Growing success for Tourism@ 2002

by Dominique THIBAULT

Nice Acropolis welcomed on 5th December 2002 the 3rd edition of this European Trade show dedicated to "m-tourism" or mobile tourism, with some fifty exhibitors presenting innovative products of high technology.

Tools of on-line booking with interactive guides by way of wireless networks for the hotel business, a whole shop window of the know-how in the business tourism and the tourism of leisure activities was displayed to the present guests (approximately 500 persons).

About 44 international projects (Europe, North America, North Africa) were retained this year, confirms Jacques Gros, Director of the Centre of e-business Solutions EMEA of IBM-la Gaude, Vice-president of Telecom Valley and creator of the concept "m-tourism", which proves if need be that this new approach seduces more and more professionals and the general public convinced by diversified formulae in the quality services which favour last minute journeys and the frequency of movements thanks to the systems of management and secured transactions proposed by travel agencies or centres of on-line booking. "

Among the most innovative solutions, let us quote the following projects:

Midiway with its centre of real-time booking ResanetPro, Renault with its Cosmeca project (system of information capable of offering a continuance of mobility services to its users what ever the environment) ; Technologie Communic@tion tourism with its innovation pack (integrated solution answering the challenges in local tourism); Netvoice Telecom (Vocal portal for tourism); Cohtaxion with its of management module for group lumpsums; electronic guides with destination - pilot system (solution of m-business); Nice net, a network of information and exchanges accessible to a community of tourists and tourist industry professionals; Bestoflours, editor of tourist solutions to prepare a journey, among which an intelligent guide " Tip Top Trip " and Moltomedia who won the first Tourism@ prize for its Mobile Travel Guide, a complete tourist guide accessible on portable devices via the GPRS and UMTS technologies.

This event, organized in partnership with the CCI, the Telecom Valley association, LSO International and Nice-Acropolis, received the support of important sponsors such as IBM, Amadeus and France Telecom, which henceforth focalise the development of their activities towards the e-commerce.

Amadeus, great specialist in travel distribution, created a new department in spring 2002: E-travel, which offers e-commerce solutions both to a clientele of professionals (today, 45 airline companies and 2000 travel agencies) and more and more to private individuals.

IBM, one of the big sponsors of this event, presented among its new wireless solutions: its Websphere Everyplace Access platform (WEA) and its device of management of secure systems as well as services of integration of mobile air terminals, payments at distance and solutions based on smart cards.

France Telecom, launched on Internet an interactive travel diary, baptized "Memory of a journey ", experimented at present in old Nice in partnership with the Tourism Office which proposes, on one hand, complete circuits at your choice and invites, on the other hand, about forty tourists to complete every day a cyber-journey diary, illustrated according to their visits with texts and photos that their families can follow hour by hour on SMS.

Numerous experiments of this type should extend to other Southeast counties (the Var, Corsica, Bouches-du-Rhône).

“The Orange SMART, for a well accompanied drive”

Orange has developed a wide range of services dedicated to the buyers of this small city-dweller, made in limited series at present.

Equipped with the latest functions and services of Orange on the WAP, accessible on a Sony Ericsson T68i telephone, endowed with the GPRS system, the Orange SMART also proposes to its happy owner a “bluetooth” free hand kit (wireless network) enabling him to drive quite freely and safely.

A remote control integrated into the ceiling light indeed offers to the driver the possibility of making and receiving calls by a simple gesture with an optimal quality of reception, the conversations being diffused by the loudspeakers of the car radio. A new concept that should seduce a clientele of avant-garde men and women in urban zones!