Aviemore Accommodation

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The Scottish tourism industry will be "dead in the water" without adopting new technologies.
The warning came from Alan Rankin, Director General of the Aviemore and Cairngorms Destination Management, before Tourism Innovation Day, February 28 Glasgow.
Rankin, former chief executive of the Scottish Tourism Forum, spoke following the results of a tourism survey carried out by Scottish Highland Business Research for Tourism Innovation Day, which showed that 59% of companies believe that 'they could do better in terms of embracing technology.
He said: "The tourism industry will be dead in the water if it does not take the opportunities offered by new technologies."
Many of the companies surveyed, which included hosting companies and tourist attractions and visitors to Scotland, cited similar issues when asked about their greatest challenges of technology.
These include securing funding to develop and increase the use of technology, do not have broadband in their area, being able to update their website regularly, the cost of promoting a small business on the web and stay on top of changing technologies and trends such as growing use of rich media and Web2.0.
Rankin asked if Scotland will be able to challenge the fastest emerging markets.
"In the world market, to have your site configured for the mobile phone will become a necessity," he said.
"For many people in the Asian economies, the Internet phone is a more important mechanism than the computer. This will become increasingly true in developed markets.
"Yet in some of our key areas of rural tourism in Scotland, we do not have the infrastructure of mobile technology in place -.. A major obstacle to overcome certain areas do not even have broadband"
In the survey of Scottish tourism, 94% of respondents did not offer mobile travel applications for customers and 96% did not have a version of their website for mobile phone.
Respondents were aware of the importance of social networking sites as a channel for promotion, but only 17% of respondents had used these sites to promote their businesses.
Rankin warned that the use of social networking comes with its own set of problems.
"These sites can pose challenges in terms of control messages and a company should receive online reviews, it is there for the world to see. Companies must either obtain the right service first," he said.
Tourism Innovation Day, which is organized by the Tourism Innovation Group with Scottish Enterprise, is designed to inspire and give Scottish tourism organizations to apply technology and develop new products and services.
Sue Crossman, Project Director for Community Service, said: "The percentage of hotel reservations online world for the first quarter of 2007 was almost double than the same period last year.
"The Internet bookings accounted for 41.2% of total bookings CRS in large chain hotels worldwide, up 22% in 2006.
"One third of all bookings during the first quarter of 2007 came on the websites of the hotels themselves.
"With the increasing use of the strip associated with advances in mobile technology will allow the new source of customers better, and raise their expectations in terms of attracting additional tourist information measure."
She challenged businesses of all sizes to improve their game in the exploitation of new technologies, calling for "effective digital portals" to put in place for all major tourist destinations in Scotland.
The portals could use technology similar to popular social networking sites such as Bebo and Facebook.