The involvement of more Tourism businesses and stakeholders at
14 Background The E-commerce industry in today’s scenario is ever-growing.
Background For the past few years, internet has been greatly used in the field of marketing. Consequently, a window of opportunities has been opened for marketers worldwide. Through internet, one can possible exploit various opportunities such as; online retail store, public relations, customer service, branding and advertising. Internet also provides great opportunities for retailers who operate online (Hanson & Kalyaman 2007). The retailers sell large amount of product and services thus increasing their business profit.
The internet has become an increasingly popular tool for both businesses and consumers. Consumers utilize websites to gain product knowledge, and make purchases. Businesses utilize websites to build deeper relations with their clientèle while attracting attention within potential clients needing specific services or products. The expectation that businesses have websites exists among consumers, making it difficult to profit without one. Without a website, businesses miss out on the profits gained by other businesses with websites.
However, today’s dynamic international marketing environment has created vast opportunities for organizations but at the same time, it has brought major threats which lead to business failures. Organizations can become highly competitive through the internet where the prime role is of E-commerce. E-commerce is the revolution
Infomediaries are web-based market makers that leverage the Internet to bring together buyers and sellers in niche markets, charging commissions for the products they help move... Sabre-type infomediaries took in $290 million in 1998. By 2002,... that number will grow to $20 billion” (Malik,1999). With technology like Sabre in picture the airline industry had enough information in terms of suppliers, global distribution systems, travel database etc. to create a market place which almost had perfect information regarding schedules and fares which incepted the idea of e-commerce in travel industry (Smith, Gunther, Rao, Ratliff, 2001).
1.0) Introduction 1.1) Background During the past decades, the retailing industry has gone through many important changes. Saturated markets, fierce competition, and the turbulent macro-economic environment have condemned retailers to reconsider their retail strategy. Actually there are four factors which have constantly been reshaping the world of business – technological advances such as the internet, the loss of geographic advantage resulting from globalization, the shake-up of the traditional industries as a result of de-regulation and the rising power of the modern and complex consumer. However one of the most important factors remains the evolution of the Internet.
E-commerce (electronic commerce or EC) is the buying and selling of goods and services, or the transmitting of funds or data, over an electronic network, primarily the internet. The terms e-commerce and e-business are often used interchangeably. The term e-tail is also sometimes used. Or what we know and familiar with as online shopping.
Over the past few years , the growth of both tech hardware and the internet has had a direct correlation with eCommerce. Just as the internet has grown into the desired medium for marketing, advertising, and purchasing of products, goods, and services; eCommerce has grown to rival traditional shopping in many ways. Logistics has come a long way in the business world .There was a time when the retailers used to directly source goods from suppliers and manufacturers. Today, there are eCommerce fulfillment distribution centers for distributing the products. Logistics includes many aspects like warehousing, inventory management, billing, packaging, labelling, shipping, cash on delivery, payment, product return & exchange, and much more.
Since the beginning of the 1990’s, e-commerce has radically changed consumer behaviour by introducing new retail channels (Ngai and Gunasekaran, 2007). Serious attempts to trade online started to emerge in the mid-1990s wheninnovative, technically savvy companies responded to the opportunities and challenges posed by the internet, to develop sophisticated web sites to serve customers, in their homes (Rayport and Sviokla, 1994). The present retail environment is characterised by new, store and non- store, retailing formats, a wide range of new products, use of new information and communication technologies and consequently, the changing customer needs. Moreover, the dynamic lifestyle conditions of consumers has resulted a change in their personal environment that contributes to a profound change in customer behaviour (Schröder and Zaharia, 2008). Retailing in the 21st century means doing business with customers on their terms (Mathwicket al., 2002).
And as we know economy and tourism drive each other and it’s important to think about the economical aspect. So, the main importance of tourism portals is publicity and promotion of unique events in the
“Tourism Behaviour understanding includes the idea and knowledge of the different factors which are by no other means very obvious because the effects which do shape the activities and tastes of tourism are often highly embedded in the cultural and the personal biography of the individual that the whole of subject is not known of how actually they were made.” (Seaton, 1996). Figure.1. The tourism system.
Causes According to Amin & Noor (2013), the E-consumers generally refer to the purchaser of goods and services over electronic systems such as Internet and other computer networks. This new group of consumers is increasing in number over the years as on-line shopping become a trend and manifestation of modern life style. Based from the Paynter & Lim (2001), E-commerce would provide consumers with benefits such as interactive communications, fast delivery, and more customization that would only be available for consumers through online shopping. Product information in the Internet is more compact and it ranges from various sites.
Nowadays hospitality and tourism industry is one of the main industry in this world. A lot of people need a place to escape from their routines or even just to stay overnight as they having a business trip to other places. We call these people as customer or guest. Human mobility from one place to another , both in the country and from and abroad is very high. Human mobility is not only related to business activities but also recretional activities.
A time before the introduction of Internet, the consumer would visit a travel agency to review the tourist information, usually conveyed through the travel brochure, and select the options that most interested him. Today, one can no longer speak of this kind of tourism. The growing world population, evolution of tourist behavior and introduction of the internet has expanded the
