Literature Review on Merging Travel Agencies (TA) and Tour Operators - Paper Example

The merging travel agencies and tour operators are keen to improve their work with the essence of pleasing their clients. Many studies by different researchers have highlighted numerous ways traveling tour agencies have used to increase their service delivery. For instance, a study by Cheung and Lam (2009), which was entitled, How Travel Agency survives in the e-Business world? Brought up that TAs have developed into three stages known as intermediation, disintermediation, and reinter-mediation. Intermediation is whereby the TAs goes about as agents between tourism specialist organizations and the clients. In this stage, the conventional TAs overwhelms the market. Disintermediation is the second stage whereby the TAs are bypassed by the specialist organizations and face rivalry by the online TAs. At long last, reinter-mediation is whereby the TAs reposition and re-characterize their part in the dispersion chain.

In other study, Abouk-Shouk and Lim (2012) on their study Drivers of E-commerce Adoption in Egyptian Travel Agents recognized that the key drivers were; adjusting to innovative change, globalization outcomes, providers advancements, contenders and clients weights, advantages of appropriation, changes in the structure of the travel advertise, directors/proprietors sense of duty regarding ICTs selection and the future survival of TAs. By and by, more than 50 for every penny of TAs were still non-adopters.

Wanjau et al. (2012) while studying the Factors Affecting Adoption of Electronic Commerce among Small, Medium Enterprises in Kenya: Survey of Tour & Travel Firms in Nairobi, noted that about 96.7 percent of the small managed TAs used E-commerce platform and used key utilities such as ticketing for hotel reservation and tour and advertising to boost service delivery and gain confidence of most clients.

One of the key factors that are often critical in TAs merging is the need to better their strategies to secure their positions. As noted by Kayani et al. (2015) in Australia, differential competitive pricing is also one aspect that plays fiddle in the TAs mergers. Such action often leads to ease of complexion recovery hence securing a market niche for both parties at play. Such claims observation were similar to the earlier study by Ku et al. (2012), which, identified customer competence besides attachment relationship as one of the key factors to consider in TAs merger strategy. Differentiation of the products is also critical since a study by Oladimeji et al. (2014) concluded that one main element that make TA stand out are its use of ICT to differentiate its products. These practices are akin to the success of the TAs merger and reduce the competition as it boasts long-term relationship with the client.

Furthermore, the organization should diversify their marketing strategies to meet the desired and projected targets. As depicted by Kayani et al. (2015), by adapting marketing mix that is the product, price, place and promotion then the tourism sector will have made a step forward. These will ensure that the planning and coordination is achieved and adhered to thus the demand and satisfaction of the customers: the travelers and the tourist are met effectively.

The product in terms of tourism is seen as a composition of the countries catchment areas, infrastructure, accommodation and entertainment as per Cheung (2009). When these are amalgamated, the they result in customers satisfaction. These form the intangible package of tourism and travel sector and they are usually at the individual level. Catchment areas are simply the attraction sites and they usually capture the tourist sight and attention. The infrastructure focuses on the networking of the country and the features that it has.

Price is one of the key pillars of the tourism sector since it is package that determines the revenue and profit that goes to the tourism sector. It furthermore, determines the GDP of the country that is by Wanjau et al (2012).it takes into account the flexibility of the demand seasons and the longevity of the tourism sector. This makes the pricing to be the backbone of the sector as it encompasses the decision-making.

Place is one of the critical component of tourism because it determines the accessibility of the tourism products. Tour guides and agents come in at this point and they play a critical job as the have to keep the tourist warm, direct and keep them safe. The current and emerging issues makes this component dominant for example the internet, super high ways and the rest Wanjau (2012).

Promotion is one of the mix of tourism as it is a way of passing information from one place to another and from one person to another. There are various ways of promotion and this includes advertising, sale promotion, public relations, direct marketing, and data base marketing. All these forms the blue print of promotion.

References

Abou-Shouk & Lim (2012). Drivers of e-commerce adoption in Egyptian travel agents. Information and communication technologies in tourism: Springer-Verlag/Wien

Cheung, R. & Lam, P. (2009). How travel agency survive in e-Business World? Communication of IBIMA, Vol.10, pp.85-92.Kayani, K., Grath, M., & Larsen, P. (2015). Strategies employed by Australian bricks and mortar travel agents. International journal of recent technology & engineering, Vol.3 (6), 56-70.

Ku, E.,Yang,C. & Huang,M.(2012).Partner choice: adaption of strategic collaboration between travel agencies. Journal of hospitality & tourism research. Retrieved August 11, 2015, from Http://jht.sagepub.com/.Oladimeji,S. A.,Olafin,B. & Raji. A. (2014). Investigating the benefits of information and communication technologies on practices of enterprises; Nigerian perspective. West African journal of industrial and academic research. Vol. 10 (1). Pp.88-101

Wanjau, K., Macharia, N.R., & Ayodo, E.M.A. (2012). Factors affecting adoption of electronic commerce among small medium enterprises in Kenya: Survey of tour and travel firms in Nairobi. International journal of business, humanities & Technology, Vol.2No.4,pp 76-99.