E-Commerce Adoption In Traditional Travel Agencies(TTAs)in The Age Of Online Travel In Yemen

Initially,Traditional Travel Agencies(TTAs)played an intermediate role between travel service suppliers and travelers.However,in the tourism industry,the widespread proliferation of technology has provided travelers with different solutions to booking services.Thus,it was questioned the need for the TTAs and their presence on the market.The primary goal of this study is to find an extensive strategy for Yemen's TTAs in the online travel age to survive and maintain their profits.This strategy concentrates on targeting offline travelers by determining the travel patterns and the characteristics of travelers who still rely on TTAs,in addition to determining the reasons that could drive travelers to online portals.It also aims to target online travelers by finding the most important e-commerce functionalities of attraction to TTAs' websites.Besides,to clarify the role of using Social Media' applications SM'Apps.The researcher used two methods.First,interviewed 14 Yemeni TTAs to find out their issues in the age of online travel and learned about how they applied e-commerce and SM' Apps in their business.Then surveyed 207 Yemeni travelers using a structured questionnaire.The descriptive analysis was employed to identify the most frequent travelers' patterns for TTAs,whereas the correlation analysis was employed to determine the correlation between the attracted Yemeni travelers to the website and the adopted e-commerce functionalities.This study has found that among travelers over the age of 40,the median income,low level of education,retired,and self-employed travelers are the most utilizers of TTAs' services.Besides,traveling during the season such as(Hajj&Umrah,Eid)and the group travels are the most common pattern in which travelers tend to use the TTAs' services.On the other hand,the reasons behind going online are that finding travel information online is easy and has a range of options,and TTA requires more time.However,it was discovered that the most significant barriers to e-commerce adoption are technical barriers,financial barriers,and secure transactions.Furthermore,the most significant utilization of SM' Apps is for advertising,marketing,absorbing a large market and delivering the information to them,supporting the sales volume,and getting feedback.Also,it is used for selling travel offers,transportations,and accommodation' services provided by those agencies.