E-business: A study of travel agents in Taiwan and their perceptions of information technology (China)

The popularity of the Internet and the World Wide Web has provided a whole new virtual platform to conduct business called E-Business, and created both opportunities and threats for travel agencies in the tourism industry. For travel agencies, understanding the perceptions of travel agents regarding computer usage and the important elements of functional websites is necessary to ensure success when adopting E-Business. Questionnaire investigation and statistical analysis were applied in conducting and analyzing this research.; The questionnaire for the survey consisted of an established psychometric instrument based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and a new instrument developed for this research in order to investigate users' computer technology acceptance. The opinions of travel agents regarding the important elements of functional websites were also investigated. The instrument was translated into Chinese by following forward translation/back translation protocol. The web-based survey was administrated anonymously to travel agents who worked for 16 randomly selected travel agencies across 82 consolidated travel agencies in Taiwan. The survey received 200 usable data from 208 responses. For data analysis, descriptive, ANOVA and regression statistical methods were applied to analyze collected data.; The major findings indicated that first, the perceived usefulness (PU) of participating travel agents can be affected by job relevance, education level and work experience; the perceived ease of use (EOU) can be predicted by computer self-efficacy. Second, behavioral intention to use computer technology can be predicted by attitude towards use and its determinants---PU and EOU. Third, there were no significant differences between genders and education levels regarding PU and EOU. Fourth, it is necessary to provide training programs for travel agents to use computer technology more efficiently. Fifth, the commerce function and the content feature were considered the two most important elements for a functional website, with emphasis on online security issues, in both cases. Finally, the study results recommend that due to rapid technological developments and the emergence of the Internet, travel agencies will need to innovate and reengineer their operations if they are to survive in the future hypercompetitive tourism industry.