Abstract

The use of Information Technologies have played and currently playing prominent roles in many organizations, such as business, education, commerce. The tourism industry has witnessed the use and application of various computer-based systems in carrying out one or more activities or operation. But currently there is no computer-based system tourist destination to integrate the tourists (from outside Nigeria) and tourists center within Nigeria, so that tourists can make a pre destination plan and decision before venturing into tourism journey to the country Nigeria. The authors of this paper proposed the design of Web based tourist information system, to provide tourist to Nigeria and its environ essential data and tools to managing their tours and to base all the decisions concerning to queries on the, tourist centers and hotels based on the following issue; climate, road conditions, cultural aspects, lodging, health facilities, banking, etc. of the location to be visited on sound and rational bases. Web based tourist information system for Nigeria will be developed using Java programming language and MySQL at the backend. This program is developed to allow the tourist to find their route in Nigeria and ask for information about sights, accommodations and other places of interest which are nearby to him to improve the convenience, safety, efficiency of travel and enhance tourism attraction of tourists.

Chapter One

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

E-marketing of regions and its settlements as well as tourist areas is of particular economic relevance for the tourism sector. For example, customers nowadays wish to obtain information about locations like hotels, restaurants, routes and tourist attractions directly, without mediation. For a user friendly representation, the data should be related to maps. There are two approaches to this problem: one is using GIS systems (e.g. Timčák, Vizi 2006, Vizi et al. 2008), the other is using Web technology. The GIS approach can also be implemented in a Web environment, but is far more complicated both for the user and for administrator. On the other hand, its range of services is greater than that of the Web technology. As in this project the aims were simpler, the second approach was chosen.

For many countries, either developed or developing, tourism is a very important source of foreign currency earnings and employment. Links between tourists and tourism destination is key success factors for integrated tourism development. Tourism is 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". (Archibong, Maurice 2004) Tourism has become a popular global leisure activity. In 2011, there were over 983 million international tourist arrivals worldwide, representing a growth of 4.6% when compared to 940 million in 2010. (AfrolNews 2013). Theirs possibility that somebody a tourists has never been to the place he or she wish to visit before, and he or she has no relative or friends in the place. For example academician from Canada to present an academic paper in a conference to be held in Lagos Nigeria and there is no available information on geographical location of Nigeria, her economy etc. This person has to decide on how to locate the country Nigeria and available tourist center for leisure, tourist attraction, to sleep overnight etc. The so called tourist has prepared to Visit the country Nigeria for the conference. At a stage he or she has to decide on where to stay, visit and enjoy some tourist attraction within the period of the conference. The successful completion of this stage can be assisted by an Expert Decision Support System (EDSS) developed to analyses the perspectives and planned strategies of this tourism stakeholders.

This paper discusses the model, operation and suitability of a Web-based EDSS for integration of tourist and tourist centers in Nigeria. The paper concludes by assessing the usefulness of the web-based EDSS for tourism planners, and suggests areas for future research.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The operation of Tourist Information Centre (TIC) which is done manually bring several problems. The current system need to be changed to computerize system because:

i. Through the manual system, staff needs to find the data based on the request by the tourist through the records. Normally, the tourists will ask questions about attractive places, accommodation that suitable with their budget and available transportation. Several tourist might be asking about the lower price accommodation but comfortable to them. The problem occurs when the staff of Tourist Information Centre (TIC) needs to search for all records of the accommodations, locations and transportation that suitable with the requirement. Sometimes, the staffs have to find it through the templates and brochures because all data are kept in different records. They have to go through one record by one record to find the result.

ii. All data is kept using filed based system where -the staff needs to manage many files to keep data. Besides, if there is any particular information need to be changed or updated, the staff needs to fill up all the particular data in a new log book or re-write it.

The need of computerizing the system arises as a result of the sets of the problem faced. Tourism Information System (ITS) will be developed as a propose system to solve the problems that occurred. TIS is a web based application where the system is not connected to any other system. TIS uses its own database. The main purpose of developing this system is to computerize all the required information such as data information about accommodation transportation and location. Therefore all the data can be kept systematically and efficiently. Besides, this system is able to manage and update all the data that can be used as a reference in the future. The users of this system are TIC staffs and tourists.

1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

As a guideline to conduct this research, the objectives for this study are outlined as follows:

i. To design and build a prototype for Nigerian Tourism System in the web environment in order to improve the efficiency of the current tourism information management system.

ii. To design and build an online tourism guide consisting of multimedia elements to promote Nigerian tourism

iii. To develop a trip planner tool which incorporates decision support system characteristic to aid the potential tourist in direction for traveling in Nigeria.