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Online marketing become a trend in recent years focussed on online social networks, such social networks have rapidly grown in popularity; providing platforms to the marketing of products and services for the hospitality industry. Online marketing offers media technologies that can facilitate online functionality and monitoring perspectives wherein the data gathered can be used to develop their services for customer satisfaction. The purpose of this study is to study the impact of online marketing in travel agency. The data collected using google online survey and analysed using SPSS. The findings stressed that online marketing in travel agency has a positive relationship in increasing the sale of packages in travel agency. Travel agencies who use online marketing more frequently receive more correspondence. Therefore, travel agencies should use online marketing to generate more income. The value of time has also changed, making communication a process that has to be instant and simplified. Hence, travel agencies have to use online marketing and taking into account travellers feedbacks and complaints as well as delivering information about products and services in real time. Travel agencies have no chance to face their competitors if they don’t adopt online marketing strategies.

The Internet has enabled consumers to act as their own travel agents and to verify independently the accuracy of the information provided by airlines through the CRSs and travel agents. As a result, the relationships between consumers and the suppliers of air-travel information have been radically altered, and we document these changes. We identify the relevant market for air-travel information, which includes CRSs, online travel agencies, and the websites and call centers of individual carriers. We determine market concentration and market shares using the Herfindhal-Hirschman Index. Based on our analysis, we argue that there is no longer any need to regulate independent CRSs. However, airlines that own CRSs continue to have an incentive to withdraw their flight and fare information from rival CRSs and, to prevent this from happening, the mandatory participation rule adopted in 1992 should be maintained.

Several tourism destinations are using social media (SM) marketing more than traditional marketing in the developed countries. The increasing use of technology has replaced the role of travel intermediary. Most of the travellers in developed countries are no longer using travel agencies for their services. Many bookings are done online using electronic devices either at office or home. It is, therefore, a fact that SM has come to stay. However, the situation is contrary to some developing countries due to several reasons; for example, unreliable source of energy, communication, poor infrastructure and lack of competition. Most of developing countries depend on tourists from developed nations to consume their tourism destination products. Moreover, the modern travellers are no longer travelling in the dark. They want to have prior knowledge about their destinations. They check online product offerings, certification and destination labels. A modern tourist is becoming a more responsible traveller. SM plays a big role by providing information about many tourism destinations. Nevertheless, there are ongoing debates regarding the usefulness, future and survival of traditional travel agents despite the fact that there are threats from online travel agents and the increasing use of SM. This chapter is a case study of Malawi as a tourist destination. It critically discusses and analyses the impact of SM as a marketing tool. It also analyses the benefits and challenges of the travel agents, and finally confirms that there is a need to embrace technological change in travel and tourism industry in the developing nations.

Online reputation management (ORM) plays a significant role in the tourism industry. Tourists are more and more interested to express their opinions about their experiences/satisfaction not only with their friends but also on social media. ORM is largely used not only by tourist destinations but also by other companies operating in the tourism industry. This chapter aims to draw attention to the importance of intermediaries in tourism, their reputation in general, and especially their ORM and its specifics. This contribution also characterizes different types of intermediaries and their different roles in the distribution process of tourism services. These roles are important and can be even more significant in the “new normal” post-COVID-19 time. In the scientific literature and research, there is not much attention given to intermediaries as a whole and even less to their ORM and its specific solutions. But practical contributions can be found. Due to the specific activities and roles of different types of intermediaries, also their reputation is influenced not only by tourists but also by their suppliers. Their ORM has also some specifics and needs specific solutions. Their reputation is depending not only on customers' satisfaction with their own services but also on the reputation of tourism service providers, whose services they offer and mediate either individually or in the form of their own product, e.g., package tours. Specific attention in this chapter is given to intermediaries such as OTAs (Online Travel Agencies/Agents) and tour operators. At some time, these two types of intermediaries help to increase the reputation of tourism services providers, e.g., hotels. The chapter describes the situation in the field of intermediaries with a conceptual model, their ORM, and summarizes its specifics.

Platforms in two-sided markets are known to provide subsidies to either buyers or sellers, in order to take advantage of cross-group externalities inherent in such industries. Online travel agents can be thought of as platforms facilitating trade between passengers and travel service providers (airlines). This chapter evaluates the effects of a buyer subsidy provided by one major US online travel agent – a low-price guarantee offered by Orbitz. We find evidence consistent with increased airline participation with this travel agent upon implementation of the low-price guarantee policy. Our results also confirm the theoretical claims that most-favored customer low-price guarantee policies are procompetitive.

Purpose: The purpose of this chapter is to explore the current usage of robots, artificial intelligence and service automation in travel agencies (TA) and tourist information centres (TIC), and to provide insights about the future deployment of those technologies in the operations of travel agencies and tourist information centres

Design/methodology/approach: The chapter makes a review of travel agencies’ operations in the context of tourist consumer behaviour and then explores the current technologies utilized by TAs and TICs. There are forecasts about the future development of technologies in the TAs, discussing emerging issues and challenges, and final implications with concluding thoughts.

Findings: TA and TIC have incorporated a lot of automated technologies in their operations by numerous software applications; AI is still to proliferate and further excel, and the whole customer interaction tends to take place almost entirely in the digital space.

Research implications: TAs will continue to develop B2C or B2B software to increase their distribution efficiency and footprint through powerful computing capabilities, user-friendly systems, transparency, low fault rate, ease of search and real-time confirmation; virtual and augmented realities will become a standard. Back office tedious tasks and processes will be eliminated by the right software, which will further reduce the paper flow, increase cost-effectiveness and leverage the human involvement in the ordinary procedures of filing, reporting, administering, and analysing data

Social implications: The advance of technologies has certainly empowered the end customers, making them not only informed, but also more engaged. Consequently, the future technological development in TAs operation will focus on higher personalization, but at the expense of higher standardization of technologies.

Originality/value: TAs have certainly embraced technology integration as the only pathway to remain competitive and viable. The future development of RAISA in TAs seem to progress to full automation and AI integration where appropriate. The most challenging obstacles connected with technology introduction in TAs seem to be legal regulations, personal data protection, security issues and technical compatibility, but also moral issues like ethics and cultural understanding.

With the development of tourism industry, online travel agencies (OTA) have gradually become an important channel for tourism product supplies and sales. Some OTAs provide consumers with a platform for tourism guidance and online travel sharing. They not only satisfy some tourists’ desire to share their experiences but also provide reference for more consumers to choose travel products. This process is the process of value co-creation by customers and online travel companies. This study is conducted under DART theory, a theoretical framework of value co-creation composed of four dimensions, namely dialog, access, risk-assessment, and transparency. Brand equity is divided into four aspects: brand loyalty, brand awareness, customer perceived value, and brand image. This study uses the structural equation model to investigate the impact of customer value co-creation behavior on brand equity of online travel enterprises and interprets the process and mechanism of customer value co-creation behaviors for online travel business brand equity, which provides more efficient strategies and methods for platform interaction and value co-creation.

Generation Y is a new sizable market that is fast changing as the landscape of the internet rapidly evolves. Until now, research has examined mainly the perceptions of different online buyers of accommodation in specific geographical areas, with little attention devoted to Generation Y. This study examines Generation Y travelers’ perceptions of hotel disintermediation in France. The results, based on a sample of 378 French travelers, show four underlying dimensions of perceptions. Findings also reveal that only gender and age significantly influence perceptions. The chapter closes with implications for increasing trust and attractiveness of the online accommodation offer to French Generation Y.

This study provides a comprehensive framework of adaptation in triadic business relationship settings in the service sector. The framework is based on the industrial network approach (see, e.g., Axelsson & Easton, 1992; Håkansson & Snehota, 1995a). The study describes how adaptations initiate, how they progress, and what the outcomes of these adaptations are. Furthermore, the framework takes into account how adaptations spread in triadic relationship settings. The empirical context is corporate travel management, which is a chain of activities where an industrial enterprise, and its preferred travel agency and service supplier partners combine their resources. The scientific philosophy, on which the knowledge creation is based, is realist ontology. Epistemologically, the study relies on constructionist processes and interpretation. Case studies with in-depth interviews are the main source of data.

Because of the recent COVID-19 pandemic, online platforms where travelers' comments and reviews are published have grown considerably. More specifically, in the tourism sector, these social evaluations have been shown to have a strong influence as online platforms, such as online travel agencies (OTA), represent a main touchpoint for the formation process of the online corporate reputation. Hence, the purpose of this study is to investigate how the pandemic has influenced the online reputation formation of tourism companies and which are the new reputation pillars emerging from the COVID-19. To achieve this research aim, we analyzed the customers' reviews as reported publicly on TrustPilot.com, an online platform that allows customers to review businesses after a purchase or contact with their customer service, before and after COVID-19 so as to identify significant changes in the corporate reputational drivers of LastMinute.com. With this study we have identified the four topic clusters and their sentiment in the two periods of consideration, and we have found that the corporate reputation of tourism companies is formed today starting from different consumer needs. Finally, managerial implications for communication professionals operating in tourism firms are presented.