Technology will drive tourism

Technology will drive tourism in Barbados and the Caribbean. This was the basic message coming from the World Travel Internet Conference recently held at the Sherbourne Conference Centre in Barbados.

With representatives from numerous international institutions focused upon tourism and the tourist product, it is quite evident that the region needs to stay up to date in maintaining the excellence of our brand and increasing our knowledge of internet site construction, the participants agreed.

Special attention was paid to the discussion, Industry Analysis-Key Predictions for 2005: The Caribbean Perspective, a panel led by Al Cameaux, Head of Public Relations, Travelocity and Hudson Husbands, Chairman of the Barbados Tourism Authority.

Cameaux, gave the audience a quick history of Travelocity, which is arguably the best on-line travel planning engine available today. It can certainly claim to be the oldest and is pleased to inform the public that it will soon be going through a metamorphosis, which will ensure better customer service in the future.

He highlighted that on-line product provides intimate knowledge people can gain about their customers. When a person goes on-line to plan a vacation, they must plug a vast amount of information into the system before their dreams become reality, Cameaux said.

This information is used by companies to effectively improve the product that they are offering. Thus Travelocity will soon be launching version 2 (v2), which according to Cameaux, will be just as revolutionary as the first launching of Travelocity about a decade ago.