Destination Planning and Development
Executive Summary
This paper discusses information about podcasting and its impact on the development of tourist destinations. Also cited as part of podcast nature and potential, is its growing popularity on ebusinesses nowadays. This chapter also discusses the mechanism of podcasting on how it works and its advantages. Finally, several podcasting potentials are being mentioned that suggest ways for the development of destinations for tourists attraction.
Introduction
Podcasting is a combination of two words, “iPod” and “Broadcasting”. It is the distribution of audio or video files, such as radio programs or music videos, over the Internet using either Really Simple Syndication (RSS) or Atom Syndication for listening on mobile devices and personal computers (). Podcast is then described as web feed of audio or video files placed on the Internet for anyone to download or subscribe.
Podcasting is a term coined in 2004 along with the popularity of the RSS technologies in distributing audio content for listening on mobile devices and personal computers. While it has been known in the year 2004, the RSS enclosure syndication technique had been used with video files since 2001.
(2005) simplified the definition of podcasting. He said that Podcasting is the use of RSS news feeds to distribute information about MP3 audio files. News feeds make it easy for listeners to discover new programming and automatically download it to a computer or portable media player. (2005) then followed-up with a definition of podcast as a collection of audio files in MP3 format, represented by an RSS 2.0 news feed, that together make up a channel or show. Nowadays, podcasts include personal audio blogs, public radio shows, advertainment podcasts, music programming, audio tour guides, audio books and a range of educational content. In summing it up, Podcasting is a method of making audio files available online in a manner that allows software to automatically download the files for listening at the user’s convenience.
Along with Podcasting’s emergence as one of the major new Internet technologies for 2005, it is still yet adopted by most ebusinesses. However, (2005) have cited several reasons that podcasting can be of great use to ebusinesses as a tool.
1) Podcasts lower the threshold for publishing audio content
2) Podcasts encourage two-way communication with listeners
3) Podcasts extend the reach of Internet sites
4) Podcasting can be used to increase the frequency of contact with customers
5) Podcasts make audio files easy to find on the Internet
Podcasts create a new channel for Web sites to communicate with customers. For the reason that Podcasts are audio-based, they open up opportunities for companies to deliver audio-specific content, including music, speeches and radio-style shows.
Podcasting Advantages and Disadvantages
Advantages
· Users have full control over what they listen to and where and when they listen.
· Audio files can be downloaded onto an MP3 player which students can take away and listen to in their own time.
· Podcasting provides the educator with another way of meeting students’ needs.
· Family members can access podcasts at home and keep up to date with what is going on the classroom.
Disadvantages
· Computers need sufficient bandwidth for downloading the MP3 audio files.
· Podcasting is not designed for two-way interaction or audience participation.
· Amateur podcasts do not have the same quality as professional broadcasts.
· Some initial training is needed ().
Podcasting Mechanism
Podcasting is adopting the version of push technology in the model of publish/subscribe in which the information provider chooses which files to offer in a feed and the subscriber chooses among available feed channels.
Podcasting is an automatic mechanism by which multimedia computer files are transferred from a server to a client which pulls down XML files containing the Internet addresses of the media files. Generally, these files contain audio or video, but could be also images, text, PDF, or any file type.
A podcast is generally analogous to a recorded television or radio series.
Podcasting as an aid for destination development
There are wide ranges of potential technology investments to help modernize the legacy systems, streamline distribution that will add value for travel consumers in travel industry. The challenge would then lies in identifying which emerging technologies would have potential to provide a competitive advantage for the industry with due consideration on its long-term potential to transform the industry.
In a research conducted by Ting-Chun Hsieh and company about the effects of emerging technologies on the travel, tourism and hospitality marketplace found that 71% of respondents indicated that data mining is currently important to their organization while technologies chosen least frequently as being currently important to respondents’ organizations were podcasting (4%), hybrid cell phones (8%) and virtual reality (10%). Apparently, podcasting casts the least percentage for the simple reason that this technology is not widely known to travel organizations. This would support (2005) on his paper about the podcasting awareness in the earlier statement. However, experts, even the respondents, expected that those three least important technologies today would be more important in the next five years. Several other technologies appear to take off including the RSS casting 45%.
Podcast Potentials
Initially, podcasting’s appeal is to allow individuals to distribute their own radio shows; but nowadays the system is increasingly used for many other reasons. There are actually a lot of other reasons for the use of podcasting which range from Education purposes to Law enforcement and it has found its great use in the field of tourism.
In an interview done by Dr. Olivia Jenkins with travelers coming to Australia, Tourist destination images held by travelers before their trip were shown to have a remarkable impact on their behavior while in Australia and these images derived from tourist information literature as well as their country of origin. This informs marketing agencies in Australia of the significance of particular visual icons that are central to the image of Australia which products are gained from the use of podcasting.
In Knoxville, Tennessee, a certain podcast is gaining popularity to the county with its impact on the local tourism. It serves as the information center for visitors to learn more about what the community can offer them. Additionally, podcasting will go beyond borders not only reaching the regional community but also the international audience.
Podcasting is good way for tourism businesses to distribute recorded audio or video on the Internet in advertising and providing information about the place. Tourism businesses can create audio files with a small mp3 recorder and upload these files to the Web site thus providing a rich media experience for ideal guests.
In Canada, they have developed a tourism Web site as their excellent resource for tourism businesses. Available in the Web site are the updated information relevant to Canada tourism businesses like newsletters and reports.
Perhaps the most dramatic use of podcasting comes along with what happened during the Hurricane that struck southern United States. A travel site TripAdvisor provides information about the services available in the city restaurants and hotel openings for the travelers.
Ranked as number one tourist destination in the world, France has a solid progressive tourism. The credit is also accounted to the tourist-attracting famous Tour de France that used podcasting to provide information for the visitors about the event.
Second to the list of the top tourist destination is Spain with its great use of podcasting as its tool in disseminating information and news about Spain. The use of podcasting was being explained as part of the tourism boost in Spain.
Conclusion
Being the latest in internet technology, podcasting gains an increasing acceptance into the electronic world. Though its desirable impact on ebusinesses is still to be expected and predicted due to its early stage of development, this new technology enormously help a lot of areas specially on the development of tourist destinations. Despite the fact that it is still in the least important matter for the ebusiness organizations, such five-year prediction is believed to be realized as podcasting shows a lot of advantages even in its premature stage of discovery.
APPENDICES
Atom syndication – is a kind of syndication that allows internet users to subscribe to websites that change or add content regularly.
RSS – is a family of web feed formats, specified in XML and used for Web syndication. It is used by news websites, weblogs and podcasting. The abbreviation varies with the following standards:
Rich Site Summary (RSS 0.91)
RDF Site Summary (RSS .9 and 1.0)
Real Simple Syndication (RSS 2.0)
Push Technology – also called server push, describes an internet-based content delivery system where information is delivered from a central server to a client computer based upon a predefined set of request parameters outlined by the client computer. Also refers to technologies where there is insufficient market demand (or market pull).
Web feed – is a document which contains content items, often summaries of stories or weblog posts with web links to longer versions.
Weblog – is a website in which items are posted on a regular basis and displayed in reverse chronological order.
Web syndication – is a form of syndication in which a section of a website is made available for other sites to use.
XML (Extensible Markup Language) – is a general purpose markup language for creating special-purpose markup languages, capable of describing many different kinds of data.
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
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