| Traditional travel agencies(TTAs) have been originally found to play an intermediary role between the travel service providers and the travelers. However, the wide proliferation of the technology and its applications in the field of tourism has offered the travelers various alternatives to the booking through those TTAs. Travelers now can arrange and book their holidays and travel services online since the e-commerce provide the ability to book travel services online. In other words, travelers have a multitude of choices regarding the decision making in arranging their travels; they will look for the most appropriate choices by choosing effective distribution channels that offer them the highest perceived service value. Thus, the need of TTAs' business has been questioned and their existence in the tourism market has been threatened.The main goal of this research is to find a comprehensive strategy for Beijing' TTAs in order to survive and keep their profits in the online travel era. This strategy focuses on targeting offline travelers by determining the travelers' characteristics and the travel patterns that still depend on TTAs in arranging and booking their travels to focus on, in addition to determining the reasons that could drive travelers to the online travel. Furthermore, it aims at targeting the online travelers by specifying the most important e-commerce functionalities that attract travelers to the TTAs' website and the barriers to e-commerce adoption. In addition, the study intends to clarify how to use Social Media' applications(SM' APPs) effectively to support the e-commerce operations in attracting online travelers and the advantages of and barriers to such SM adoption.In order to achieve the research objectives the researcher followed two methods in this study. First, he interviewed 20 TTAs in Beijing to find out their dilemmas and attitudes in the online travel era and how they applied e-commerce and SM' applications in their work. In addition, the researcher surveyed 202 Chinese travelers in Beijing using a structured questionnaire. The descriptive analysis has been employed to identify the most important travelers and travel patterns for TTAs, whereas the correlation analysis has been employed to determine the correlation between the adopted e-commerce functionalities and the attracted Chinese travelers to the website. Furthermore, the correlation analysis has been employed to measure the correlation between the adopted SM and the benefits achieved, in other words, determining the most important utilizations of e-commerce and SM from the perspective of both the TTAs and their travelers.Thus, regarding the offline travelers, this study has found that among the travelers older than 40 years old, the average income, the low educational level, the retired, and the selfemployed travelers are the most utilizers of TTAs' services. In addition, the group travel pattern(family, friends, college, etc.) and traveling with special needs are the most important travel patterns in which travelers use the TTAs' services rather than the online services. On the other hand, regarding the online travelers, the reasons behind going online are finding travel information online is easy, TTA requires time, and the wide range available through online services. In addition, the most important e-commerce functionalities on the website are the multiple value-added features, product catalogs, searchable databases, online booking, secure online payment, and the advanced value added features. However, it has been found that the technical barriers, the financial barriers, and the secure transactions are the most important barriers to the e-commerce adoption.Furthermore, the most important utilization of SM' applications is for advertising, entering dialogues with travelers, targeting a big market and delivering the information to a large base of travelers, supporting the sales volume, and getting feedback from travelers as well. In addition, it is used for marketing and selling travel offers, accommodation, and transportations' services provided by those agencies. This employment of e-commerce and SM' applications has been proven to be the most effective in attracting online travelers. |
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