Assignment Task: Internet Marketing
Planning Travel "Down Under": The Use of Interactive Maps on the Internet
- One of the major challenges with hospitality and travel services is their intangibility. However, the internet now provides many tools and features that tend to make these services more tangible in customers' perceptions. One of these tools is the interactive map.
- A great application of an interactive map is on Tourism Australia's website. Open the site and you are presented with a full-page map of the "land down under."
- Site visitors can click and display a variety of locations on the main map, including attractions, Australian nature, climate, distance and size, and roads and railway lines. The map changes with each click and sis highly interactive. For example, by dragging and clicking on the map, the visitor can find the distances between two places.
- Visitors can enlarge the map to show any of Australia's six states and two territories in the same level of detail as the overall map for the country.
- The map can be viewed in several languages, including English, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Korean.
Answer the following:
Question 1: What are the customer benefits of having these interactive maps available on destination websites?
Question 2: What types of limitations and potential problems might there be in a destination using interactive maps such as this?
Question 3: In which ways can interactive mapping technologies make places seem more tangible for potential visitors?
Question 4: How can businesses such as hotels and restaurants also take advantage of this type of interactive mapping technology?