E-tourism and Customer Satisfaction Factors

Abstract

Information and Communication Technologies are rapidly expanding and have affected the businesses and the way organizations compete (Porter, 2001). ICTs have been applied in tourism industry over a number of years. Organizations adopt e-business for several reasons and perceived benefits. In this paper we first will introduce different aspects of e-tourism including benefits, threats, barriers and finally will go through the customer satisfaction factors in E-tourism.
Despite the importance of E-tourism there has been less research on its different aspects. There are researches held on tourists' satisfaction and also on on-line satisfaction but there is still a research gap on on-line satisfaction in tourism industry. Current research is going to fill this gap by finding the most important determinants of Convenience in E-satisfaction in tourism industry. The methodologies used in this research are conducting focus group interviews and distributing the questionnaire. Our respondents were a sample of passengers from Mehrabad airport, Tehran, who has experienced e-tourism at least once before. This research yields rich insights for the managers of E-tourism firms, by introducing the factors which have the most impact on customer's convenience which in turn is one of the determinants of satisfaction in E-tourism. The result show that time efficiency, Possibility of purchasing anywhere, Convenience of purchasing any time, Direct access to information and customer service are the factors which build convenience in E-tourism comparing with the traditional travel agencies. Moreover it shows that Convenience of purchasing any time in E-tourism comparing with the limited working hours of traditional travel agencies has satisfied tourists the most.