Abstract
Whilst much attention has been paid to the development of new tourism eMediaries, the growth of the Internet has also affected established tour operators. The aims of this paper are to examine the adoption of eBusiness by these players and explore issues linked to eBusiness driven change. The paper used a case study approach based on interviews with eBusiness executive from 3 of the 4 largest tour operators in UK and Europe and the analysis of supporting documentation such as company reports, journal and trade press articles. Findings highlight the fact that such companies have had to rethink fundamental aspects of their strategy and business models in order not only to survive but prosper. As a consequence considerable changes have also taken place in terms of organisational structures, organizational culture, business processes, skills-set requirements and technology infrastructure.
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Barnes, D., Hinton, M., Mieczkowska, S. (2002). Developing a Framework to Investigate the Impact of E-commerce on the Management of Internal Business Processes, Knowledge and Process Management, 9(3), 133–142.
Brett, J.L., Mahesh, S. & Hartman, S. (2005). The changing nature of work in the age of eBusiness, Journal of Organizational Change Management, 18(2), 132–144.
Buhalis, D. (2003). eTourism-Information technology for strategic tourism management. Harlow: Prentice Hall.
Buck, S. & Lei, Z. (2004). Charter Airlines: Have they a future. Tourism and Hospitality Research. 5(1), 72–78.
By, R. T. (2005). Organisational Change Management: A Critical Review. Journal of Change Management, 5(4), 369–380.
Chaffey, D (2004). eBusiness and e-Commerce Management, 2nd Edition. London: Prentice Hall Financial Times.
Cooper, C, Fletcher, J., Fyall, A. & Gilbert, D. (2005). Tourism Principles and Practice. 3rd Edition. Harlow: FT Prentice Hall.
Daniele, R. & Frew, A. J. (2006). The Giants Fight Back-Tour Operators’ Strategies. In A. J. Frew (Ed.) The Face Of Competition from Travel eMediaries, Proceedings of the Travel Distribution Summit, Europe — Research Conference, (pp. 11–22) London: Axon Imprint.
Daniele, R. & Frew, A. J. (2004). From Intermediaries to Market-Makers: an Analysis of the Evolution of E-Mediaries. In A. J Frew. (Ed.) ENTER 2004 — Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism, (pp. 546–557). Wien: Springer-Verlag.
Dombey, A. (2005). Navigating a Route to Profitability: The Future of Tour Operator Distribution, a Towards Europe report, London: Towards Europe Limited.
Drucker, P. (1999). Beyond the Information Revolution. Charleston: Atlantic.
Gountas, S. (2005). Tour Operations Management. In Pender, L. and Sharpley, R. (Eds.), The Management of Tourism, (pp. 47–67). London: Sage.
Hitwise (2006). Top 10 Travel Agency sites in the UK. June 2006. Retrieved August 7, 2006 from http://www.hitwise.com.
Jackson, P. & Harris, L. (2003). EBusiness and Organisational Change: Reconciling traditional values with business transformation. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 16(5), 497–511.
Karcher, K. (1996). Re-engineering the Package Holiday Business. In Klein, S. Schmid, B. Tjoa, A.M. (Eds.), ENTER 1996 — Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism Conference Proceedings (pp. 221–234). Wien: Springer-Verlag.
KarstadtQuelle (2006). Thomas Cook AG to realign its business. Retrieved August 17, 2006 from www.karstadtquelle/englisch/presse/1072_8378.asp
Krell, T. and Gale, J. (2005) EBusiness migration: a process model. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 18(2), 117–131.
Lewins, A. and Silver, C. (2005). Choosing a CAQDAS Package, a working paper, 3rd edition Nov 2005. Retrieved August 14, 2006 from http://caqdas.soc.surrey.ac.uk/ChoosineLewins&SilverV3Nov05.pdf accessed on 7/09/2005
Mintzberg, H. (1998). Covert leadership: notes on managing professionals. Harvard Business Review, 76(6), 140–147.
Pender, L. & Sharpley, R. (2005). The Management of Tourism, London: SAGE Publications.
Rieley, J. B & Clarkson, I. (2001). The Impact of Change on Performance. Journal of Change Management, 2(2), 160–172.
Scherpereel, C. & Lefebvre, J. (2006). Shocking the legacy mindset: management development and the internet. Journal of Management Development, 25(3), 232–248.
Shand, D. (2000). Dynamic Organization. Retrieved August 21, 2006 from http://www.destinationkm,com/print/default.asp?ArticleID=44
Siegel (2000). Futurize Your Enterprise: Business Strategy in the Age of the E-customer, New York: Wiley.
Thomas Cook (2005). Annual report 200. Retrieved August 18, 2006 from, http://www8.thomascook.de/tck/6168.isp
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2007 Springer-Verlag Wien
About this paper
Cite this paper
Daniele, R., Frew, A.J., By, R.T. (2007). Tour Operators in an eBusiness World The Challenge of Change. In: Sigala, M., Mich, L., Murphy, J. (eds) Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2007. Springer, Vienna. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-211-69566-1_20
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-211-69566-1_20
Publisher Name: Springer, Vienna
Print ISBN: 978-3-211-69564-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-211-69566-1