolo 01.12.2011 4 3 4 4 4 1 4

114758 Altri Percorsi - Il guardiano 16.12.2011 4 1 4 3 4 1 4

114784 Danza - Kei Aber! (Niente ma!) 16.12.2011 4 2 3 2 4 1 4

114840 Galà Ciaikovskij - Stagione teatrale 2011-2012 16.12.2011 4 1 3 3 4 1 4

167 | P a g e

114849 Un oscuro bisogno di uccidere - Stagione teatrale 2011-2012 16.12.2011 3 1 3 3 4 1 4

115004 Villaggio natalizio 01.12.2011 4 2 4 4 4 2 4

115087 Teatro per le famiglie - Una scalata verso il cielo 16.12.2011 4 1 3 3 4 1 4

115264 Luciano Pavan - Luce e colore nel paesaggio italiano

16.12.2011 4 1 4 4 4 1 4

115279 Il viaggio di Speranza 16.12.2011 3 1 3 2 4 1 4

115327 Filarmonica Alto Malcantone 16.12.2011 4 1 2 4 1 4

115360 Mercatino di Natale "A.R.T.I." 16.12.2011 4 1 3 2 4 1 4

115454 Minimusica - Cinderella Vampirella 16.12.2011 4 1 4 3 3 1 4

115665 Concerto per il 90. di Fondazione della Filarmonica di Gorduno

16.12.2011 4 1 3 3 4 1 4

115777 Anna Bianchi - Le carte di Novembre 16.12.2011 4 1 4 4 4 1 4

115788 (ch)ontaminazioni - Trio Vocal Nørm 16.12.2011 3 1 2 3 4 1 4

115798 LuganoInScena 2011-2012 - Il ventaglio 16.12.2011 3 1 3 3 3 1 4

116322 Atelier "Ritmo e colori" 16.12.2011 4 1 4 3 4 1 4

116477

"Come costruire relazioni armoniose: esploriamo" - Meditazione per la Pace nel mondo 16.12.2011 4 1 4 4 4 1 4

117161 I Concerti dell'Auditorio - "Il miracolo dell'albero di mango"

16.12.2011 4 1 4 3 4 1 4

168 | P a g e

117171 Play Your Night 16.12.2011 4 1 3 4 4 1 4

117185 Lugano Modern - S.O.S Solo On Saturn 16.12.2011 3 1 3 3 4 1 4

3.b. – Qualitative analysis items without events (100 elements)

ID DENOMINATION (ITA)

DATA OF THE ANALYSIS Accuracy Currency Coverage Content Objectivity Authority Text Errors

Multimedia consistency

105866 Lugano Trekking: Capanna Pairolo-Capanna Monte Bar 04.12.2011 1 3 2 4 1 1 1

97321 Agriloro SA 04.12.2011 2 1 2 3 3 2 3

94683 Alpe Loasa 04.12.2011 4 2 4 4 2 1 3

12235 Campo G+S Olivone 04.12.2011 4 2 4 4 4 1 4

13734 Hotel Eden Roc (meeting & incentive) 04.12.2011 1 2 1 3 1 1 1

77135 e-bike: RENT ME 04.12.2011 3 1 2 4 2 1 4

94111 Al Fiume *** - Offerta 3 notti 04.12.2011 1 1 1 1 1 2 4

111901 Isole di Brissago - Entrata gratuita per bambini fino a 12 anni 04.12.2011 4 4 4 2 4 1 4

12065 Camelia 04.12.2011 4 3 4 4 4 1 3

12026 Al Faro 04.12.2011 2 1 2 1 1 1 1

12054 Hotel Belvedere - Losone 04.12.2011 2 1 2 1 1 1 3

24538 Locanda San Lucio 04.12.2011 4 4 4 4 4 1 3

12028 Al Giardinetto 04.12.2011 3 2 4 3 4 1 2

4242 Teatro Sociale 04.12.2011 4 1 4 4 1 1 4

4259

Federazione Ticinese per l'integrazione degli andicappati (ftia) 04.12.2011 4 4 4 4 4 1 4

4216 Teatro delle Radici 04.12.2011 4 2 4 4 4 1 4

4234 Società Ticinese di Belle Arti 04.12.2011 4 4 4 4 4 1 4

169 | P a g e

4288 Lugano Turismo 04.12.2011 4 4 4 4 4 1 4

4444 Teatro Dimitri 04.12.2011 4 4 4 4 4 1 4

4485 Osteria La Posta 04.12.2011 4 4 4 4 4 1 4

21130 Villa Lucertola 04.12.2011 4 3 3 4 4 1 3

21143 Casa San Rocco 04.12.2011 4 2 4 4 4 1 3

21149 Casa La Pineta 04.12.2011 4 2 4 4 4 1 3

21154 Casa Güntert-Guzzi 04.12.2011 4 2 4 4 4 1 3

21054 Rustico Primasté 04.12.2011 4 2 4 4 4 1 4

21059 Casa Genziana 04.12.2011 4 2 4 4 4 1 3

22024 Casa Ermanno 04.12.2011 4 2 4 4 4 1 1

22082 Residenza Michèle 04.12.2011 4 2 4 4 4 2 1



22025 Casa Cavalli 04.12.2011 4 2 4 4 4 1 3

22063 Casa Malibù 04.12.2011 4 2 4 4 4 1 1

22103 Aparthotel Al Lago 04.12.2011 4 3 4 4 4 1 1

20270 Villa Le Pergole 04.12.2011 3 2 3 2 2 3 3

20271 Villa Le Pergole 04.12.2011 3 3 3 2 2 3 3

20272 Villa Le Pergole 04.12.2011 3 3 3 2 2 3 3

95232 Poncini Locanda 08.12.2011 4 3 4 4 4 1 3

73950 Osteria delle Alpi 08.12.2011 4 3 4 4 4 1 4

74729 Pizzeria al Torchio 08.12.2011 4 3 4 4 4 1 3

74691 Nuova Osteria Brontallo 08.12.2011 4 3 4 4 4 1 3

74493 Turisti Hotel Ristorante 08.12.2011 4 3 4 4 4 1 3

74026 Grotto ai Ronchini 08.12.2011 4 3 4 4 4 1 3

74934 Pineta Albergo Ristorante 08.12.2011 2 3 1 2 1 1 1

74848 Grotto Lafranchi 08.12.2011 1 3 1 1 1 2 1

74982 Osteria Sascola 08.12.2011 4 3 4 4 4 1 4

74803 Linet 08.12.2011 4 3 4 4 4 1 4

76498 Lavizzara Garni Ristorante 08.12.2011 4 3 4 4 4 1 3

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73954 Music-Bar-Rovana 08.12.2011 4 3 4 4 4 1 4

76438 Medici Albergo Ristorante 08.12.2011 4 3 4 4 4 1 3

76261 Osteria Alzasca 08.12.2011 4 3 4 4 4 1 3

73950 Osteria delle Alpi 08.12.2011 4 3 4 4 4 1 4

76143 Osteria al Botegon 08.12.2011 4 3 4 4 4 1 3

74133 Ristorante Al Lido 08.12.2011 3 4 3 4 4 1 2

75950 Osteria dal Paes 08.12.2011 4 3 4 4 4 1 3

2771 Museo etnografico di Leventina 08.12.2011 2 4 2 1 1 3 3

4867 Oratorio-di-S-Ambrogio 08.12.2011 3 4 3 4 3 1 3

4694 Chiesa di S Leonardo 08.12.2011 2 4 1 2 2 1 4

1854 Centro Tennis Taverne 08.12.2011 3 4 3 3 3 2 3

1398 Pista Ghiaccio Resega 08.12.2011 3 3 3 3 3 1 4

1459 Laghetto di Astano 08.12.2011 1 4 2 2 2 1 3

1535 Terme di Stabio 11.12.2011 3 3 3 3 3 1 3

971 Il Delfino Centro Fitness terapeutico 11.12.2011 3 4 3 3 3 1 4

1494 Lido Locarno 11.12.2011 1 3 2 1 2 1 1

983 Keep Fit Club 11.12.2011 3 4 3 3 3 1 4

2588 Vinicola Carlevaro SA 11.12.2011 2 4 3 2 2 2 4

13091 Brigitte Wölfli 11.12.2011 4 4 4 4 4 1 4

13264 Antonella Panunzio 11.12.2011 3 4 3 3 3 1 4

13221 Regula Hotz 11.12.2011 4 4 4 4 4 1 4

105984 Grandi Magazzini Manor SA 11.12.2011 3 4 4 3 3 3 3

13219 Regine Hildebrandt 11.12.2011 4 4 4 4 1 4

13253 Manfred Kernen 11.12.2011 4 4 4 4 4 1 4

2611 Cantina Ramelli 11.12.2011 2 4 3 1 2 1 4

87218 Grandi Magazzini Manor Sud SA 11.12.2011 3 4 2 2 2 1 4

2921 Il mercato di Chiasso 11.12.2011 2 4 2 2 2 1 3

968 California Center 11.12.2011 4 4 4 4 4 1 4

40966 Percorso Vita 11.12.2011 4 4 4 4 4 1 4

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1450 Percorso Vita 11.12.2011 4 4 4 4 4 1 4

12857 Percorso Vita 11.12.2011 4 4 4 4 4 1 4

1434 Percorso Vita 11.12.2011 4 4 4 4 4 1 4

1445 Percorso Vita 11.12.2011 4 4 4 4 4 1 4

54961 Percorso Vita 11.12.2011 4 4 4 4 4 1 4

1453 Percorso Vita 11.12.2011 4 4 4 4 4 1 4

1429 Percorso Vita 11.12.2011 4 4 4 4 4 1 4

2949 Chiesa di S Giovanni Battista 11.12.2011 1 4 1 1 1 1 3

11839 Villa Negroni 11.12.2011 1 4 1 1 1 1 1

2669 Chiesa di S Giorgio 11.12.2011 2 4 2 1 1 2 3

4755 Chiesa di S Giorgio 11.12.2011 2 4 2 1 1 1 4

12729 Scuderia al Boschetto 11.12.2011 4 4 4 4 3 1 4

768 Scuderia del Sole 11.12.2011 2 4 2 3 3 1 4

1832 Tennis Club Melide 11.12.2011 3 4 3 3 3 1 4

90337 Centro Sportivo di Cornaredo 11.12.2011 1 4 1 1 2 1 3

73519 Parco avventura Gordola 11.12.2011 1 3 1 1 1 1 3

1393 Pista Ghiaccio Biasca 11.12.2011 3 4 3 3 3 1 3

1390 Pista Ghiaccio Valascia 11.12.2011 3 4 4 3 3 1 4

1796 Tennis Club Bodio 11.12.2011 4 4 4 4 4 1 4

26950 Impianti sciistici Nara 11.12.2011 1 3 1 1 2 1 1

1966 Volo Libero Pterosauri 11.12.2011 3 4 4 3 3 1 4

773 ASBEST-Adventures best 11.12.2011 2 3 2 1 1 1 3

1965 Pink Baron 11.12.2011 3 4 3 4 4 1 3

1848 Tennis Sagno 11.12.2011 4 4 4 4 4 1 4

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4.a. Matrix for the identification of goal’s absolute value

Goal 1 Total

Stakeholder Benefit Stakeholder Weight Stakeholder Benefit value

AGR (!!!) * 3 1 3

ETT (!!!) ** 3 2 6

ETMBC (!!) ** 2 2 4

ETLM (!!) *** 2 3 6

ETB (!) ** 1 2 2

Vallemaggia Tourism (!) * 1 1 1

Gambarogno Tourism (!) * 1 1 1

Developers

Tinext SA (!!!) ** 3 2 6

Ticinoinfo sa (!!!) *** 3 3 9

Legislators

Gastroticino (!) * 1 1 1

Hotelleriesuisse Ticino (!!!) * 3 1 3

Decision Makers

Lorenzo Ghini - ticinoinfo sa (!!!) *** 3 3 9

Alessandro Inversini - ticinoinfo sa (!!!)

*** 3 3 9

Serse Bonvini (!!) ** 2 2 4

Maurizio Mueller (!!) ** 2 2 4

Users (Front end)

Hotel Structures (!!) * 2 1 2

Holiday House Structures (!!) * 2 1 2

Youth Hostel Structures (!) * 1 1 1

Alpine Huts Structures (!) * 1 1 1

Bed and Breakfast Structures (!) * 1 1 1

Farmhouses Structures (!) * 1 1 1

Campgrounds Structures (!) * 1 1 1

Restaurant Structures (!!) * 2 1 2

Absolute Value 79

Goal 2 Total


AGR (!!!) * 3 1 3

ETT (!!!) *** 3 3 9

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ETMBC (!!) *** 2 3 6

ETLM (!!) *** 2 3 6

ETB (!) ** 1 2 2

Vallemaggia Tourism (!) ** 1 2 2

Gambarogno Tourism (!) ** 1 2 2

Developers

Tinext SA (!!!) *** 3 3 9


Legislators

Gastroticino (!) ** 1 2 2

Hotelleriesuisse Ticino (!!!) *** 3 3 9

Decision Makers



*** 3 3 9



Users (Front end)

Hotel Structures (!!) *** 2 3 6

Holiday House Structures (!!) *** 2 3 6

Youth Hostel Structures (!) *** 1 3 3

Alpine Huts Structures (!) *** 1 3 3

Bed and Breakfast Structures (!) *** 1 3 3

Farmhouses Structures (!) *** 1 3 3

Campgrounds Structures (!) *** 1 3 3

Restaurant Structures (!!) *** 2 3 6

Absolute Value 118

Goal 3 Total


AGR (!!!) ** 3 2 6

ETT (!!!) *** 3 3 9

ETMBC (!!) *** 2 3 6

ETLM (!!) *** 2 3 6

ETB (!) *** 1 3 3

Vallemaggia Tourism (!) *** 1 3 3

Gambarogno Tourism (!) *** 1 3 3

Developers

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Tinext SA (!!!) * 3 1 3


Legislators


Hotelleriesuisse Ticino (!!!) ** 3 2 6

Decision Makers



*** 3 3 9

Serse Bonvini (!!) *** 2 3 6

Maurizio Mueller (!!) *** 2 3 6

Users (Front end)









Absolute Value 119

Goal 4 Total


AGR (!!!) * 3 1 3

ETT (!!!) *** 3 3 9

ETMBC (!!) *** 2 3 6

ETLM (!!) ** 2 2 4

ETB (!) ** 1 2 2



Developers

Tinext SA (!!!) ** 3 2 6


Legislators



Decision Makers

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*** 3 3 9



Users (Front end)









Absolute Value 115

Goal 5 Total


AGR (!!!) ** 3 2 6

ETT (!!!) ** 3 2 6

ETMBC (!!) ** 2 2 4

ETLM (!!) ** 2 2 4

ETB (!) * 1 1 1



Developers

Tinext SA (!!!) ** 3 2 6


Legislators



Decision Makers



*** 3 3 9



Users (Front end)

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Absolute Value 84

Goal 6 Total


AGR (!!!) * 3 1 3

ETT (!!!) *** 3 3 9

ETMBC (!!) *** 2 3 6

ETLM (!!) *** 2 3 6

ETB (!) *** 1 3 3



Developers

Tinext SA (!!!) ** 3 2 6


Legislators



Decision Makers



*** 3 3 9


Maurizio Mueller (!!) * 2 1 2

Users (Front end)







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Absolute Value 118

Goal 7 Total


AGR (!!!) *** 3 3 9

ETT (!!!) *** 3 3 9

ETMBC (!!) *** 2 3 6

ETLM (!!) *** 2 3 6

ETB (!) *** 1 3 3



Developers

Tinext SA (!!!) *** 3 3 9


Legislators


Hotelleriesuisse Ticino (!!!) * 3 1 3

Decision Makers



*** 3 3 9



Users (Front end)









Absolute Value 96

Goal 8 Total


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AGR (!!!) ** 3 2 6

ETT (!!!) ** 3 2 6

ETMBC (!!) *** 2 3 6

ETLM (!!) *** 2 3 6

ETB (!) *** 1 3 3



Developers

Tinext SA (!!!) *** 3 3 9


Legislators



Decision Makers



*** 3 3 9



Users (Front end)









Absolute Value 95

Goal 9 Total


AGR (!!!) ** 3 2 6

ETT (!!!) ** 3 2 6

ETMBC (!!) ** 2 2 4

ETLM (!!) *** 2 3 6

ETB (!) ** 1 2 2



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Developers

Tinext SA (!!!) ** 3 2 6


Legislators

Gastroticino (!) *** 1 3 3


Decision Makers



*** 3 3 9



Users (Front end)









Absolute Value 94

Goal 10 Total


AGR (!!!) ** 3 2 6

ETT (!!!) *** 3 3 9

ETMBC (!!) *** 2 3 6

ETLM (!!) ** 2 2 4

ETB (!) * 1 1 1



Developers

Tinext SA (!!!) * 3 1 3


Legislators


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Decision Makers



*** 3 3 9

Serse Bonvini (!!) * 2 1 2


Users (Front end)









Absolute Value 105

Goal 11 Total


AGR (!!!) * 3 1 3

ETT (!!!) *** 3 3 9

ETMBC (!!) ** 2 2 4

ETLM (!!) ** 2 2 4

ETB (!) ** 1 2 2



Developers

Tinext SA (!!!) * 3 1 3


Legislators



Decision Makers



*** 3 3 9


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Users (Front end)









Absolute Value 103

Goal 12 Total


AGR (!!!) * 3 1 3

ETT (!!!) ** 3 2 6

ETMBC (!!) * 2 1 2

ETLM (!!) * 2 1 2

ETB (!) * 1 1 1



Developers

Tinext SA (!!!) ** 3 2 6


Legislators



Decision Makers



*** 3 3 9



Users (Front end)

Hotel Structures (!!) ** 2 2 4

Holiday House Structures (!!) ** 2 2 4

Youth Hostel Structures (!) ** 1 2 2

Alpine Huts Structures (!) ** 1 2 2

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Bed and Breakfast Structures (!) ** 1 2 2

Farmhouses Structures (!) ** 1 2 2

Campgrounds Structures (!) ** 1 2 2

Restaurant Structures (!!) ** 2 2 4

Absolute Value 90

Goal 13 Total


AGR (!!!) * 3 1 3

ETT (!!!) ** 3 2 6

ETMBC (!!) ** 2 2 4

ETLM (!!) ** 2 2 4

ETB (!) * 1 1 1



Developers

Tinext SA (!!!) * 3 1 3


Legislators



Decision Makers



*** 3 3 9



Users (Front end)









Absolute Value 98

Goal 14

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Total


AGR (!!!) * 3 1 3

ETT (!!!) ** 3 2 6

ETMBC (!!) ** 2 2 4

ETLM (!!) ** 2 2 4

ETB (!) * 1 1 1



Developers

Tinext SA (!!!) * 3 1 3


Legislators



Decision Makers



*** 3 3 9



Users (Front end)









Absolute Value 98

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4.b. Matrix for the identification of requirement’s absolute value

Critic Goals x 3 Important Goals x 2 Minor Goals x 1

Total

Requirement 1



Total 3 6 9 9 9 3 3 42


Total

Requirement 2



Total 3 6 9 9 9 3 3 42


Total

Requirement 3



Total 3 6 9 9 9 3 3 42


Total

Requirement 4


Req 4 xx xx xxx xxx xx xxx xxx xxx xx x xx xxx

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Total 6 6 9 9 6 9 6 6 4 2 2 3 68


Total

Requirement 5


Req 5 x xxx xx x xxx

Total 3 9 6 3 3 24


Total

Requirement 6


Req 6 x xxx xx xx xx x xx xx xx xxx

Total 3 9 6 6 6 2 4 4 2 3 45


Total

Requirement 7


Req 7 xxx xx xx x xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xx xx xx xxx

Total 9 6 6 3 9 9 6 6 6 4 2 2 3 71


Total

Requirement 8


Req 8 xxx xx xx xx xx xxx xxx xxx xxx x x

Total 9 6 6 4 4 6 6 6 3 1 1 52

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Total

Requirement 9


Req 9 xxx xx xxx x xxx xxx xxx xx

Total 9 6 9 3 6 6 6 2 47


Total

Requirement 10


Req 10 xxx xx xxx xx xxx xxx xxx x

Total 9 6 9 6 6 6 6 1 49


Total

Requirement 11


Req 11 x xxx xxx xxx xx xxx xx

Total 3 9 9 9 4 3 2 39


Total

Requirement 12


Req 12 xxx xx xxx xx xxx xxx

Total 9 6 9 6 3 3 36

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Total

Requirement 13



Total 9 9 3 3 6 3 2 35


Total

Requirement 14



Total 9 9 3 3 6 3 2 35


Total

Requirement 15



Total 9 9 6 4 6 3 37


Total

Requirement 16


Req 16 xxx xxx xxx xxx

Total 9 9 6 3 27

Critic Goals x 3 Important Goals x 2 Minor Goals x 1 Total

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Requirement 17


Req 17 xxx xxx xxx

Total 9 9 3 21


Total

Requirement 18


Req 18 xxx xxx xxx

Total 9 9 3 21


Total

Requirement 19



Total 9 9 6 4 6 3 37


Total

Requirement 20


Req 20 xxx xx xxx xx xxx xxx xxx xxx

Total 9 6 9 6 6 3 3 3 45


Total

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Requirement 21


Req 21 xxx xxx xxx

Total 9 9 3 21


Total

Requirement 22


Req 22 xxx xxx x xxx xxx xx xxx

Total 9 9 3 9 6 4 3 43


Total

Requirement 23


Req 23 xxx xx xxx xxx xxx

Total 9 6 9 6 3 33


Total

Requirement 24


Req 24 xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx

Total 9 9 9 9 6 6 6 3 57


Total

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Requirement 25


Req 25 xxx xx xx xx xxx xxx xx xxx xxx

Total 9 6 6 6 9 6 4 3 49


Total

Requirement 26


Req 26 xxx xx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx

Total 9 6 9 6 6 6 3 45


Total

Requirement 27


Req 27 xxx xxx xx xx x xxx xxx xxx

Total 9 9 6 6 3 6 6 3 48


Total

Requirement 28


Req 28 xx xx xxx xxx xx

Total 6 4 6 6 2 24


Total

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Requirement 29


Req 29 xxx xx xx xxx xxx x xxx x xx xx

Total 9 6 6 9 6 2 6 2 2 2 50


Total

Requirement 30


Req 30 xxx xxx xx x xxx xxx xx xx xxx xxx xx

Total 9 9 6 3 9 6 4 4 6 3 2 61


Total

Requirement 31


Req 31 x xx xxx xx

Total 3 4 6 2 15


Total

Requirement 32


Req 32 xx xxx xxx x xxx xxx

Total 6 9 9 3 6 3 36


Total

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Requirement 33


Req 33 xxx xx xxx xxx x xx xxx xxx xxx xxx xx xxx xxx

Total 9 6 9 9 3 4 6 6 6 6 2 3 3 72


Total

Requirement 34


Req 34 xx xxx x xxx xx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx

Total 6 9 3 9 4 6 6 6 6 3 58


Total

Requirement 35


Req 35 xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xx

Total 9 9 9 9 3 2 41


Total

Requirement 36


Req 36 xxx xx xxx xx xxx xxx xx x xxx

Total 9 6 9 4 6 6 4 1 3 48


Total

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Requirement 37


Req 37 xx xx xxx xx xx xxx x xx xxx

Total 6 6 9 6 4 6 2 2 3 44


Total

Requirement 38


Req 38 x xxx xxx xxx xxx

Total 3 9 9 3 3 27


Total

Requirement 39


Req 39 xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx

Total 9 9 9 9 6 6 3 3 3 57


Total

Requirement 40


Req 40 xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx

Total 9 9 9 3 3 33


Total

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Requirement 41


Req 41 xxx xxx xx xxx xxx xxx xxx xx xxx

Total 9 9 4 6 6 6 6 2 3 51


Total

Requirement 42


Req 42 xx xx xxx xxx xxx xxx

Total 6 6 9 6 3 3 33


Total

Requirement 43


Req 43 xx xxx xxx x xxx xxx xxx xxx

Total 6 9 9 3 9 6 3 3 48


Total

Requirement 44


Req 44 xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx x xx

Total 9 9 9 9 6 3 1 2 48


Total

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Requirement 45


Req 45 xxx x xxx x xxx xxx x

Total 9 3 9 3 6 6 1 37


Total

Requirement 46


Req 46 xxx xxx xxx xx xxx x xxx xxx

Total 9 9 9 6 9 2 3 3 50


Total

Requirement 47


Req 47 xxx xxx x xxx xx xxx xxx xxx xxx

Total 9 9 3 9 4 6 6 3 3 52


Total

Requirement 48


Req 48 x xxx xx xxx xxx x xx xxx xxx x xxx

Total 3 9 6 9 9 2 4 6 3 1 3 55


Total

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Requirement 49


Req 49 xx x xxx xxx x xx xxx xxx xx

Total 6 3 9 9 3 6 6 3 2 47


Total

Requirement 50


Req 50 xx xxx xx x xxx xx xxx

Total 6 9 6 2 6 4 3 36


Total

Requirement 51


Req 51 x xx x x xxx x x xxx x

Total 3 6 2 2 6 2 2 3 1 27

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ticinoinfo sa

Database ticinoinfo sa

Documentation of the renewal project

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Requirements of the Project

The project is divided into two types of intervention. The first phase will include the consolidation

of the database, the second its evolution. It is being discussed only the first part, namely the

consolidation. Five critical requirements have been identified that will consolidate the current

database and increase its effectiveness and efficiency.

I. Reorganization of the suite's user management and permissions

II. Introduction of the workflow approval process of the content (quality check)

III. Revision of structured content items

IV. Introduction of an advanced system for management of statistics on the items

V. Reorganization of digital assets (DAM)

An evolution of the desktop application is desired: remove the current administrative client

desktop application in favor of a web application modular.

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I. Reorganization of the suite's user management and permissions

During the consolidation phase, the database ticinoinfo refine its own special features to facilitate

user management and editorial permissions. The goal of a more atomic users and permissions is to

facilitate the update of the cards and to delegate (where possible) its management.

In principle, there will be these three types of users:

1. Super Admin (ticinoinfo) with the task of creating users and approval of strategic content.

2. Group Admin: may administer a group of items. An admin will manage from time to time

several groups of items. The group admin can create new tabs and edit the content of all

tabs. Some content is considered not strategic (e.g. phone, address, menu) and will be

published automatically by the system with notification to the Super Admin. Other

strategic content (e.g. description) can be edited by the admin group, but must be

approved by Super Admin (who may approve and / or reject the changes). Admin Group

can create a new item with the approval of the Super Admin.

3. Item Admin: manages the contents of a single item. The Item Admin edits the content of

all tabs. Some content (e.g. phone, address, and menu) will be posted automatically by the

system with notification to Admin Group and Super Admin Group. Other content (e.g.

description) can be edited by the Item Admin, but must be approved by Super Admin (who

may approve and / or decline) by notifying the Group Admin.

200 | P a g e

II. Introduction of the workflow approval process of the content (quality check)

Introduction of a workflow system with 4 eyes for approval / publishing online content added /

modified by the client. The Super Admin edits and publishes. Admin can send messages to groups

of items and with the Admin update request. The Group Admin can change without approval, but

that may change with notification (daily digest) to Super Admin. Creating users and non-editable

fields modifications from Group Admin are subject to approval by Super Admin. The Item Admin

can modify without approval with notification (daily digest) to the Super Admin and Group Admin.

Changes in non-editable fields by Item Admin are subject to approval by the Super Admin.

ticinoinfo

ticinoinfo/ ETL

ETL / PARTNERS

ETT

Quality Approval

YES

NO

Accommodations Check 6 months

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III. Revision of structured content items

METADESCRPTION, TITLE, KEYWORD

Insert a field tab for metadescription limited to 150 characters like Google specifications. Title

page inserted as a field tab of the item. The mechanism of operation is the same of

metadescription. Insert a field for the association of keywords at the level of items, with the

possibility to verify in real time the effectiveness of it on the instrument SEO integrated.

VERSIONING OF THE ITEM

Introduce a system that allows the creation of multiple versions of the same object:

- For each change generates a new version of the item with its status (approved, rejected, etc..)

- Extend the items with the state data in different versions: the version date of publication, date of

deactivation

STATE

The analysis phase has revealed a low uptake of the different states made available to the

administrators of the database ticinoinfo. It is thus essential to simplify the procedures for

identifying the status of an item, introducing the concept of quality index (Q-index). An item will

be inactive then assigned to two different types of state:

Archived - Stock used in the case in which the intention is to maintain the structure of the item

for future reuse

Trashed - Archive used to permanently remove the item (planning periods of the year in which

the Super Admin makes cleaning the trash and erases the items inside). In order not to

definitely miss the links to the boards and avoid problems with broken links in case of external

links, the solution is redirect to the main pages of the web platforms that receive this data

(Home Page)

An active item will be assigned to three different types of state following the concept of Q-index

(Quality Index):

Complete - Criteria for qualitative completeness of the data determined by Super Admin

ticinoinfo

Sufficient - Qualitative criteria decided by Super Admin ticinoinfo

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Basic - Basic criteria for eligibility as determined by Super Admin ticinoinfo

MANAGEMENT OF EVENT ITEM

A level of personalization of items will be introduced in database ticinoinfo affecting entities that

are involved in the acquisition of this type of data and giving them the possibility to make

modifications according to different needs and goals. The creation of a recipient of data collection

for the consumption of “Arti Grafiche Rezzonico” (AGR) will give freedom for the customization of

the different actors involved in the process of enrichment of events.

The information provided by AGR will not be affected by allowing the export of events in their

newspapers. Any changes of events by AGR after the publication will be synchronized with

ticinoinfo database. The process of editing / approval will follow as outlined above (Super User,

Group Admin, and Item Admin). The editable fields will be defined a priori. In fact AGR will manage

its own data collection entities for export in the newspapers.

The imported events will be enriched with text, images, videos, etc.. by agencies or people

responsible for the event (Ticino Tourism, ETL, Partners). Upon approval by ticinoinfo sa of

changes, a notification will be sent also to AGR, which may decide to explicitly re-import the

additional enriched content in his database. The data provided by AGR will not be editable on the

database ticinoinfo sa.

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IV. Introduction of an advanced system for management of statistics on the items

Necessary statistics on a single item (LOG files) to derive information on the number of times

an item has been called from the database (preferably per channel).

• No. of Views tab

• Referral internal and external

• Geographical origin of the visits

• Average Time on Site

• How many users have visited the website Channel

• How many users clicked on Book-Now

204 | P a g e

V. Reorganization of Digital Assets (DAM)

ticinoinfo sa has chosen to adopt Enter Media, an open source software for the management

of its digital assets, enabling those functions:

- Editing (crop, resize, convert files to other formats).

- Automatic storage.

- Tools for managing communication within the team as comments, attachments, votes,

etc..

- Sharing of Digital Assets on major social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Google +, etc. ..).

- Multi-editing and uploading of files in batch.

- Division into tags and categories of interest files.

- System search by keyword (tag or file name).

- Introduction of an unlimited number of users with different roles and privileges

- Active community for developing applications to integrate the DAM.

- Management structure with tree (folders and subfolders) for easy integration with

database ticinoinfo.

- Intuitive and easy to use it requires the ability to integrate such a tool for enriching

multimedia cards on the DB.

In this perspective, the use of Digital Asset Management will also be possible for other tourist

destinations and integrated into the workflow notification of changes.

redesigning the ticino destination information system

Documents

destination categories

destination products

destination travelers

destination marketing

thesis supervisor

tourism industry

tourism history

list of tables