e-Tourism in my home town - Hong Kong

Due to the emerge of new technologies, more than half of the tourists find information for travel on the internet. As more and more target customers use internet as a tool to plan their trips, the DMOs of many countries put a lot of efforts to improve their official website. They tried to use more new technologies to let tourists get familiar with their countries. Also, they use the new technoogies to promote their countries and give some help to tourists. Here are some of the new technologies that my home town, Hong Kong, use in order to attract more tourists.

1. Online Video


This is one of the promotion video of Hong Kong. In this video, it shows the characteristics and the charming places in Hong Kong. It also lets tourists know the culture and the atmosphere there. Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) posted this video on youtube, which is the famous onlin video website in the world. They posted it there because this can alert people and it has a bigger opportunity for tourists to reach this promotion.

2. RSS

RSS stands for ' really simple syndication '. When tourist uses RSS, they will be informed when there are changes for that website. For HKTB, they have RSS function for its website. Tourists who uses this function can know the lastest promotion and events that HKTB held. This function is good for both HKTB and tourists as this can help HKTB promote their acivities and tourists can get more inofrmation from HKTB.

3. Podcast

Like some of the DMOs in some countreis, HKTB has podcast as an audio guide for tourists. Tourists can download the audio guide from the homepage of HKTB. It is very convenient and useful for individual travellers( those who do not join tours). HKTB has even divided the  tourist spots into different categories in order to give tourists a clearer mindset.
Here is one of the audio files from HKTB:
Giant Buddha & Po Lin Monastery

4. Virtual Tours

Virtual tours is a tool for tourists to have a first impression of a tourist spot. It likes photosynth. After you have chosen a tourist spot, the overview of that tourist spot will be shown. It was shown in a 3D view so it is just like reality. It helps tourists to get familiar with the tourist spots. It is also one of the most powerful ways to introduce the city to tourists.

From the examples above, it shows that techonologies play an important role in tourism industry. They help the culture and the atmosphere of the destinations become virtualize and it make DMOs feel easier to promote their countries. For my home town, they use a lot of technologies to help tourists know more about Hong Kong. I think HKTB has done a great job and use the techonologies well.

To know more about the technologies which HKTB used, you can go to:
http://www.discoverhongkong.com/eng/index.html