E-Commerce: The Internet and its Influence on the Travel Industry

Revision with unchanged content. Technology is ubiquitous and hardly anything works without it. There have been many innovations but one of the most important inventions of our time was the Internet. There is no doubt that the Internet had the greatest impact on our lives. The Internet has changed the way we communicate with each other, look for information, entertain ourselves and the way we do business. The Internet has come a long way and still evolves constantly and as fast as no other medium since 1966. Meanwhile, travel and tourism has become one of the fastest growing sectors. The growth of air travel after World War II favoured mass transportation to every destination of the world. Air travel is considered to be more comfortable and of course faster. The main objective of this book is to investigate the influence of the Internet on the travel sector and to examine the role of travel agents in this context. A critical review of the relevant literature was carried out including a questionnaire that was handed out to 50 respondents. The Internet is already part of our society and life as well as business is hard to imagine without it although it is a very young invention. As there is very little academic research on the topic, this book provides an insight on how the Internet has affected the way travel is distributed and what impacts it might have on travel agents in particular.