Destination Management System
“Destination Management Systems are systems that consolidate and distribute a comprehensive range of tourism products through a variety of channels and platforms, generally catering for a specific region, and supporting the activities of a destination management organisation within that region. DMS attempt to utilise a customer centric approach in order to manage and market the destination as a holistic entity, typically providing strong destination related information, real-time reservations, destination management tools and paying particular attention to supporting small and independent tourism suppliers.”
Frew, A.J. and Horan, P (2007) Destination Website Effectiveness – A Delphi Study-based eMetric Approach, Proceedings of the Hospitality Information Technology Association Conference, HITA 07, Orlando, USA
Following on from the above definition it can be seen that a DMS is far more than just a website or online booking system. It provides a complete set of tourism management, promotion and fulfilment tools with product, business and visitor databases as its foundation.
As a minimum, a DMS platform must provide the following core modules:
Web sites and Visitor Centres are the 2 most obvious channels through which tourism product is made available. However, in this increasingly digital world, applications are required to deliver visitor information through a whole range of other devices including kiosks, mobile handsets and hotel TV.
In order to support the full range of activities of a DMO, it has been necessary to develop a whole suite of additional modules that can be upgraded to as and when required. These are being added to on a regular basis as technology and our clients needs dictate.
