The New Extranet for the Norwegian Tourism Industry

Tjostheim, Ingvar, Bergan, Marius, & Lous, Joachim.

Research Scientists,

Norwegian Computing Center (NR)

e-mails: ingvar.tjostheim@nr.no, marius.bergan@nr.no, joachim.lous@nr.no

Published in:
'Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 1999'
D. Buhalis & W. Schertler (eds.)
Springer Wien/New York
pp. 357 - 364
 

Abstract

The extranet for the Norwegian tourism industry is part of a network project supported by the industry and national research council. After describing the features of the extranet, the first response of a test group is reported. The task of the test-group is to evaluate the extranet and to take part in the discussion of the usefulness of such an industry-net.

1) Introduction

In recent years the Research Council of Norway (RCN) has co-funded several projects within the Norwegian tourism industry. The 'Norwegian Tourist Guide' on the web was developed as part of such a project [ 1, 2 ]. The RCN supports network projects in a number of industries through the NIN-program (National Information Networks), and the extranet presented in this paper is part of this research program.

To continue the network built around the Norwegian Tourist Guide, an initiative to develop an extranet was launched autumn 1997. At this time Marcussen [ 3 ] conducted a study of extranets for the tourism industry which included the planned extranet in Norway. During the next months several new partners were recruited, and in April 1998 the project officially started. Then, what we call an industry-net was developed for the purpose of testing the need for an extranet within the Norwegian tourism industry, and to discuss what kind of content it should have. The extra-net, the prototype has been developed at NR.

In this paper the aim is not to discuss extranets per se. For definitions and theory about extranets, we refer to Baker [ 4 ] and Marcussen [ 3 ]. The paper is organised in the following way; 1) a description of the extranet and some of the technical features, 2) how the extranet is anchored in the tourism industry - a presentation of the partners and the test-group, 3) the results from the first part of the test period.

2) Description of the extranet

Marcussen [ 3 ] suggests the defining characteristics for an extranet are that access to the net is controlled, and that the net is used by business partners (or collaborators) who selectively share information, knowledge, money or social values. The prototype version of the extranet clearly falls into this category. We will now give a brief description of the main design objectives for the prototype and indicate how these were realised in terms of content and functionality on the web site.

Relevant content for tourism professionals in Norway. We chose the following main content sections for the prototype site after extensive discussions with selected professionals.

The Press page contains quotes from the daily newspapers and tourism related journals relevant to the participants in the project. Links to the full articles on the web are included where these are available.

The Market page contains digested information about the latest relevant market analyses. Again, links to the sources on the web are included where possible.

The Finance page contains information about various grants and project finance arrangements available through the SND, The Norwegian Industrial and Regional Development Fund.

The statistics page contains information primarily from Statistics Norway, the national bureau of statistics.

The Norwegian Links page contains links to a number of tourism related web sites in Norway.

The Foreign Links page contains links to major international sites for tourism professionals or tourists.

The Conference page contains information about upcoming events in the tourism industry, with links where these are available.

The Discussion page contains a threaded discussion group facility (see below).

The Address page contains names, affiliations and email addresses for all participants in the extranet.

The prototype also contains a full electronic version of the September

issue of the hotel & restaurant business journal RBL News. This issue is

included on the extranet site whilst future versions may be linked in from the journal's site. Another means of improving relevance to the users is to limit access to the site to those users with a well defined interest in it. Currently, users are authenticated using the password mechanism provided by our Apache web server.

User contribution to site content. In the test period this will be achieved partly through the evaluation programme which is based on email questionnaires, and partly through the inclusion of a discussion forum on the web site. This is intended as a medium where participants can discuss and express preferences regarding the contents of the site, as well as a medium for conducting discussions on relevant topics from tourism. An effort was made to make the discussion forum available to the participants in their environment of choice. We therefore 'mirror' all postings on the discussion page to a mailing so that they can also appear in the electronic mailbox of the participants. Similarly participants can make responses to postings through their normal mail program thereby making it unnecessary to log on to the web site to take part in discussions. This is a particularly important feature during the initial trial period when there are relatively few users, but discussion should still be kept alive while the extranet is being established as a source of useful information for the participants.

Interaction and information exchange among users. The discussion forum mentioned above is one important way to foster interaction between the participants. It is worth noting that (as expected) participants must be actively encouraged to take part in discussions, preferably using carrots ("you are automatically included on the list of participants who receive copies of discussion postings in your mail box", "look at the discussion forum often because it will contain very useful information" or "for each contribution you make in a discussion you will receive some sort of bonus point"), but possibly also using sticks ("if you do not use the discussion forum you will miss important announcements which are vital to your business" or "participants who do not contribute to discussions will be excluded from the extranet after a period").

The extranet also has a permanently visible frame showing recent footprints from visitors to the site. The time of the last access by the most recent visitors are shown. A complete list of the pages visited by a given participant is also available. The purpose of this facility is to give a limited impression of 'togetherness' between the participants without compromising their need for privacy. Information shown on the page is based on real time processing of the server log. Participants are aware that others can see their movement. So far we've had no negative reactions regarding privacy.

Easy navigation. We produced a shallow page structure with a permanently available menu on the left which gives direct access to all pages on the site. We also implemented a search engine which can be activated from the permanently visible navigation bar.

Fast download. The prototype has no 'heavy' multimedia content. The only pictures so far are banners and small gif files used in the navigation buttons. We chose a frames-based design to minimise the amount of extra downloading required for each new page.

Attractive but yet 'sober' visual impact. We chose a visual design based on consistent use of a few colours for backgrounds, buttons, bullets etc. The design was made more attractive with 'rollover' highlighting buttons. This was implemented through JavaScripts embedded in the web pages which are executed in the client browser. These features require that participants use Netscape or Microsoft browser version 3.x or higher.

The extranet is designed using NetFusion3.0, Perl5 server-side scripts and JavaScript client-side scripts. The discussion facility also uses the standard Unix 'mail' program to implement the mailing list. The next version of the prototype will be modified according to the results of the evaluation period. We also plan to integrate the web server with our Oracle database through Java Servlets which communicate with the database through JDBC. This will allow us to archive all the web content in a database. The footprint facility may also be extended to include a chat facility through which participants can make on-the-fly contacts with each other.
 

Figure X. Architecture overview for the extranet.

Figure X shows an architecture overview of the extranet. The dotted lines are components planned in the second development phase.

3) The partners and the test group - how the project is
anchored in the tourism industry

The development of a good extranet, (technically and functionally), requires considerable care and effort in design and implementation. A separate and equally challenging task is to get the professionals within the tourism industry to use it. As mentioned previously, the extranet is part of an ongoing network project. Parts of the tourism industry, with NORTRA in the forefront, has been involved in this project during the last two to three years. In this context it has not been difficult to get the initial support for the extranet project. However, there is another important reason which also should be mentioned. It has become very common to a have a computer with Internet connection in Norway. Moreover, several of the organisations representing different parts of the industry have decided to increase the use of Internet as a communication medium with their members. A good example is the Norwegian Hospitality Association (RBL) which is part of The Confederation of Norwegian Business and Industry. Most hotels and restaurants are members of RBL, and the extranet project was very much in accordance with the long-term plans of RBL. The timing of the project was good, and with the support of NORTRA and RBL it was easy to recruit more partners and test-participants.

The partners, the organisations responsible for the extranet project together with NR, are; NORTRA, RBL, SND, and 'Landbruksbanken'. NR is leading the project in the test-period.

Test participants were selected from different business areas in order to reflect the diversity in the industry in general and among the project partners in particular. Another criterion we used when selecting the participants was their level of knowledge of the Norwegian tourism industry. It is likely that knowledgeable users will better be able to provide relevant feedback regarding the content and functionality on the site. Finally, we tried to select users who had some experience with using the web.

The tourism industry consists of a conglomerate of businesses and

organisations. A large proportion of these are SMEs who, in general, have not progressed as far as the larger organisations in adopting the emerging Internet technologies. The extranet must aim to include the SMEs in order to become a contender as an important information source and exchange in the industry. Hence, people from SMEs were preferred in the test group.

The test group, (23 individuals) consists of representatives from

Privately owned businesses

tourism organisation

destination companies

the university and research sector

consultants including a representative from Statistics Norway

4) Test results

The test is organised in the following way. From September to January 1999 the extranet is run by NR in co-operation with the partners. Approximately every second week the test-participants receive a message with 3 - 4 questions about the content on the extranet and related issues. The test started in September 1998, and 22 out of 23 responded to the e-mail questionnaire. The test participants confirmed that they will answer the mails and they were informed that it is OK not to answer the questions once. The second time they will change status from being a test-participant to an observer not receiving any emails. Even though there might be a number of good reasons for not answering a mail, the number falling off the list is interesting. One explanation is that the extranet is not that very useful to them.

The 22 answers to the first email-questionnaire were;

Table 1

 

Table 2

 

Table 3

 
Table 4

 
Of the test participants, approximately half of them started to use the web in 1994 or 95. These can be called experienced web-users. The other half started in 1997 or 98 and are less experienced. The purpose of the test is not to study differences (if any) with these two groups, but to gauge the web-literacy of the target audience for the extranet. However, when (if) the extranet is put into operation, it is likely that some of the users will have little experience with the web. The fact that two of the respondent seems to use the web less than once a week has to do with their job situation. One of them is not going to his or her office every week, and the other does not have Internet access on his or her computer.

The answers to the first question, the usefulness of the extranet, was not very surprising. The test-participants were positive to the project and this one of the main reasons for take part in the test. However, it will be more interesting to see their answer to this question in the last part of the test period.

The question about the content of the extranet is interesting. It is not unusual developing and put into operation a product or service without asking the users directly about their priorities. However, an advantage of using a test group from the industry in the development process is the possibility to get feedback directly from members of the target group. The response to the question 2 shows that news and statistics are important topics for the extranet to cover. The question will be repeated in the end of the test period to see if this still is the case, or if their views have changed.

5) Concluding remarks.

The test period will last for five months so only after one month it is still too early to draw any definitive conclusions. In the end the test group might recommend that the extranet should be launched as a permanent service. However, it is important to keep in mind that the test is in one sense artificial; the project is partly funded by research money (not from the tourism industry) and the participants are invited to use the extranet. Moreover, they receive emails that remind them about the extranet, and questions to answer. Still, the feedback they give should be taken seriously - they do represent potential users of an industry-net.

There are some important issues not covered in this paper. For instance, how should the extranet be financed? Should the participating organisations pay a fee or should the site be financed through advertisements? This question also has a political side since it can be argued that advertisers might eventually get undue influence over the site. Moreover, should the site maintainers (the partners in this project) collaborate with industry journals present on the web today in order to improve the site content? What form should this collaboration have? This has implications with regard to the editorial structure; should the editorial responsibility be held by a central 'neutral' agency or should various parts of the industry control their own parts of the content? This is a political issue as well as a technical and organisational one. In this project, answer to all these questions will not be given. However, recommendations will be made, and the tourism industry will then have to decide what to do with the extranet.

References

1. Tjostheim, I. (1997). The New Network in the Norwegian Tourism Industry - Marketing and Organisational theories as Perspectives for a Study. In A. M. Tjoa (Ed.), Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 1997 pp. 110-118. Springer Verlag.

2. Tjostheim, I. & Aanonsen, K (1997) Internet-marketing and the Norwegian tourism industry. A national coordinated marketing effort on the Internet. In Proceedings for INET'97, Kuala Lumpur, (http://www.isoc.org/inet97/proceedings/ C6/INDEX.HTM )

3. Marcussen, C. (1998) 'Extranets of national tourism organisations:'. In A. M. Tjoa (Ed.), Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 1998, pp.103-119, Springer - Verlag

4. Baker, Richard H. (1997) From Intranet to Extranet, The Complete Sourcebook MacGraw Hill's Beta Books. ISBN: 0070063028 http://www.intranetjournal.com/expert4.html #fie