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Introduction
Metin Kozak and Luisa Andreu
The definition of “the tourism market” concept needs to be reconsidered as the informa- tion technology (IT) possibly has an opportunity to bring demand and supply on the vir- tual market together. While the main element of tourism demand as being the consumer who needs to satisfy their leisure requirements remains the same, computers could serve as suppliers or have the responsibility of suppliers. In addition to the specific feature of the accommodation industry being open for 24 h a day, computers may improve the non-stop services offered by the tourism and travel industry generally. A great number of hotel and airlines companies have launched their web sites on the Internet and are about to activate them as a two-way communication channels. An IT user can now search for the hotel and the flight company or the destination where they want to spend their holiday and complete reservations simply by giving details such as name, address and credit card number or other payment options. Once the reservation is accepted, the ticket is delivered to the user in a couple of days or e-ticket is provided promptly and the booking fare is transferred from the users’ account into the company’s account.
Taking into consideration the revolutionary effects of IT on the industry by reshaping the operation of activities in tourism, the first chapter presents the historical development of IT and its applications in tourism in a framework which will enable tourism companies and/or authorities to evaluate growth process of IT and to create a vision for their future.
Even though users need to find suppliers or intermediaries rather than vice versa, it is also true that suppliers or intermediaries need to reach potential users via computers or other advertising tools to make them more aware of their products or services provided on the screen. Therefore, in light of a massive use of several IT applications not only by end-users but also service providers and a growing intention to develop new ones in the near future, it should be necessary to redefine the role of intermediaries as “cyber-mediaries” (or arti- ficial agents) and the concept of marketing as “cyber-marketing” (Schuster, 1998). On the condition that the growth of IT applications keeps its current momentum at the same level, cyber-mediaries seem to be the only competitors of traditional intermediaries in tourism and travel marketing in the near future.
The second chapter is about the investigation of whether the industry people use elec- tronic brochures and documents as a means of sustainable tourism marketing. Until recently, it was a commonly held belief among people that information technologies (ITs) and the Internet would create a paperless world. Nevertheless, present statistics reveal the opposite. According to claims put forward by “Paper Com Alliance” consisting of number of associations and a group of companies from the paper industry, new economy results in
Progress in Tourism Marketing Copyright © 2006 by Elsevier Ltd.
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
ISBN: 0-08-045040-7
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more paper consumption. According to one approach supporting the “paperless office”
concept, the paper will be less needed because every kind of communication and informa- tion storage will be able to be achieved in a digital environment. However, improvements against this expectation have taken place and particularly with more widespread use of the Internet, printer, photocopy and due to the rich content provided by the Internet the paper consumption has increased to a level higher than ever. Considering the fact that 93% of the consumed paper is still obtained from the wood, it can be seen that both environment and sustainable tourism activities are under the threat of this new situation. Departing from this point, this chapter highlights the present situation by carrying out a survey among accom- modation facilities and travel agencies operating in Mugla, Turkey. The findings reveal that tourism practitioners believe in the realization of “paperless environment”; however, there seem to be some pitfalls in practice and due to the conventional and habitual use of paper, electronic documents and brochures cannot be exploited adequately.
Revisiting the above-debate on whether traditional purchasing process will be replaced with an alternative option to purchase using ITs, the purpose of the next chapter of this part is to investigate consumers’ intentions to buy travel products from online travel agencies.
This study also investigates the demographics of Internet users, their online purchasing satisfaction experiences, their attitudes and perceptions toward purchasing electronically, the average time spent each day with electronic communications, online consumer incen- tives and online consumer benefits. An analysis of the actual means suggested that con- sumers find “price” to be the most important variable when purchasing a travel product online. This finding may suggest that online travel products are commoditized. Quality is ranked as the second most important variable followed by security, variety and brand. This difference might suggest that consumers are becoming more willing to reveal personal credit card information over the Web. However, there is a negative relationship between the likelihood of purchasing travel products over the Web using an online travel agency and the personal significance factors “important” and “significant”. The differences within per- sonal significance may suggest that consumers find it less likely to purchase from online travel agencies when it is very important to purchase.