E-Business
Caribbean Advanced Technology Centre (CATC)
ìTechnology is transforming the tourism industry and the Bahamas Ministry of Tourism intends to be in the forefront of that transformation,î so said the Minister of Tourism for The Bahamas, the Hon Obie Wilchcombe.
Toward that end, the Ministry of Tourism and Indusa LLC, an information systems service firm from Atlanta, Georgia, have established the Caribbean Advanced Technology Centre (CATC), a joint venture which is owned 49% by the Ministry Of Tourism and 51% by Indusa LLC.
The mission of CATC is to build an Information Technology industry in The Bahamas and to provide software and technological development and data processing services to US and Caribbean clients.
According to Hon. Obie Wilchcombe, Minister of Tourism, We looked far and wide for technological solutions to some of our tourism problems and could not find them anywhere.
When we realized that we would be in the forefront of delivering those solutions, our Ministry decided that besides providing them for The Bahamas, we should also seek to gain extra revenues for The Bahamas by selling those solution to othersî He further noted that the intent of CATC will be to deliver those technological solutions that will improve the capacity to deliver personal services.
In no cases will these solutions act as a substitution for greater personal service. The Minister continued, ìI believe that personal service should and will be the long term hallmark of Bahamas tourism and we are finding ways to make that personal service better, deeper and strongerî.
For The Bahamas, CATCís first contract involves the processing of Bahamas Immigration Cards and providing Immigration Search Capabilities and Tourism Reporting. These services include: Immigration Card Design, Immigration Card Scanning, Data Entry/Optical Character Recognition (OCR), Quality and Business Edits, Database Design & Maintenance, Document Imaging, Trend Analysis, Business Intelligence, and Target Marketing.
The Immigration Intelligence Search Engine (IISE) allows the Ministry of Labour and Immigration to quickly and efficiently track and find Visitors when necessary as the data from their Immigration Card is electronically stored in a database with an image of the actual card.
According to the Hon. Vincent Peet, Minister of Labour & Immigration, ìThis easy to use system is another step to securing our borders as it gives us the ability to search through Visitor records quickly and with ease. In addition, it enables us to be able to archive up to 7 years of Immigration Cards electronically.
The Tourism Decision Support System (TDSS) provides the Ministry of Tourism with the ability to ìslice and diceî data in hundreds and thousands of special reports, which can be exported in Excel, Access, or a PDF document as well as the data, can be graphed and plotted. ìWe can now discontinue business as usual because we have the information to make intelligent business decisions.
We are embarking on better planned, better structured programs that bring about the convergence of innovative thinking, people, and technology,î said Minister Wilchcombe. ìCATC, in this unique partnership will push The Bahamas forward into technological advancement as never envisaged before and begin to bring us closer to making ecommerce and technology the third pillar of our economy.
CATC has recently won another contract in the State of South Carolina from the Greenville Convention & Visitors Bureau to assist in developing a targeted approach at identifying its customer needs via accurate data collection, trend analysis, and detailed reporting.
For this product CATC has built a PDA application to survey visitors, their likes, and their dislikes. The Greenville Convention & Visitors Bureau hopes to learn more about its conventioneers and other visitors through this initiative.
Ms. Rowena Buffett Timms, Vice President of Sales for the Greenville Convention & Visitors Bureau states, ìGathering accurate data will help us bring more tourism and business to Greenville. We are very excited about introducing new and innovative initiatives to expand our tourism market in Greenville.
Other initiatives that CATC is evaluating include: Incident Tracking System, Tourist Smart Cards, a call centre and an IT Training Centre. The Incident Tracking System will provide Visitors with hotline and help desk support when they need assistance.
In the event that the Visitor has a problem, the Ministry of Tourism will be able to deal with the problem quickly and effectively in order to ensure that the Visitor is satisfied while still here on vacation.
Tourist Smart Cards will allow the Ministry of Tourism to create unique promotions and track Visitor shopping and spending habits through smart card technology. The Ministry has also been exploring the possibility with The Bahamas Telecommunications Company of having its 800-BAHAMAS telephone number answered by Bahamians in The Bahamas.
This has been the desire of the Ministry of Tourism since the acquisition of the number. It now appears that the technological and managerial issues that have been impediments in the past may be removed. The Call centre will also attempt to provide services for all Bahamas tourism entities that have toll free phone services overseas.
In addition, CATC is in the middle of discussions to establish a world class IT Training Centre in partnership with The College of The Bahamas, which will be similar to the CIT programme in Jamaica.
Established in 1995, Indusa coined the term ìNear Shoreî as its main software development facility to date is located in Montego Bay, Jamaica. In 1998, Indusa collaborated with Furman University, the University of West Indies and the Government of Jamaica to create a software development industry in Jamaica by establishing the Caribbean Institute of Technology (CIT). CIT is an intensive 11-month program focused on training Jamaicans in advanced computer languages and software technologies.
CIT has graduated in excess of 500 software development programmers, and Indusa employed over 80 graduates who successfully work on various projects for large US customers such as Computer Sciences Corp., Carlson Wagonlit Travel, Ritz Carlton, and the Hilton Hotels. Indusa is also a strategic partner of Mitsubishi Corp and IBM.
More:
• CATC Application Solutions 
• Indusa Global Achieves Level 4 SEI CMM Ratings
Ms. Georgina Delancy
General Manager – Research & Statistics
P.O. Box N-3701
Reginald Court
George Street
Nassau, Bahamas
Tel: (242) 302-2094
Fax: (242) 328-7991
Email: gdelancy@bahamas.com
