Information and Communication Technology in Travel Agency Operations

This report examines the significant impact of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) on modern travel agencies. It explores how ICT, including internet-based systems, GDSs, and CRSs, has revolutionized operations by facilitating up-to-date pricing, product availability, and reservation systems. The report highlights the benefits of ICT, such as enhanced customer relationship management, personalized services, strategic marketing, and improved efficiency through integrated front and back-office operations. Furthermore, it discusses technologies like Tourmanager and Bistro, which aid in budget management and offer price comparisons. The report also acknowledges the disadvantages, including the need for employee training and potential integration issues. Overall, the report emphasizes the importance of ICT in enhancing travel agency performance and adapting to the evolving technological landscape.

Running head: ICTs in Travel Agency
Information and Communication Technology in Travel Agency
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1
INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY IN TRAVEL AGENCY
Information and Communication Technology in Travel Agency
In this new world of technology, information technology has been evaluating day by
day, which have considerable impacts on the travel agencies. Internet has become an integral
part of the human kind of this new age, which could play important role in the daily
operations of the modern travel agencies. Information and communication technologies
(ICTs) completely relied on the internet and majority of the population are connected with the
internet nowadays (Mihajilovic, 2012). This implication could help in gathering more
customers’ attraction and Following are the usage and values of the information and
communication technology in the travel agencies:
It helps in facilitating up-to-date prices, product availability and the schedules for the
customers. Expansion of Group decision support system (GDSs) and Customer Reporting
Standard (CRSs) technology helps in providing a mechanism of effective reservation system.
Information and communication technology can help travel agencies in promoting to build
complicated travel routes, which can help in attracting more customers. Personalize services
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system can help the agencies in tracking the
activities of the clients, which can be beneficial to fulfill the needs of the customers and
provide services according to the demand (Rubin, Lomazova & Vander Aalst, 2014). The
‘Front and Back office’ operations have become more integrated by implementation
information and communication technologies into the daily operations of the travel agencies.
Strategic marketing and management can be accomplished by implementing ICTs in the
system (Xiang, Magnini & Fesenmaier, 2015). It was being reported that implementation of
CRSs and GDSs was very helpful in increasing the productivity of the travel agencies, thus
most of the travel agency can use it as a measurement and improvement tool for the agencies.
Linkage to a particular distribution channel can result in dependencies. Technologies like

2
INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY IN TRAVEL AGENCY
Tourmanager, Bistro and many others, offer multi-supplier and Global offers and price
comparison between the different travel agencies, which can be helpful in managing the
agency its budget plan offering for the customers. It could help in evaluating and calculating
the last-minute offers, flights, hotel offers, and last-minute offers. It can also be helpful in
providing tourists detailed information about the description of the operations that the agency
could offer them. Videotext systems is a technology that can be used as a tool by the travel
agency in order to connect with the reservation and database system of the tour operators,
which is not much expensive and reliable. This technology improved the traditional way of
doing operations.
These values can be helpful in enhancing the performance of the travel agencies and
perform its daily operations in effective and efficient manner. Irrespective of this advantages
or values of ICTs in the travel agency, there are certain disadvantages of this implication into
the system, which are; firstly, this implication needs certain basic trainings for the employees
on how to use these technologies (Almunawar, Anshari & Susanto, 2013). Secondly,
Integration between the ‘front and back office’ is not much effective and reliable. Reservation
process system is much time consuming.

3
INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY IN TRAVEL AGENCY
References:
Almunawar, M. N., Anshari, M., & Susanto, H. (2013). Crafting strategies for sustainability:
how travel agents should react in facing a disintermediation. Operational
Research, 13(3), 317-342.
Mihajlovic, I. (2012). The impact of information and communication technology (ICT) as a
key factor of tourism development on the role of Croatian travel
agencies. International Journal of Business and Social Science, 3(24).
Rubin, V., Lomazova, I., & van der Aalst, W. M. (2014, May). Agile development with
software process mining. In Proceedings of the 2014 international conference on
software and system process (pp. 70-74). ACM.
Xiang, Z., Magnini, V. P., & Fesenmaier, D. R. (2015). Information technology and
consumer behavior in travel and tourism: Insights from travel planning using the
internet. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 22, 244-249.