Tourism Tomorrow

An Information Society in 2015

With the internet expected to account for the vast majority of all holiday purchases by 2015, and with other technologies such as 3G and a digital society changing purchasing behaviour, we have seen as much change in technologies in the last ten years as we have in the previous 150 years.

All of this exponential change impacts upon information and tourism, but does this mean a cashless society, big brother or androids? How does this development affect holiday purchasing decisions and tourist information centres? Two scenarios are presented in this paper which looks at how information will shape tourism in 2015.

Free and Real Information
The Free Information Society highlights the fact that information is freely available and we don’t buy information any more, whereas the Real Information Society is about how technology supports personal information rather than replacing it.

The paper also identifies sixteen trends that will shape the future of an information society, including citizen bands, gaming cultures and technology convergence. The challenges for the tourism industry is to embrace these changes and understand the opportunities, and the purpose of this paper is to stretch your thinking of the future, rather than give you an answer.

Information Society in 2015 (PDF 997Kb)

Further Information
For further details about the 2015 Ambition please contact Dr. Ian Yeoman, VisitScotland’s Scenario Planner, by email at ian.yeoman@visitscotland.com, or tel: 0131 472 2388.