Tracking winter resorts online
The days when skiers were limited to booking their holidays through a tourist agency and thus consume more time and energy are in decline. Now the new Easy Online System offers faster and easier access to skiing resorts and winter holiday destinations. Wintersteiger clients have in the past few months experienced a new system for booking their winter vacations. Via the use of a personalised online reservation and electronic payment system, tourists are able to view and select their desired destinations from 3-dimensional maps of mountaineering, skiing and hiking regions. A PDA mobile platform enables them to choose, from pre-selected maps based on their existing location, their accommodation, transportation, cultural activities, prices, even the option of a tourist guide. GPS provides information on the holiday area, route, hiking and ski runs, lifts as well as safety tips on the danger of avalanches or other hazardous conditions. This new online system of alpine tourism is part of a wider project called TourServ, a portal and open platform that accommodates new marketing activities of software development partners via existing business contacts. The purpose of TourServ is to increase the customer base of tourism server providers and enhance competition among different skiing resorts for young people interested in flexible and economic winter holidays. Furthermore, it aims to inform tourists about rest points, rental and rescue enquiries by means of Internet access points in hotels, in public places, or mobile platforms. In the case of an emergency or unresolved query, the customer can call the tourist information centre or the rescue service by use of the Help Desk Entry via internet telephony with screen sharing and video conferencing. TourServ offers the opportunity to potential partners to promote their advertising network. In addition, it encourages any interested party to submit their valuable contribution in further optimising tourist information models or contacts to local tourist events.
