Impact of ICT on UK Travel Agents: A Research Project

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RESEARCH PROJECT

Table of Contents
TITLE.............................................................................................................................................. 3
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION..........................................................................................................3
Research Aim............................................................................................................................. 3
Research Objectives...................................................................................................................3
Research Questions................................................................................................................... 4
Hypothesis................................................................................................................................. 4
Rationale....................................................................................................................................4
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW..................................................................................................5
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY......................................................................................................... 7
CHAPTER 4: TIMESCALE................................................................................................................. 9
REFERENCES.................................................................................................................................10
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List of Tables
Table 1: Timeline for the given Project...........................................................................................9
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TITLE
“Assessing the negative impacts of ICT and internet on the travel agents in the UK”
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
In the last few years, there have been significant changes in various sectors in the UK due to the
arrival of Information Communication Technology (ICT). Moreover, with the easy availability of
the internet, it has become easy for customers to find out new tourism destination for spending
their leisure time. In these changing times, the travel agents in the UK are also facing a high-
grade invasion in their working due to the advent utilisation of ICT by the travellers and tourist
lovers alike (Aramendia-Muneta and Lopez, 2013).
The most important negative impact of ICT on the UK based travel agents is the self-service
booking for travelling by customers themselves via online booking which has significantly
reduced the role of the travel agents. Customers no longer require the travel agency to book
for their trip and they could now prefer to online companies to book their full trip by
themselves. What’s more, the hotel groups and airlines have negated the role of travel agents
by allowing ticket booking directly from their official websites (Sánchez-Pérez, et al. 2019).
Besides, customers are effectively utilising the services of ICT to get the information about the
price of the ticket as well as a travel destination by themselves making the role of travel agent
redundant.
Research Aim
“To evaluate the negative impacts of ICT and internet on the functioning of UK based travel
agents”
Research Objectives
 To evaluate the role of internet and ICT on travel agents in the UK
 To identify key factors due to which travel agents are facing a backlash from the ICT
 To find out ways to overcome the negative impacts of ICT on the functioning of the
travel agents
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Research Questions
 What is ICT and how it has affected the functioning of the organisations in the UK?
 What are the factors which have impacted the working of travel agents in the UK due to
the widespread use of ICT?
 Does the consistent use of ICT have rendered the services of travel agent more
redundant?
 Does the travel agents across the UK have to find out ways to mitigate the negative
impacts of ICT?
Hypothesis
H0 = The widespread use of ICT and internet has no negative impact on the travel agents in the
UK
H1 = The widespread use of ICT and internet has a significant impact on the travel agents in the
UK
Rationale
The reason behind choosing this topic is to examine how ICT has changed the way of
conducting the business in the tourism industry. ICT and internet have allowed the consumers
to have direct interaction with the hotels and airlines for online booking which has cut short the
role of travel agents to act as an intermediary between them. It has been found that the
negative impact on travel agents across the UK due to ICT has become beneficial for the
customers. It all depends on these agents to identify new sources so as to convert the
negativity due to ICT for their advantage otherwise they would be wiped out due to the
rampage of ICT (Wang, et al. 2019). The study would discuss this concern in detail to help the
travel agents to mitigate the impact of ICT and internet in an appropriate manner.
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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
Jiang and Ke (2019) have identified various factors which have been affecting the working of
travel agents in the UK due to ICT and one of the major factors is the provision of online
booking. Due to online booking, travellers have been privileged to get rid of booking their tour
packages with the help of travel agents. The study illustrates how the online medium of
booking has provided the booking of tour packages at any time, place and as per their
convenience. This, in turn, has allowed the customers to save both their time and money and
thus become less dependent on tour agents.
Another important factor due to which ICT has diminished the role of travel agents as described
by Möhring et al. (2019) is that the customers have been able to find the price of the room,
airline services by themselves using various websites which provide these services. This has
further resulted in a loss for travel agents as the customers now do not call them to ask the rate
of the tour packages and give more preference to online available prices which are latest and
more accurate. Cooke and Huggins (2018) agrees with Möhring et al. (2019) and have
conducted deep research and find out that there has been development of the perception
among consumers that internet is the best source where they would get the necessary
information about the travel tickets at a cheaper rate as compared to the services provided by
the travel agents.
Özturan et al. (2019) have revealed in their studies that there has been a significant impact on
the travel agents whole over the UK due to ICT. They have concerned about the working of the
travel agencies and believe that if they do not take the necessary steps, their role would reduce
to a great low extent and they would become inexistent in the future. Supporting the views of
the Özturan et al. (2019); Chang et al. (2019) have reported that ICT has highly benefitted the
customers and have helped them to get rid of the unwanted fee hikes from the tour operators.
This has helped the people to directly avail the services of the internet and conduct online
booking by themselves. Moreover, Chang et al. (2019) have also forewarned that if ICT
continues to conduct rampage on the tourism agencies, then they would have to close their
operation in the near future.
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Dexeus (2019) have disclosed in their studies that in the present scenario, there is a wide
presence of ICT, online and social media and have brought significant changes in the life of the
people. The widespread use of ICT has compelled travel agencies to bring significant changes in
its organisation and structure which have resulted in an increase in the problem of
unemployment. With the advent use of the internet, the traditional travel channels such as
tourism agencies have been dried off their resources and thus plunging them into further
financial crises. In order to cope up with such issues, Cooke and Huggins (2018) have suggested
that the time has come for the travel agents across the UK to find out significant methods and
strategies to stay relevant in the business. If they fail to do so, they would be steadily replaced
by the online media.
Thus it could be concluded that various studies have hinted that the widespread use of ICT and
internet would stay here forever and would affect all those industries and businesses which
would not include their services in their daily operations. Various researchers have pointed out
that ICT has proved to be beneficial for the consumers who love travelling. This is because, with
the easy availability of the internet, they could conduct all the process of booking tour packages
which was previously conducted by the tour agents. Therefore, they have become more
independent and are able to save their time and money by not visiting the office of travel
agents. Besides this, the study also revealed that the time has arrived that the tour agencies
should utilise or devise some new strategies so as to mend off the danger posed by ICT on their
services otherwise; they have to suffer severe losses in their business and would result in their
untimely departure.
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CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY
The research methodology (RM) is an essential part of the research project and it helps the
researcher in assessing the relevancy of the information they have collected to prepare the
given study in a unique manner. For the given study, the best approach would be using a mixed
method to collect the data (Crane and Matten, 2016). These mixed methods include the use of
qualitative as well as quantitative research methods. The qualitative research method would be
carried out through extracting information from books, journals, articles, online publications
and government websites. On the other hand, quantitative research would be conducted using
primary research to collect relevant data from genuine resources. Both these methods have
been beneficial to collect accurate and highly reliable data.
Primary Research
In the given methodology, there would a preparation of a questionnaire through which list of
question would be asked from the given respondents. These respondents include customers,
employees and management of travel agents across the UK. This would help the researcher in
collecting reliable and accurate data. These given data would be analyzed so as to get valid
results and in turn would help the researcher to achieve their objectives in a significant manner
(Cooke and Huggins, 2018). However, one drawback of this research is that it becomes
somewhat biased and thus tends to bring down the accuracy of the given result.
Secondary Research
This research is conducted by taking the help of various journals, books, articles and literature
related to the given topic so that the researcher would be able to generate important
information about the given topic. Moreover, the study would help the researcher in getting a
good amount of relevant information so as to get access to a wide variety of ideas. However,
one drawback of such research is that it sometimes provides information which has become
obsolete and thus reduces the reliability and accuracy of the given study.
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Data Collection
The data would be collected from various literature sources as well as from the questionnaire
and then it would be presented in a refined format so as to produce a relevant project for the
users. The data would be collected from the primary and secondary sources and they would be
represented in the form of pie charts and tables (Burns, 2016).
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CHAPTER 4: TIMESCALE
The timeline of the research activities has been an important part of a research project because
it would help in successful carrying out of all the research activities in a significant manner. For
proper implication of the research project, a Gantt chart would be created using a timeline of
different research activities. A Gantt chart for the given research project would be framed as it
would include all those activities which would help in the proper undertaking of the whole
research. Besides, it would help in mitigating the risks associated with the time constraint.
Furthermore, this chart would help the researcher in providing proper guidance to efficiently
implement and monitor the research project (Burns, 2016).
Table 1: Timeline for the given Project
TASK DURATION (Weeks)
Identification of the Problem 1
Determination of the aims and objectives 1
Literature Review
3
Designing the Research Project 4
Collection and Interpretation of Data 5
Evaluation the Results and Conclusion 6
Findings and recommendation 7
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REFERENCES
Aramendia-Muneta,M. E. and Lopez, O. A., 2013. ICT impact on tourism industry. International
Journal of Management Cases. International Journal of Management Cases, pp.84-98.
Burns, P., 2016. Entrepreneurship and small business. Palgrave Macmillan Limited.
Chang, Y.W., Hsu, P.Y. and Lan, Y.C., 2019. Cooperation and competition between online travel
agencies and hotels. Tourism Management, 71, pp.187-196.
Cooke, P. and Huggins, R., 2018. High-technology clustering in Cambridge (UK). In The
institutions of local development(pp. 63-84). Routledge.
Crane, A. and Matten, D., 2016. Business ethics: Managing corporate citizenship and
sustainability in the age of globalization. Oxford University Press.
Dexeus, C.R., 2019. The Deepening Effects of the Digital Revolution. In The Future of Tourism
(pp. 43-69). Springer, Cham.
Jiang, Q. and Ke, G., 2019. Information sharing and bullwhip effect in smart destination network
system. Ad Hoc Networks, 87, pp.17-25.
Möhring, M., Keller, B. and Schmidt, R., 2019. Insights into Advanced Dynamic Pricing Systems
at Hotel Booking Platforms. In Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2019
(pp. 265-277). Springer, Cham.
Özturan, M., Mutlutürk, M., Çeken, B. and Sarı, B., 2019. Evaluating the information systems
integration maturity level of travel agencies. Information Technology & Tourism, pp.1-21.
REFERENCES
Sánchez-Pérez, M., Illescas-Manzano, M.D. and Martínez-Puertas, S., 2019. Modeling hotel
room pricing: A multi-country analysis. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 79,
pp.89-99.
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Wang, X., Sun, J. and Wen, H., 2019. Tourism seasonality, online user rating and hotel price: A
quantitative approach based on the hedonic price model. International Journal of Hospitality
Management, 79, pp.140-147.
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