A Study On The Structure Of Tourism Value Chain In The Mobile Internet Era

The change ICT (information and computer technology) brought to the tourism industry is huge. With the liberation of the 3G license in China in 2009, the development of mobile Internet in China began to accelerate. Under this context, construction of the structure of tourism value chain in the Mobile Internet Era is worthy of theoretical and empirical exploration. On the one hand, the study improves the tourism industry value chain theory; on the other hand it instructs the development of tourism industry in the mobile Internet era as references.This thesis tries to build the structure of tourism value chain in the mobile internet era by adopting multiple case study methodology based on the literature review of the impacts of ICT on tourism industry and the application of mobile internet in the tourism industry.This thesis can be divided into five chapters. The first chapter introduces the background, significance of this study as well as the relative literature review and the research methodology this study adopted.Chapter II is about the theoretical base of this study. In this part tourism value chain and mobile internet conception framework are introduced.Chapter III analyzes the development status of mobile internet in the tourism field which includes the application status and the development of tourism industry in the mobile internet era. In this part the application status of mobile internet in tourism is summarized into three catalogs.Chapter IV is the whole research process of this study. In this part six samples are selected and analyzed. These six samples separately represent the mobile internet travel agency, the vertical mobile tourism search engine, the mobile internet trade platform, the mobile tourism social network, the mobile tourism destination information service and the mobile reservation platform of tourism enterprises. This part gives the modes of value flow by analyzing the stakeholders of the samples and other similar enterprises.Chapter V illustrates four topics which need further discussion and draws a conclusion of this study which includes the application category, the way tourism enterprises carried out mobile internet business, the impact of mobile internet on the tourism value chain and the structure of tourism value chain in the mobile internet era. Finally this part gives the limitation of this study and the research prospects of mobile internet in tourism industry.