P2P infrastructure for tourism electronic marketplace

Abstract

Internet and information technologies have changed the way people interact and make business all over the world. Unfortunately, this is not completely true in the sense that the fast progress fostered by more dynamic economies has in fact been contributing to widening the so-called digital divide between rich and poor. This is a particularly true for small and medium enterprises in remote communities that face a number of obstacles and difficulties due to their family business structure, limited access to information and communication infrastructure. This paper presents a P2P infrastructure for a distributed e- Marketplace that aims at bringing together tourism operators, players of crafts and agro-eco-cultural tourism sectors living in remote communities, in order to provide them the opportunity to join, at a reduced cost, to the information society and reach new markets. © 2004 Springer Science + Business Media, Inc.