Drivers of a tourism e-business strategy: the impact of information and communication technologies

The possible interactions among tourism organizations, their customers and other organizations are considered in this article. Based on these interactions, three drivers of an integrated e-business strategy in the tourism sector are suggested: (1) customizing tourist products, personalizing services and supporting mobile services, (2) sharing tourism information and operational data, and (3) offering tailor made products and supporting user-generated content. In order to emphasize our suggestions, the most representative figures derived from recent surveys conducted by the Sectoral e-Business W@tch are selected and analyzed. These figures are: (a) the use of customer relationship management applications in tourism and the importance of mobile services for different sectors of the economy including tourism, for the first driver, (b) the use of supply chain management systems, online purchasing and finally the use of broadband Internet as a complementary indicator, for the second driver, and (c) the use of ICT-enabled product and process innovations and dynamic packaging, for the third driver. The clear positive tendencies of these figures indicate the rising importance of our suggested directions as basic drivers of a tourism e-business strategy.