Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
CONCLUSION
The Travel industry is an information intensive
. With the adoption of
the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), and the Internet,
in particular, both the distribution chain and the way of doing business
have changed. The Internet connects all players directly—airlines, tour
operators, travel agents and their consumers,
one
CT has be-
come a catalyst of travel industry globalization and integration.
and in this way I
However,
it has been noted that digital disparities between destinations leads
to an asymmetrical development of the global tourism system (Min-
getti and Buhalis, 2010). The research on the digital divide in tourism
would help to identify appropriate actions to bridge the digital gaps
and to develop communication mechanisms between digitally exclud-
ed markets, destination and businesses.
There is a little academic and business research on ICT adoption by
the Kazakhstan tourism industry (Garkavenko et al., 2009a,b; 2010a,b;
Garkavenko and Tiberghien, 2011a,b; 2012). Our previous studies showed
considerable disparities between travel industry
sectors and businesses
within a sector
in terms of ICT adoption. The presented study summarizes
the ICT adoption by the Kazakhstan tourism industry and consumers using
both secondary and primary data. The original exploratory study adopts
qualitative methods to seek a holistic understanding of the under-investi-
gated
Kazakhstan travel industry.
It was found that the level of ICT adoption by the travel industry in
Kazakhstan is variable within the different sectors and between different
businesses within one sector, and generally is much lower compared to
that of western countries. As one would expect, airlines were the earliest
adopters of ICT and they are fully integrated with the international airline
network. The hotel industry, however, varies in ICT adoption. The biggest
hotels are part of major international chains and keep their systems up
to international standards. Small hotels
, are not as motivated in
ICT implementation—some of them prefer to connect directly with travel
agents to attract tourists, and they do not have any web presence. Re-
garding tour operators, ICT adoption is restricted to one particular GDS—
Amadeus. The travel agents' sector is the biggest sector
however
tourism
industry in Kazakhstan by the number of businesses. It also varies in the
level of ICT adoption—there is a group of TAs that has invested in the
GDS system (again Amadeus only) to purchase tickets or to have access
of the
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