Conceptual Model of Mobile Services in the Travel and Tourism Industry Antonio Portolan, Krunoslav Zubrinic and Mario Milicevic Abstract— Today, in a time of economic crisis, companies in all economic sectors should reevaluate their strategies to achieve the necessary market success. Recent studies show that the potential customers would rather spend their earnings on domestic equipment and electronic devices like laptops and mobile phones, than on vacations and traveling. This behavior generates huge losses for the travel industry and tourism. The potential solution for that problem is to connect the mobile industry with the travel and tourism in a way that will encourage customers to travel more and enjoy the time by using interactive and helpful content. In this paper we discuss the possibility of mobile device integration in the travel and tourism industry and its impact on potential customer groups. At the end of paper, a conceptual model of mobile services integration in the current travel and tourism industry is presented. Keywords—Mobile application, mobile services, social network, tourism, travel I. I NTRODUCTION M ODERN technology is constantly changing the way of communication and interaction in different areas of human life. Miniaturization of electronic components and enhancements in transfer speeds of wireless transmissions has pushed the use of mobile devices to the almost every area of human life [1]. Web technologies based on user interaction in social networks, known as Web 2.0 are created around the idea that the people who consume media shouldn’t passively absorb what’s available, and rather they should be active contributors and co-developers [2]. Using new generation of mobile devices, it is possible to consume and change content available on the web from different locations and devices. Hardware components are becoming more powerful, but less power demanding and in a few years the mobile devices could have the prime usage for everyday applications like reading, web browsing, multimedia and general information manipulation [3]. By popularizing technologies like social interaction and location awareness, a relatively new era in the modern business is becoming more and more evident. Those areas Manuscript received March 24, 2011. A. Portolan is with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computing, University of Dubrovnik, Cira Carica 4, Dubrovnik, Croatia (e-mail: antoniop@abcinfo.hr). K. Zubrinic is with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computing, University of Dubrovnik, Cira Carica 4, Dubrovnik, Croatia (e-mail: krunoslav.zubrinic@unidu.hr). M. Milicevic is with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computing, University of Dubrovnik, Cira Carica 4, Dubrovnik, Croatia (e-mail: mario.milicevic@unidu.hr). are based around using customer’s location with all other information that could be gathered, for analysis and service providing [4], [5], [6]. These tactics are already being used by big advertisement companies like Google [7] which provide location-based advertisements to customers, targeting their location and interests [8]. With the radical impact of the mobile networks and mobile devices this kind of service providing will be even more evident in the future. The emerging technology can be used in all kinds of different areas like finance, marketing, sales, transit and tourism. The focus of this paper will be on the last two areas — transit and tourism, because the potential use of the technology is huge and promises opening of the new possibilities in the sector that is currently spiraling down in the profit and market share. Recent studies have shown that, while the economy is in the state of recession, potential customers rather spend their earnings on home entertainment systems and other electronic devices like laptops and mobile phones, than on vacation planning and traveling [9]. This behavior generates huge losses for the industry based on traveling or tourism in general. The potential solution for the problem is connecting the mobile industry with the travel and tourism industry in a way that will animate the customers to travel more and enjoy their time by using interactive or helpful content. That could be of benefit for both sides — the customer and the industry. II. THE USE OF MOBILE TECHNOLOGY IN THE TRAVEL AND TOURISM INDUSTRY A. Finding the customers In the first place, the technology must animate the customer to think about traveling [10]. Nowadays it is not enough to motivate potential customers solely with pictures, souvenirs, tales of natural and cultural beauties and delicious culinary recipes. One of the things the Internet has brought is the outstanding multimedia and user interaction, which enables users to experience almost anything from the comfort of their home. Online activities have advantage compared to the traditional offline activities. For many consumers, online shopping represents a more entertaining activity than the same activity done offline. They have a positive attitude towards the Internet advertising, which they perceive as being informative and up-to-date [11]. Interesting facts, questionnaires, games and viral advertising are a good starting point for the marketing campaigns. In INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF COMPUTERS Issue 3, Volume 5, 2011 314