People like to travel and explore new places. Places like hill stations, beaches, pilgrimages, etc are popular tourist destinations where people travel to, regardless of the topography. Tours service providers ply their buses, cars & utility vehicles to these places for transporting people & goods. While tourism business is flourishing over the world & the nation, the business is facing some challenges while operating. Management of multiple vehicles, co-ordination with tourists, transporting them through multiple places, topography, safety concerns, time management, and customer satisfaction are some of the challenges to mention about. Advent of technology like GPS tracking system can help in overcoming these challenges of Travel & Tourism sector. 

Let us see how the impact of GPS tracking systems on the tourism industry. 

 GPS tracking system provides optimised or the most efficient routes for reaching the destination. This can save unnecessary fuel costs & enhance customer’s satisfaction while also providing a safe & calm journey in some cases. GPS tracking system saves trip history, and from the data stored, one can select the most efficient route while avoiding the ones with most obstacles. 

 The system displays & stores every details of journey like stops, travel time, fuel stations, garage etc on the particular route. This data is helpful for managers to predict the Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) to a particular location & inform the tourist the same. Furthermore, it provides details regarding accommodation, medical services, food places, etc. on the route so that tour manager can inform their tourist customers, if needed. 

 ‘Geo-fencing’ feature alerts managers when a vehicle crosses a virtual perimeter, set by the manager. Thus, if a driver utilises the tourist vehicle without permission, managers receive instant notification and safety of asset and the tourists can be maintained. Also, the managers receive notifications each time the vehicle’s Engine Starts/Stops, thus safeguarding the vehicles even more. 

The GPS tracking system provides ‘Live Location’ & ‘Live Tracking’ of every vehicle in the owner’s fleet, simultaneously. By knowing the location of vehicle, its expected time of arrival to a certain location, managers can recognise the vehicle that is nearest to specific tourists & allot them the vehicle. This can save time, enhance customer satisfaction & optimises the productivity of fleet.  

Managers receive detailed trip history including number of stops, number of time driver applied harsh brakes, over-speeding of vehicles, route taken for journey, etc.  The entire journey can be ‘played back’ by the system which enables managers to assess driver behaviour and take decisions accordingly to ensure productivity of business & safety of tourist customers & assets.  

While managing different tours across various locations and handling fleets, GPS tracking system provides access to multiple users for the same system. Each user can be assigned to manage different set of vehicles according to locations. Access can be given to managers specifically to manage a set of particular vehicles only while restricting one from accessing other set of vehicles or sub-fleet. Thus, the business operations can be divided amongst multiple user administrators or managers for smooth functioning, all from a single point of control.  

Tourist vehicle managers receive real time alerts & notifications like ‘Power Cut’, ‘low fuel’ alert, vibration alert, etc. An SOS button too is provided for drivers to alert the manager in case of any emergency.  Managers can take immediate actions on these notifications to ensure safety of assets, tourists & drivers. Managers are also alerted for vehicle’s maintenance due date, so that vehicles are properly serviced to avoid any mishap or difficulty during journey and the customer’s satisfaction is maintained.  

The system generates various reports for managers to keep a track of detailed vehicle utilization. Reports like Stay report, Mileage report, advanced geo-fence, moving overview report that can be analysed and used for taking efficient business decisions while improving daily operations. Thus, it can benefit the overall business.

As the detailed data for trip is recorded & updated automatically, accuracy in billing is achieved. A transparency is maintained between tourists & organisers as the distance & vehicle’s travelled time is updated automatically. The automated data avoids or helps in resolving billing issues.