Kuala Lumpur, Nov 2 - Bridging the digital divide and educating the local tourism industry players were among the important topics discussed at the 2007 Tourism E-Marketing Conference held in Kuala Lumpur recently.

The one-day conference explored key issues that concerned the industry which included; stimulating awareness and interest for e-marketing, building customer awareness while increasing effectiveness of e-marketing programmes and also developing an e-commerce portal that aims to become a catalyst to spur the tourism industry forward.

Four main reasons were identified to be the main causes of the digital divide that caused reluctance among industry players in investing in online business. They were; Cost of Development and Maintenance, Technology Changes, Marketing and Payment System.

The conference provided an open forum with various Internet marketing executives and also unique opportunities to network with fellow e-marketers.

A number of experts in the field were invited to share their knowledge with the audience. Among the presenters were Anand Tilak from Google Inc., Raymond Teoh from Asia One, Steven Gong from Bezurk, Alison Hong from PosPay Exchange Sdn Bhd  and Jayne Leung from DoubleClick.

A total of 200 participants attended the conference; from government officials, tour operators, tour guides, tour consultants, as well as members of NGOs, researchers, academicians and tourism students.

Organised by Virtual Malaysia, the conference was supported by Tourism Malaysia, Abacus Distribution Systems (M) Sdn Bhd, Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC) and Best Western Premier Seri Pacific Hotel Kuala Lumpur.