Professor and Chairman Emeritus, Recreation and Tourism Programme, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA
H.E. Dunsmore
Department of Computer Science, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA
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William Theobald Professor and Chairman Emeritus, Recreation and Tourism Programme, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA H.E. Dunsmore Department of Computer Science, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA |
Internet Resources for Tourism and Leisure is designed for those in the tourism and leisure businesses, academics, students, and all others who want one central Internet resource. Its hundreds of Internet sites can help you locate the latest economic statistics and demographics, get information about government agencies and their programs, learn about universities from which you may wish to access their web sites or which you might want to enroll in a distance learning course, and much, much more.
This book can benefit practitioners in the tourism and leisure industries as they learn of the many and varied opportunities the World-Wide Web offers in providing important information on professional developments within their career fields. In addition, the Web provides up-to-the-minute statistics on international as well as domestic visitor arrivals and departures, information on upcoming meetings and conferences, tables of contents for current periodicals, as well as a host of other related pertinent information.
Although this book assumes that you have some knowledge of the World-Wide Web and other Internet features, you can always refer to the glossary contained in Appendix A for basic definitions and information.
It should be understood that although there are vast amounts of information to be found on the Web, not all of that information is current, is accurate or is necessarily correct. For example, a number of websites provide data that may be relatively old or out-of-date. Also, some of that data may be incorrect since errors do indeed occur by individuals posting information on a particular site. Such errors may be by omission or commission, so it is always prudent to check both sources and the data itself.
Finally, readers should recognize the fact that there are significant differences between information that can be accessed at no cost, and that where a fee or fees are charged to users. Everything on the World-Wide Web is not free. For example, some information providers such as the World Tourism Organization provide a free organization webpage that allows users without cost to view their press releases, official speeches, list of members, publications, etc. However, if individuals wish to access their statistical service, a password is required, and a charge for each search is made. Likewise, the National Employee Services Recreation Association website allows users to access their buyers guide, press releases, bookstore, conferences, and the like. However, another part of the website is for members only, and also requires a password to enter. In order to get a password, individuals must first be dues paying members of the Association.
The Contents of This Book
This book is an introduction to the Internet and the World-Wide Web, and contains information on hundreds of Internet tourism and leisure sites. You'll also find a number of special features such as:
In this book, italicized text represents both variables (for example, a filename or a value to be typed) and new terms. This font http://www.yahoo.com indicates URLs that you type to go to a particular site.
How to Use This Book
Each entry in Internet Resources for Tourism and Leisure is a snapshot of a site at the time that the authors wrote about it, when a technical editor checked it, and possibly when one of the authors changed it. One thing that we have learned is that the Web is constantly changing: students graduate, professors move on to other interests, webmasters change folder and file naming conventions, and businesses switch to new providers or get a new domain name. During this project, we have seen URLs change from one day to the next, and sites that we thought would be permanent simply disappeared. Some sites provide forwarding information, others do not.
Therefore, while a great deal of care has been taken to provide both accurate and current information, nevertheless, by the nature of the Internet, there will be some errors and omissions in particular websites.
However, there are a number of ways that you can search for a site that has moved from one part of the Internet to another without leaving a "forwarding" link. Most of the time, one of these methods results in success.
Finding a Site: Part One
If you are willing to try a shortcut, think of a logical name for a site. For example, if we could not find the World Trade Organization at http://web.fie.org/web/wld/wto, we successfully tried http://www.wto.org/. Starting with http:// is obvious, following with www. is a good bet, using an abbreviation such as wto is an excellent first (and probably only) initial try, and .org represents the organization domain. However, there are exceptions to every rule. Not every address includes www. Some addresses simply start with the company or agency name, and others start with web or some other identifier. To confuse things more, not all organizations use the .org domain; the agency may be a government organization (.gov) or even a private-public commercial (.com) site. If you try this with Gopher sites, the best bet for the first part of the URL is gopher://gopher.
Finding a Site: Part Two
One way to find a missing site is to take apart its URL piece by piece. Let's say that you are looking for an outdoor recreation research site and the address for which you are looking is http://www.vt.edu:10021/Y/yfleung/recres.html. You can either remove all the address after the main domain name (leaving http://www.vt.edu/) or remove the address in stages from one slash to the next (for example, http://www.vt.edu/1021/Y/yfleung/ to http://www.vt.edu/1021/Y/, and so on) until you see a link that looks as though it might work. Sometimes you find yourself looking at the folders that form the under structure of a site, but sometimes you hit pay dirt. This works for both Web and Gopher sites.
Finding a Site: Part Three
If guessing a URL or taking it apart and putting it back together again doesn't work, use a Search Engine (for the best of them, see Chapter 6). In the text box, type the title of the site, the name of the author, or a keyword you think will clearly identify the site. Then, click on the button to start the search. On the page of results, look for the link that most closely resembles the site for which you are looking. Then, click and hope for the best. If the first results don't pan out, try a new search using a different keyword.