Files to be used to emplement the project
PROJECT FORUM

• Student's Letter

• Teacher's Letter

• High Commette Forum

• Coordinators Forum

Lebanese E-Tourism and Basis For Its Development

Name of Project: “Lebanese E-Tourism and Basis for its Developpment "

Partnership: Microsoft, Schoolnet Lebanon

A Brief description of the project:

Develop critical thinking by the youth to reflect upon the use of ICT in the development of Lebanese tourism.

Full description of project:

Through this project students will develop critical and reflective thinking on the use of ICT.  The aim is to develop a Lebanese E-tourism project that can be competitive on the international market. Students are invited to answer questions about: Supply-driven e-Tourism, Operational management and distribution in E-Tourism, Information and communication technologies (evolution and revolution), Implications of the ICT revolution for business and strategy, dynamic interaction of ICTs and tourism, Demand-driven e-Tourism, E-Hospitality, E-operators, E-Travel agencies, E-Destinations…etc All these question will help students prepare their website about a chosen tourist site that aims to encourage  people to visit it.  They can facilitate the tourists’ lives through the use of Power point presentation on CDs or an Internet website. Students can also ask questions that are interesting to them and share them with other groups. Students are welcome to express their views through any creative multimedia tool. Students are also welcome to display their views through Schoolnet forum 2006

 Age/level of project participants:

From 12 to 18 years old

 Timetable/Schedule for the project:

The project will be launched on December, 20.2005 and will continue till May 2006.  The Students’ work will be published online on an ongoing basis. The project will be evaluated in May 2006 and hopefully be renewed the next academic year.

 Possible project/classroom activities: Students can brainstorm, discuss, research and write ideas about how to use of E-tourism to develop Lebanese tourism. Creative writing is also welcome and can be presented in any form. Students can post their views through the forum in the form of: essays, publications, reports, artwork, PowerPoint presentations or other creative mediums.

Expected outcomes/products: Essays, publications, reports, related artwork, Front page and PowerPoint presentations or other creative medium to present their views; All students' contribution will be published on the following website: www.schoolnet.edu.lb/projects/iot.htm

Project language(s): Arabic, French and English

Curriculum area: Language, Sociology, Geography, History and Technology

Names/email of initial participating groups:

Secondary public school teachers that are distributed over all Lebanese districts will be invited to join the project. A TOT workshop will be offered to lead teachers to deliver the workshop.

Coordinators: All coordinators in participants’ schools

Facilitators Management:  Abdou Yammine, abdonada@cyberia.net.lb,  coordinator of Internet Projects at the Ministry of Education and Higher education - Lebanon  and Eliane Metni, eliane@emetni.com ,  IEA coordinator

Facilitators: Widad Elias (North Lebanon), Najath Mirza (Beirut), Patricia Khoury (Mount Lebanon), Souad Mortada (Bekaa), Zainab Abbas (Nabatieh) and Narjess El Sahily (South Lebanon).

Schoolnet supervising committee: Mr. Wael Tannir, Dr. Raymond Khoury, Dr. Abdel Majid Abdel Ghani, Mr. Khalil Abdel Massih, Mr. Ali Hajj Hussein, Mrs. Elian Metni and Mr. Abdou Yammine.

School level of project participants:

Secondary one through secondary three levels are invited to participate in this forum.

Timetable/Schedule for the project:

The project will be launched on December 20, 2005 and will continue until May, 2006. Students’ work will be published online on an ongoing basis. The project will be evaluated in May 2006 and hopefully re-launched during the next academic year.

A Photo Gallery will take place at the UNESCO Palace where students will exhibit the best photos (40x60) taken by a digital camera and used in their projects.

The project participants will follow a one day workshop on January, 2006. Teachers from secondary public schools from all school districts in Lebanon will be invited to participate in the project. A train-the-trainer workshop will be offered to lead teachers to deliver the project outputs.

The implementation of the project will begin in December 2004

Top:

Student’s letter: it is a letter prepared by a group of students (3 to 4 rows) containing information about their school and the motive behind their choice for the tourist site with a brief definition of this site.

Teacher’s letter it is a letter prepared by the teachers who supervise the research that are conducted by students.  This letter should include a brief synopsis about the use of ICT in the school and its role in the development of critical thinking and scientific research of students in general.

Leading question: it’s a question that poses an idea about e-tourism to become a subject of discussion among students.  The discussion should take place on line, particularly on schoolnet forum.  The aim is to enrich students’ research and their knowledge.

Top:  Indicators of quality expected in the project.

At the end of this project, students should demonstrate the ability and skill to hold their arguments and support their views with respect to the following questions:

1.      Have their skills improved as the result of this project? If yes, in which ways and to what levels?

2.      What are the factors that encourage the use of ICT in tourism?

3.      What are the lessons learned from using ICT in their education process?

4.      What are their views about the impact of ICT as encouraging tourism?

5.      What competency development on the practical and reflective levels have they gained?

Top:  Evaluation of achievement

Top: To accomplish a complete project, students must be able to:

·       Define their leading question.

·       Demonstrate its correlation to her/his own life/community.

·       Find appropriate resources.

·       Conduct a research.

·       Analyze/cross-compare and/or synthesize.

·       Compile the data

·       Document and reference their work.

·       Present their work in a report form.

·       Prepare a Power Point presentation.

·       Prepare a draft web site through Front Page program.

Top: Guidance on Evaluation.

·         Students must identify how the use of ICT impacts positively the development of tourism in a chosen site. This should be related to the area researched by the students, rather than being a broad summation of the effects of ICT in general.

·         Students must use appropriate sources of information when researching material for their report. It is recognized that students at this level may need guidance in identifying and selecting suitable sources of information.

·         Students must briefly describe what improvements have resulted from ICT use in the area that they have studied, and how ICT facilitated this improvement.

·         Based on their research of their chosen subject, students should identify possible future use of e-Tourism either within the usages area that they focused on or in other applicable areas.

·         Students must independently identify and select appropriate sources of information. This does not preclude a student checking the accuracy or reliability of an information source with their teacher. Collection of statistical or numeric information to quantify the impact of ICT on a particular area of focus is highly encouraged.

·         Students must plan the content and presentation of their reports so that their final report is well structured, properly referenced and easy to follow. Students may want to use a pro-forma or produce outline plans of the content and structure of their work to help them achieve this criterion.

·          Students must recognize both the advantages and disadvantages of the use of ICT in the chosen area of study.

·         Students must evaluate the usefulness of each source of information they used in their research. They may want to include comments on the reliability, accuracy or currency of the information available, and other sources of information

·         Students must make suggestions as to how their research or final report could be improved. This may relate to content or presentation, but should not be trivial, for example "reprint in color"

·         Students must work to make the final presentation well structured, fairly encompassing in terms of content, and strategic in terms of impact of ICT on tourism.

·         If working in groups, each student must work on one part of the research project and profess an investigated area so as to contribute equally to the group in both the report and presentation formations.

Evaluation Assesment

The evaluation that will be carried out by the higher project committee will be based on the following criteria: 

Top: Leading questions about e-tourism

Questions about Supply-driven eTourism

1.  What are the main differences between for-profit and not-for-profit tourism organizations as far as ICTs are concerned?

2.  Why do tourism organizations need to be proactive and reactive, and how do ICTs assist this process?

3.  Can ICT-related competitive advantages be sustainable? What are the main conditions for achieving this?

4.  What can a tourism organization do when competitors imitate their ICT provision or their on-line representation?

5.  Explain the main sources of ICT-related competitive disadvantages, and discuss how to avoid them, for an organization of your choice.

6.  What are the ICT-related challenges for managing tourism brands?

Questions about Operational management and distribution in eTourism

1.      Who are the main players in the distribution channel of tourism?

2.      Explain the role of tour operators and travel agencies, and explore their interaction with other partners in the tourism industry.

3.      Examine where ICT systems in the tourism industry fit within the distribution channel framework.

4.      What are the main uses of the Internet for a tourism organization of your choice?

5.      Explain how extranets facilitate B2B transactions and applications.

6.      What is the relationship of intranets with the entire range of internal and computerized systems for an organization of your choice?

Introduction: Information and communiation technologies: evolution and revolution

1.                  What are the different elements of ICTs that are used in tourism?

2.                  Why is it difficult to define ICTs?

3.                  Explore the relationships between the Internet and extranet and intranets for an organization of your choice.

4.                  Which is more important for the tourism industry: software, hardware or Netware?

5.                  Explain the relationships between information management and information systems with regard to a tourism organization of your choice.

6.                  Does technological development drive business strategies or vice versa?

7.                  What is technological convergence and why it is significant in the tourism industry context?

8.                  What do innovative organizations need to do with regard to technological developments?

Implications of the ICT revolution for business and strategy

1.              Do ICTs reduce or expand the prosperity gap between the developed and the developing worlds?

2.              How can developing societies take advantage of the emerging technologies?

3.              Apply the value-chain concept to a tourism organization of your choice.

4.              What is the difference between eCommerce and eBusiness?

5.              Why is strategic management critical for ICT management?

6.              How can ICT support strategy and competitive advantage?

7.              What is constant innovation and why is it critical for the tourism organization of the future?

8.              Why are ICTs becoming the nucleus of organizations?

9.              Explain the info-space and info-structure concepts in relation to a tourism organization of your choice.

The dynamic interaction of ICTs and tourism

1.                  What are the main disciplines that e-Tourism covers?

2.                  How can ICTs determine the competitiveness of tourism organizations?

3.                  Identify innovative tourism organizations and explore their ICT strengths.

4.                  What are the main ICT applications used in the tourism industry?

5.                  Why will mobile devices revolutionize the tourism industry once more?

6.                  How can extranets benefit tourism organizations?

7.                  What are the synergies between computer reservation systems and global distribution systems?

8.                  Explain the concepts of info-structure and info-space for tourism.

9.                  Which tourism organizations will be likely to face competitive disadvantages in the future?

10.              Explore how a tourism organization can take advantage of ad hoc networking on the info-structure to serve particular market segments.

Demand-driven eTourism

1.                  Which target markets are more likely to book on-line, and why?

2.                  List the key factors that will encourage more tourism products to be booked on-line.

3.                  Explain the differences between the information needs of business and leisure travellers.

4.                  What determines the level of on-line population and the penetration of the Internet in each country?

5.                  What are the sources of satisfaction and dissatisfaction for the on-line consumer?

6.                  What non-tourism products/services may enjoy synergies by promoting tourism?

E-Airlines Global Distribution Systems (GDSs) and Computer Reservation Systems (CRSs)

1.                  What are the main purposes of airline CRSs?

2.                  What is the difference between airline CRSs and GDSs?

3.                  Will GDSs be disintermediated in the future?

4.                  Explain the main functions of GDSs.

5.                  Explore the different kinds of airlines, their distribution networks and their ICT utilization.

6.                  What are the key strategic ICT functions for airlines?

7.                  Explain why ICTs are critical for the operational management of airlines.

8.                  How can airlines increase their direct bookings from consumers?

9.                  What new initiatives are taken to manage distribution better in airlines?

10.              Discuss wireless applications for the airline of the future.

E-Hospitality

1.                  How do ICT investments compare with other expenditure in the hotel business?

2.                  What entertainment and value-added services should be added to the hotel room of the future?

3.                  Why do hotel systems need to be integrated?

4.                  What is e-Procurement, and why is it critical for hotels?

5.                  Can customer relationship management enhance brand loyalty in hospitality?

6.                  Explore the opportunities for using wireless technologies in hotel properties and assess their feasibility.

7.                  Does technology promote further concentration in the hospitality industry?

E-operators

1.                  Why are ICTs critical for the operational management of tour operators?

2.                  Why do different types of tour operators have different ICT needs and requirements?

3.                  Explore why standardization and interoperability are more critical for tour operators than other tourism actors.

4.                  How can tour operators of the future take advantage of ICTs strategically?

5.                  How can small tour operators take advantage of the Internet?

E-Travel agencies

1.                  What is the role of travel agencies in the tourism industry, and what is the value they add to the tourism product?

2.                  Why do different types of travel agencies have different ICT needs and requirements?

3.                  What are the critical internal and external functions supported by ICTs?

4.                  Can the Internet disinter mediate travel agencies?

5.                  What are the on-line opportunities for travel agencies of the future?

6.                  Can travel agencies survive if they do not use the Internet?

E-Destinations

1.                  Why are destinations regarded as the raison d’être for tourism?

2.                  What are the relationships between tourism destination planning and marketing, and how can ICTs facilitate these processes?

E-Tourism: synthesis and a vision of the future

1.                  How can tourism organizations benefit from constant interactivity with consumers?

2.                  What are the main challenges emerging from this interactivity?

3.                  How can destinations integrate all local actors through ICTs?

4.                  Which of the new e-Tourism intermediaries will survive, and why?

5.                  Explain why future generations of mobile technology are expected to revolutionize the tourism industry once again.

6.                  What is e-Tourism convergence, and what are the critical implications for the tourism organization of the future?

7.                  How can consumers participate more in designing their customized tourism products?

8.                  How can destination management organizations enhance their info-structure?

Abdou Yammine

Ministry of Education and Higher Education

Schoolnet Manager