The relation between the travel agencies and the internet

Abstract

The future of traditional tourism intermediaries is based on a strong competition
not just for a survival matter but also leadership, dominated by virtual organizational models with great resilience, of change and innovative interactive systems anchored in the endogenous potential of the people, territories and in the entities claiming the legitimate differences and attract visitors in a sustainable way. The huge amount of information to be organized, managed, distributed and communicated and the great influence that the internet has caused in terms of profound change in business concepts, in organizational methods and especially in the management of travel agencies and tour operators offer, implicates the study of the articulation between these companies and the online way. This work aims to obtain and evaluate the opinions of travel agencies directors on the level of IT use in business and their
concerns about the future of the sector. This paper is structured by a theoretical frame composed of allusive approaches to the functioning of the traditional tourism intermediaries (tour operators and travel agencies) and an empirical component which describes the methodology that involved the application of an interview to a seven tourism intermediation companies directors, analysis and interpretation of data and our conclusions.