游客信息中心没有前途

我从来都不去游客信息中心；我一直都是在酒店大堂看看当地景点的宣传单，在网上搜索酒店、B&B旅店并订房。因此，我对游客信息中心还能存活这么久感到十分惊讶。（译者注：B&B，即bed and breakfast, 指包含早餐、价格经济的家庭旅馆。源自于欧洲、盛行于美国的B&B现已演变成对以“自己管理自己”为特征的家庭式自助旅馆的通称，包括农舍旅馆、青年旅舍、汽车旅馆、公寓式旅馆等等。）

下面是我认为游客信息中心没有前途的理由：

对环境的影响

游客信息中心的小册子、宣传单光鲜亮丽，但都是用不可再生的纸张印刷的，对环境毫无益处。如果旅游业对于全球变暖问题的态度是严肃的，那就要多多考虑如何让游客信息中心变得更加环保。

未来的移动技术

在旅途中大家最关心的问题往往都跟方向有关，比如当地的名胜在哪里，停车场怎么走等等，而GPS的及时出现，使我们在车上或手机上就能把这些问题轻松化解，也终将让游客信息中心寿终正寝。

在线体验

我觉得这是High Street的游客信息中心可以努力的一个方向。据网站Visit Scotland统计，该网站每年的点击量超过1800万，越来越多的人正在利用互联网来做调研，来把自己的节假日安排得更好。

搜索引擎比游客信息中心更好用

雅虎、MSN和Google都提供电子地图，帮助你便捷地找到要去的酒店、景点和餐馆。您也可以在旅游论坛和博客上搜索到游客自己写的东西，了解他们对于不同餐馆、酒店以及景点的评价。

那么您对游客信息中心有何高见呢？说来一起分享一下吧。

原文　No future for the tourist information office

travel-rants　By Darren Cronian on Sunday, June 15th, 2008

I’ve never needed to use a tourist information office; I’ve picked up leaflets for local attractions at the hotel, searched and booked hotels and B&B’s on the internet, so it amazes me that the tourist office has survived for so long.
 
Reason’s why I think that there’s no future for the tourist information office:

The effect on the environment

All those glossy brochures, leaflets printed on unrecycled paper aren’t very good for the environment. If the tourism industry is serious about dealing with global warming then it needs to think more about making tourist information offices more environmentally friendly.

Future of mobile technology

I suspect the most popular questions are relating to directions to local attractions, parking spaces etc, so with the emergence of GPS, on mobile phones and in cars, I can see this eventually ending the life of the tourist information office.

Online experience

In my opinion this is where I can see the high street tourist information office heading, and according to Visit Scotland, they receive over 18 million hits on it’s website each year. More of us are using the internet to research and organise our weekend tips and holidays.

Search engines do it better

Yahoo, MSN and Google all offer mapping technology which allows you to find directions to your hotel, tourist attractions and restaurants. Search for user generated content on travel forums and blogs, and read reviews of restaurants, hotels and attractions.

I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on tourist information offices.