Business Excellence, Vol. 7 No. 1, 2013.
Preliminary communication
DYNAMICS OF IMPACT OF NEW TRENDS IN TOURISM BY USING ICT AND CONSEQUENCES OF BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION PROCESS OF TRAVEL AGENCIES
Iris Mihajlović
orcid.org/0000-0002-2991-176X
; Department of Economics and Business Economics, Univeristy of Dubrovnik
Abstract
Dynamic and uncertain surroundings change the scope of travel agencies, thus imposing adjustments by accepting new challenges and possibilities in both general business and in their own production. Th e intensity of changes from the point of view of the tourist off er has infi ltrated the tourist agency, and is based on the criteria of responsibility and competitiveness as well as on high requirements of the tourist demand initiated by specific interests and based on the perception of quality. No matter the character or the outcome of the changes, travel agencies show their willingness to adapt by introducing some changes
into their business. These issues, argued in the first part of the paper, are supported by the results of a secondary research that was conducted among 27 EU member states. Th e character of the changes is further analyzed by the level of intensifi cation of work in a travel
agency and the probability of abandoning traditional ways of doing business by accepting and applying modern communication technologies and associated organizational cultures. In the second part, the emphasis is on primary research conducted among travel agency
managers in the Republic of Croatia in order to investigate the intensity of the impact of new trends in tourism and new technologies on diminishing the role of travel agencies, or the meaning of the impact of new technologies on specifi c business areas. The results of
these studies indicate the specifi c role of ICT in tourism and its specific coalition in specific areas of business within an internal environment of the travel agencies under new business
conditions.
Keywords
dynamic surroundings; the system of tourism; tourist agencies; ICT; transformation
Hrčak ID:
106139
URI
Publication date:
30.6.2013.
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