IT Management Issues: A Case Study of Mainland-Safari Tours Analysis

This case study examines IT management issues within Mainland-Safari Tours, a tourism organization formed from the merger of Outback Safari Tours and Mainland Express. The report identifies two key IT business solutions: web development and GPS/GIS integration. The web development section emphasizes the importance of an attractive, user-friendly website with secure data storage and employee access control. The GPS/GIS section highlights the benefits of tracking journeys and managing geographical information. The report distinguishes between Information Systems (IS) and Information Technology (IT), emphasizing that IT is a subset of IS. Recommendations include hiring expert staff and focusing on customer satisfaction. The conclusion underscores IT's role in reducing costs, improving services, and enhancing operational efficiency in the tourism industry, ultimately leading to a more automated and efficient business process. The document also provides references to several published works.

Running head: IT MANAGEMNT ISSUES
IT MANAGEMNT ISSUES: A Case Study of Mainland-Safari Tours
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1IT MANAGEMNT ISSUES
Introduction
Information Technology is defined as the processing, storage, dissemination and
acquisition of the textual, numerical, pictorial and vocal information by microelectronics
device that are based on the mixture of computing and telecommunications. IT professionals
perform many operations which consist of installing the software, designing the complex
computer networks as well as system databases. Tourism agency has lot to gain from the
implementation of IT trends. IT helps to develop any type of industry and make the business
processes automated one which helps the business operations to become feasible for both the
customers and the officials of the company. This report basically focuses on two new IT
business solutions that can be implemented in the Mainland-Safari tours organization to
enhance their business operation and will attract the customers toward their organization. The
report briefly describes about two chosen IT business solutions for the company, differences
between IS and IT and their effects on the organization. The report also recommends some
important criteria to attract the customer toward their business operation. Lastly, the report
concludes that IT act as a catalyst in the development process for any organization.

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Executive Summary
Mainland-Safari tours is the combination of two basic tour companies, outback Safari tours
and the Mainland Express. Outback Safari tours is a type of full service coach organization
having 25 offices in QLD, WA, SA, NT and NSW. The important feature of this company is
its high quality service which includes multi-day tours, fleet of innovative coaches and each
coach is able to accommodate 50 passengers at a time and 75% of the market sales was
achieved through the tour agencies and travel operators (Outbacksafaritours, 2019). Mainland
Express consist of 10 offices in ACT, VIC, SA and NSW. The most important feature of this
company is its low price service which enhance the business growth and allow customers to
retain with the same tourism company (Mainland tour Express, 2019). These mentioned
companies merged themselves and created a partnership-based organization namely,
Mainland-Safari tours which retains all the staffs, destinations, business process, clients of
both the companies. The report will suggest two IT based business solution which will help
the organization to enhance its business operation and develop the business growth in this
competitive market. The report describes the differences between the Information System and
Information Technology. The report also recommends some business criteria to attract the
customer. The report lastly concludes that the Information technology trends helps the
business to increase its growth and make the business process an automated one.
Web Development
The Mainland-Safari organization should employ the quality web developer to make
their official site attractive to the visitors and the site should contain all the details regarding
the clarification of the client. The client site should able to connect the client with the
working official in case of any problem or issue regarding the ticket booking or destination
issue (Wachowiak, 2016). The company should employ an expert quality web developer who

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can eliminate any type of errors detected in the site. The developer will help the business
head in the business growth by suggesting different effective decisions regarding any
implementation of the business system in the organization (Connolly, 2015). The well-
enhanced site will allow the customers to register themselves in the company’s portal which
will help them in instant booking of any tickets (Thomasson, 2018). The details of the clients
are to be stored in the company’s database which will the clients to not fill the fields for the
second time. The registration will also provide some percent of discount for the client. The
client can log in with his or her registration number anytime and can access the present
situation or the present booking availability status of any journey (Kassen, 2013). The front
end of the website should be well decorated such that it will attract the existing as well as
new customers which indirectly increases the sales for the organization. The developer
should also protect the website from breaching and other cyber attacks because the whole
business operations of the organization deals with data and payments. The data breach is one
of the major threats to the company (Hirsch, 2013). This can be reduced by the developer by
implementing some security measures. The data should be backed up in a regular way. This
will prevent the organization from losing the important details of their client (Reid, 2018).
The developer will allow the officials to log in before starting their daily operations which
will help the organization to keep the records of the employee performance and run the
business smoothly (Khodakarami & Chan, 2014). The website will be the primary key for
every operation regarding the business. The details of the organization can only be managed
by the company’s head and not by other users who can misuse the statistics report of the
company (Coles, Fenclova & Dinan, 2013).
GPS/GIS development
The GIS/GPS development is required in thee organization as it helps in tracking the
present status of any journey or the availability of ticket booking and so on. GPS means

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Global Positioning System. It utilizes the satellite which orbit the Earth and is responsible to
migrate the data to the GPS receivers which are on the ground (Leick, Rapoport &
Tatarnikov, 2015). This data helps the people to track their or others location. GIS means
Geographical Information System which is basically a software program that helps the people
to interact with the data transmitted by the GPS provider (Fotheringham & Rogerson, 2014).
The GPS/GIS developments includes designing and innovating the geospatial databases and
applications, GIS tracking software development, fleet routing as well as routing applications,
development of applications that are associated with the spatial information systems,
development of the location based applications comprising of tagging and tracking
applications, comprehensive data management application with the cross platform migration
measures, ESRI development and GIS mobile app integration with many data (Lyseen et al.,
2014).
Difference between Information Systems and Information technology
Both IS and IT are the burgeoning industries which provide job offers which contain
long term professional development potential. Basically, Information technology is the subset
of information systems (Dumais et al., 2016). Although both the fields are associated with
computers but they have specific characteristics as well as particular career paths which
require various training and education too.
Information Systems
It is a platform or group of platforms which exist for managing the set of data or a
technological product. For example, the software and the hardware utilized to handle, create
and access the electronic health dataset is considered to be an information system (Laudon &
Laudon, 2016). The hard drive, computer and other relevant storage type are used to create
the data set but these whole electronic devices are termed as information technology. It is

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often referred as the umbrella term for many business processes that are used to generate,
store, distribute and manipulate the data. IS acts a bridge connecting the user and the
information technology. There are huge opportunities in the information system courses like
auditing, computer security, analytics and programming, actuarial sciences and
communications (Enck et al., 2014).
Information Technology
It is the wide ranging vocabulary which demonstrates the technological process of any
data or data sets like storage, transfer and accessibility. It focuses on the technological
elements which are used in the information systems. Thus, IT can be defined as the analysis,
design, support, management and implementation of computer based IS. The elements are
like software, hardware, networks and databases (Schwalbe, 2015). The function of IT is to
make user friendly with the information systems.
Thus, Mainland-Safari should focus on both the IT and IS to develop their business
growth and allow the whole process to be an automated one which can reduce the work load
from the individuals and allow them to concentrate on the core business operations.
Recommendations
The organization is recommended to use developed and integrated systems for their
daily business operations. The organization is also recommended to hire some expert people
for their business operations who can training the freshers and can reduce the error rate of
their business operations (Kiran et al., 2017). The website of the organization is primary key
to represent the organization as the client can not communicate face to face with the
company’s officials. The website is to be well decorated to attract the customers in the first
visit and allow them to recommend other people regarding the organization. The organization

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should hire some expert people who are expertise in their voice quality and can enhance the
listener with their voice during any issue of the client. The organization should focus on the
customer satisfaction factor which helps in the business growth for any type of organization.
Conclusion
Therefore, it can be concluded that Information Technology is an important factor in
the tourism and hospitality industry for many years. It reduces the costs, improve the services
as well as improve the customer satisfaction, enhance the operational efficiency for the
organization. Both the businesses and the customers can be beneficiated from the developed
reservations, guest service and the communication systems of the organization. Technology
helped the industry by replacing the human labour with the technological system which
makes the business process an automated one. Technology in the tourism and the
hospitability increases the speed of the operations and allow the travelling process to be more
efficient and enjoyable too.

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References
Coles, T., Fenclova, E., & Dinan, C. (2013). Tourism and corporate social responsibility: A
critical review and research agenda. Tourism Management Perspectives, 6, 122-141.
Connolly, R. (2015). Fundamentals of web development. Pearson Education.
Dumais, S., Cutrell, E., Cadiz, J. J., Jancke, G., Sarin, R., & Robbins, D. C. (2016, January).
Stuff I've seen: a system for personal information retrieval and re-use. In Acm sigir forum
(Vol. 49, No. 2, pp. 28-35). ACM.
Enck, W., Gilbert, P., Han, S., Tendulkar, V., Chun, B. G., Cox, L. P., ... & Sheth, A. N.
(2014). TaintDroid: an information-flow tracking system for realtime privacy monitoring on
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Fotheringham, S., & Rogerson, P. (Eds.). (2014). Spatial analysis and GIS. CRC Press.
Hirsch, D. D. (2013). The glass house effect: Big Data, the new oil, and the power of
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Kassen, M. (2013). A promising phenomenon of open data: A case study of the Chicago open
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Khodakarami, F., & Chan, Y. E. (2014). Exploring the role of customer relationship
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Kiran, A. G., Lakshmi, J. M., Nandhita, B. R., & Shekar, H. C. (2017). An Empirical Vision
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Laudon, K. C., & Laudon, J. P. (2016). Management information system. Pearson Education
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Leick, A., Rapoport, L., & Tatarnikov, D. (2015). GPS satellite surveying. John Wiley &
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