Multimedia Visualisation of Geoinformation for Tourism Regions Based on Remote Sensing Data

The tourism and leisure industries are currently exploring the potential of new presentation strategies that will maximise the promotional appeal of tourism regions and their main assets, which include a unique landscape and scenery, an impressive cultural heritage, and a wide range of sports facilities and other tourist amenities. Further, publishers of tour guides and maps similarly have expressed a strong interest in the new technologies. The EU Travel Study carried out by Sloggett (1997) revealed that major travel and tourist companies and organisations take an increasing interest in satellite technology, and in the development of a Travel, Leisure and Tourism Information Service. The kind of innovative Information Service they envisage will provide information on a resort and the region, entertainment possibilities and will also allow business transactions. Online and offline data visualisation for tourism topics have to be optimised for the different output devices related to the software, the hardware requirements and the display design. This paper will briefly discuss the current situation in the tourism industry regarding currently available modes of information presentation for specific target groups, and will further present proposals for a novel interactive multimedia information system focusing on the various components of such a system. The system will integrate satellite images, GPS data, GIS information and other information on leisure activities and tourist facilities. Aerial and satellite images will be used to implement the visualisation of a tourist region for multimedia CD-ROMs, display on the Internet and also on mobile devices.