ICT and e-business in tourism development / Mohamed Jinah Ibrahim

Abstract

The purpose of this Masters project is to understand, identify the tools/applications used for tourism. As the main source of income to the Maldives is from Tourism sector, while it has been started in 1972 with one island one resort concept and contributes over 35% to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the Maldives and has a direct impact on fiscal policy. Which determines development expenditure. More than one-fifth of government revenue arises from tourism-related levies. Tourism tax is levied on every occupied bed night from all tourist establishments, such as hotel, tourist resorts, guesthouses and safari yachts. But these aren't east to identify due to the very manual system of our bookkeeping. The system isn't online at all, which interconnects the system and bed occupancy to on central system neither the system information can be shared among the tax authority or related agencies.
The main objective of the study is to understand the used ICT tools, which are being used in the tourism sector among its actors from travel agencies, tour operators and relevant agencies. These operators have sought to strengthen their role by gradually implementing central services such as Destination Management Systems (DMS), Tourism Management Systems (TMS) and such applications for tourism development.
Keywords: Tourism, E-Business, ICT tools, Maldives.