Web 2.0 and Tourism

Dr Nana invited Prof PO from France for a speech on Web 2.0 and Tourism. Dr Nana made it a lecture class for all students of Tourism Marketing a compulsory-to-attend talk! At the end of the day, Dr Burn was interested in attending the talk and called all his Purchasing Marketing to join us (bcoz their lecture class was at the same time as the speech). This is equivalent to all Year 3 students. (Purchasing Marketing & Tourism Marketing are electives classes where Year 3 students can choose one of these subjects offered)

Basically, he's definitely a great speaker that talks a lot. I mean he has been giving speech to numerous ppl around globe. He's definitely qualified to talk about tourism as he travels around 150 days in a year that makes hotels his second home.

Wat inspired me a lot is when he talked about google.
According to Prof PO, employees nowadays will use google as a tool to search interviewee's details before recruiting one. There's no privacy ever since the existence of google. And what makes it scarier is when someone has an unique name. It'll work very effectively one these unique names. If you refer to my previous post, I have mentioned how I used google. I do agree with Prof PO that google is a threat to privacy. The older generation are worried bout privacy matters but the younger generations are ppl who do not care about privacy. They can upload more and more photos and videos without worry.

Part of the google and privacy that caught my attention, there's many other topics discussed in the talk. I'll just summaries the 1.5 hours talk.
1. Tourism is slow in catching up in online presence. Nor they know how to utilize it.
2. Everyone uses google to search for information.
3. Malaysians spend around 1/4 of their time on FB ranking 3rd. More than 80% of the Malaysian population are on FB.
4. Online presence is not just having it. They need to be monitored from time to time. Response to ur client and there'll be lots of opportunities available.
5. We were introduced to another google tool: Google Alert. Another interesting tool from google other than those introduced by Dr Nana during E-mktg lectures and those I discovered myself.
6. 80% out of the emails received by consumers are spam
7. Consumer no longer rely on marketer's information. User reviews play an important role today. This is where tripadvisor.com take place in influencing other consumers.

Dr Burn questioned about the remarks by Newsweek months ago regarding the threat of social networking. Prof PO's answer was interesting. He said Newsweek is written by older ppl like them and those are the ppl who care much regarding privacy. However, the younger generations are no longer concern about privacy. He remarked Newsweek as 'the dinosaur'.

A coursemate questioned the future of Web 3.0. However, the answer was rather remarkable. It was uncertain for the future Web 3.0 as we couldnt predict the outcome of it. Prof PO predicted that it is going to be a really smart tool. It is expected to generate very useful information for the user in split second. However, this will be a threat to tourism industry as tourism is said to be really slow is picking up the advancement of technology. Even when Web 3.0 is ready, many tourism industries may have just step into Web 2.0 from Web 1.0.

Some think it is boring but I find it interesting.