INNOVATION IN TOURISM MANAGEMENT

Innovation in Tourism Management

Innovation in Tourism Management

Publication Type: Print

Conference Paper

Authors:

Source: Research Based

In the UK, travel agents utilise a number of different systems, which have emerged the last decades. Although the viewdata is a specialised form of technology used by most UK travel agents to link them with tour operators and suppliers (Seaton et al., 2001), the industry is predicting the beginning of the end for this system by replacing it with an internet-based distribution system such as the TOP2, Amadeus, Sabre etc. (Travel Industry Monitor, March, 2000).

The emergence of IT and especially the more and more extensive use of the Internet by both customers and travel agents have manipulated the structure of the distribution - one of the most important elements of the marketing mix - for tourism industry (Buhalis, 2001). For example booking a holiday in the travel agents used to be a very slow process. Enquiries about flight destinations, about 25 years ago were all done via telephone, and searched through paper files (www.ft.com). This process was obviously slower and prone to error, because if the files were not kept in order, or papers were lost, it would be impossible to determine whether flights were available to the customers.

Also, total integration of the holiday booking, i.e. flights, transport to and from airport and booking of hotels all had to be done separately by the customers as the technology simple did not exist for them to do so and it was difficult for travel agents to control the management of such information. This procedure was putting the cost of booking a holiday on, encouraging the customers to travel just for few days a year especially on the summer season (Mintel, December 2001).

On the other hand nowadays the introduction of more efficient information technologies has forced the redesign of distribution channels and provides unprecedented opportunities for travel agents (Buhalis, 1998) by impelling customers to increasingly travel for few days but more times though, within the year in various seasons as the cost of different types of holidays have been decreased (Mintel, Independent Holidays, Sep.2002).

Additionally the need for travel agents to collect, store and disseminate large volumes of information related to perspective and existing customers, makes them primary candidates for the use of information technology (Mutch, 1995). Furthermore an empirical research conducted by Camison (2000), has revealed that information technology and the impact of its growth within businesses has been developed within two different but complementary approaches. The first has a technical slant, basically concentrating on the process for selection, introduction and management of IT, while the second, more organisational in its viewpoint, has focussed on the management of systems which use such IT and their impact on administrative and organisational processes (Camison, 2000).

For example, the majority of travel agents used to be based their strategic decisions and the day to day operation of the businesses on internal information because it was easy to obtain and elaborate (Wood, 2001) but nowadays the growing turbulence in the business environment ...