Gauteng races down the information superhighway

THE Gauteng Tourism Authority (GTA) officially launched its IT strategy called WEB Marketing Challenge 21 to the tourism industry at its offices in Rosebank, Johannesburg last Friday which it hopes will serve as a one-stop information shop for all travel and tourism needs in the province. According to GTA ceo, Sylvan Golden, the official Gauteng IT strategy will provide comprehensive information on the province in terms of tourism, accommodation, sport, events, entertainment, shopping, conference and exhibition venues and provincial government. "The database called TIPS (Tourism Information Publishing and marketing System) is an ambitious attempt to develop an intranet of all tourism players in Gauteng. We want to use our IT to create and support a tourism family in order to integrate all suppliers in tourism." Golden said the software was designed to facilitate the registration of all tourism establishments in Gauteng. " Tourism establishments will be able to register remotely 24 hours a day and alter their information whenever they want. Every establishment will be located on an electronic map so visitors can print a map of their plans anywhere in the world," he added. (Miguel de Sousa)