The Impact of Adopting the Applications of Web 2.0 on Egyptian Travel Agencies Business : With Specal Reference to Facebook Social Network

Document Type : Original Article

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Department of Tourism Studies - Faculty of Tourism and Hotels - Mansoura University

Abstract

As travel industry has quickly moved to the Internet, this paper is concerned with the adoption of Web 2.0 applications; especially Facebook social network, by some travel agencies in Egypt, and how it affects their business. The core problem of this paper is to determine how these travel agencies respond to this new generation of applications, and how they exert their efforts to benefit from them. The overall goal of this paper is to: a) provide some insights into Web 2.0 showing the difference among its generations, b) determine both benefits of and barriers to Web 2.0 adoption, c) review different kinds of Web 2.0 applications by which travel agencies could amend their customer relationship management and marketing plans by exploiting user-generated content and social network interactions in order to incorporate travellers into their business operations, and d) evaluate the impact of Facebook social network as one of Web 2.0 applications used by some travel agencies in Egypt on their business. This paper is built on the following hypothesis: Egyptian travel agencies have not exploited Web 2.0 applications effectively yet; particularly Facebook social network, and if they do not adopt it quickly, their business and customer relationships will be affected negatively. The methods of research were literature review and survey questionnaires distributed to travel agencies in Egypt (March: July, 2011). Relevant recommendations are given.

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