On Information Service Strategies For Merchants In Ethnic Tourist Town's:a Case Study Based On The Information Needs Survey In Old Town Of Dali

With the development of China's tourism industry in recent years, there are a large number of merchants in every tourist destination area, such as family hotels, bars, small restaurants, souvenir shops, etc. In the ethnic areas which focus of China's tourism industry, some well-known tourist towns, such as the old town of Lijiang, the old town of Dali, west-street of Yangshuo etc, are all famous in the world with various tourist commodities and other colorful tourist service. It can be said that the development of the merchants have been linked with the development of the tourist destination area closely. Information is powerful in this rapid changing society, it should means opportunities, fortunes, and service qualities. In order to ensure the sustainable development of tourism in ethnic area, it is very important meaning to improve the information service quality of the ethnic areas and promote the construction of the national information service system through analyzing the information needs of the merchants and finding the right information service strategies.The paper covers six chapters. Chapter1is an introduction which expounds the investigative background, the research methods, the related theories and the literature review. Chapter2is describing the overall investigation of the old town of Dali. Chapter3is analyzing the information needs of the merchants and the channels of information search of the merchants which in the old town of Dali. Chapter4is describing the information service status of the Dali. Chapter5is exploring the construction of information service strategy system for the merchants of tourist town in ethnic areas. Chapter6. there is the summary and recommendations for future research. Main findings from this study are following:(a)The characteristics of the information needs of the merchants are:multi-purpose, comprehensive, low ability of getting information to meet the information demand, low ability of getting the useful information, less attention to customer preferences.(b)The information needs of the merchants linked with the education, the willingness To Pay, the service capacity of the information department, the traditional concept of the operators, the environment and the scale of the merchants.(c)The characteristics of the information research of the merchants are:the low autonomy of the information research; rarely use the information consultation institution.(d)The information search of the merchants linked with the experience and skills of business, the convenience of the information acquisition, the unblocked degrees of information search channels.(e)The characteristics of the information serves of the merchants:basically at the traditional service mode, based on the principle of the passive service, the management department and information services lack of information interaction, don't pay much attention to the modern technology.(f)The strategies of the information serves facing the ethic areas are:building the integrated information service platform for the ethnic tourist town; constructing the characteristic resource database for the ethnic tourist town; strengthening the library service for the ethnic tourist town; broadening the channels of information; promoting the coordination of related services department; creating the information environment etc.