System towards the touristic information sharing amongst portuguese speaking countries

Abstract

Global and efficient communication has always been a goal to expanding touristic destinations in order to potentiate the growth of the sector and the sustainable development of the regions concerned. With the emergence of the new information technologies, the creation of networks for information sharing became a reality. This facilitated the implementation of benchmarking actions and programs between touristic destinations involved in cooperation projects. The Internet development, as an inexpensive infrastructure, allowed breaking many access barriers faced by many touristic destinations, due to the lack of investment funds in these areas. The inherent cost of design, installation and maintenance of networked computer systems are currently a fraction of the initial implementation cost of a traditional system, even allowing for the standardization of all the technology applied. The article exposes the problematical issues concerning the creation of networks for information sharing and proposes a model for the development of a distributed information system as the support infrastructure to such a network. Thus, the organized exploitation of a decentralized information flow allows the creation of synergies amongst the agents involved and, at the same time, the maximization of the development of the emerging touristic destinations. Such s network towards the sustainable development of the touristic destinations of Portuguese speaking countries of enables the development of processes of continuous enhancement of the global performance, processes that are oriented to the pursuit of competitivity, sustainability and quality of touristic products.