What is E-tourism?

During the last decade of 20th century, India saw the emergence of e-tourism, its innovation and growth. It is because of the online revolution and its utility where the tourists are more interested to get information on destinations, facilities, availabilities, prices, geography & climate and present status of friendly relation. This led to the development of e-commerce strategies in tourism industry and more services in the form of online hotel booking, flight booking, car booking, bus booking came into forefront as online services provided by the big online travel industries like TravelChaCha  Makemytrip.com, Yatra.com, Cleartrip.com, Ezeego1.com, Arzoo.com, Travelguru.com, Travel.indiatimes.com, ixigo.com, travelocity.co.in etc. On these sites, the travelers have wide option of exploring details of hotels, flights, cars, buses and other allied services.

Future of E-Tourism in India

Before their departure, travelers are researching their journey on the Internet and the number of users is multiplying day-by-day. The survey has proved that India has shown clearly as one of the emerging leisure online travel market which attracted millions of travelers to explore the itineraries and their details on the one hand and seeking online services for flight booking, hotel booking, car booking, bus booking etc. on the other. The survey further clarified the future perspective of E-tourism in India by putting a figure of potential earning expected to be a $2-billion.

Status of Internet Users in the World

As Information Technology is in the process of evolution where internet access is limited to a section of urban populations where online marketing is primarily dominated by the metro markets. Because of the continuous growing figure of online travel portals present trends in these industries are as one of the most competitive industries with new entrance of global players coming from abroad; the demands of the customers are always changing; the tourists\' expectations are increasing with the increasing the use of internet and look for more convenience and value; the travel portals served as the source of knowledge for the international tourists; travel industries required an automated technologies.

Current Status of Internet Users in India

In 2008, India saw the growth rate of 27 per cent of internet users over the previous year with the cyber audience rising to over 28 million. This figure has shown the strongest growth rate in Asia which is followed by China with a 14 per cent growth rate of internet users.

Dr. Minhaj Alam has completed his Ph.D from Centre For Nehru Studies, Department of Political Science, Aligarh Muslim University and has done extensive research works on Jawaharlal Nehru. He is Chief Editor in the IT Department of Culture Holidays.