2. International Journal of Management (IJM), ISSN 0976 – 6502(Print), ISSN 0976 - 6510(Online),
Volume 4, Issue 5, September - October (2013)
agencies in Albania. The findings of the study will contribute to a better understanding of electronic
services on touristic agencies websites and confirm in general the usefulness, with suggestions for
improving websites according to customer needs. In addition, this research provides
recommendations for touristic agencies and professionals on how to build well-constructed and
effective websites in order to have a powerful tool for marketing.
2. STUDY METHODOLOGY
2.1 Sampling Procedure
For the purpose of this study, was used the directory of the travel agencies published in the
website of Tourism National Agency in Albania, (http://www.akt.gov.al). The directory contains the
top 125 touristic agencies in Albania, with different level of operational capabilities. Some touristic
agencies operate within Albania while others are registered for both domestic and international
travel. Out of the 125 travel agencies, we select a total sample of 60 agencies which had developed
their website. Search engines, Google and (http://www.akt.gov.al) were used to find the
corresponding websites. As the site performance may be influenced by the type of browser, computer
speed, internet speed, and time of a day, these external factors were controlled when conducting the
content analyses of the sites.
Special attention was paid to primary research conducted with final customer through the
Internet which is a novelty for this study. In order to get answers from the consumer 190
questionnaires' were distributed to consumers of touristic agencies. The questionnaires contain four
sections within 28 questions in total. The main aim of questions of first section was to provide
consumer demographic information: age, gender, profession, incomes, education. The aim of the
second section was to provide computer and Internet usage information. The third section of
questionnaires was design to provide information about customer perception towards 14 electronic
services offered by websites of touristic agencies using a five point Likert scale.
3. LITERATURE REVIEW
3.1. The definition of internet marketing.
Studies on the role and impact of the Internet have been conducted in recent years,
particularly in the area of advertising and marketing. The Internet has proven to be an effective
means of marketing, advertising, distributing goods, and information services. The Web is both the
biggest challenge and the biggest opportunity for touristic agencies in a long time. The aggressive
global growth of e-commerce is captivating. Although media attention has been more squarely
focused on social media, the rapid growth of e-commerce is truly remarkable. Over 86% of all Web
users worldwide have made at least one online purchase. That represents a 40% increase in the past
two years, and it includes a staggering 93% of all Web users in Europe and 92% of Web users in
North America. SOURCE: Nielsen Global Online Survey, Nielsen, Jan. 2008.
Internet marketing is a process of building and maintaining customer relationship through online
activities to facilitate the exchange of ideas, products, and services that satisfy the goals of both
parties. (Internet marketing. Building advantages in networked economy. Rafi.Mohammed; Robert J.
Fisher; Bernard J. Jaworski; Gordon J. Paddison, p.4, 2004)
E-commerce is the buying and selling of services through any electronic medium. For our purposes,
we focus on e-commerce as it exists on the Web, where sites provide the ability to shop for, research,
and purchase products via electronic payment transaction (either directly through their site or
through a third-party payment processing site). Principles of Internet Marketing, New Tools and
Methods for web Developers, Jason Miletsky, p.299, 2009)
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Tourism industry is a very fragmented and an information-rich business, which makes it especially
receptive for the benefits that the internet offers. One of the characteristics of tourism products is that
it is intangible, in other words, they can’t be sampled before the purchase decision is made. The
information-based nature of the tourism products means that the Internet, which offers global reach
and multimedia capability, is an ideal communication vehicle for promoting and distributing tourism
products and services.
3.2 The modern features of the European tourist market.
The most important modern features of the European tourist market as a result of the
development of electronic technologies,- could be systematized as follows:
• increasing the level of complexity the competition on the market;
• offering products simplified to the most, because the only determining element is their price;
• increasing the sales of two-component travel in the net (airplane ticket and accommodation;
accommodation and rent-a-car);
• increased number of buyers who purchase from foreign intermediaries;
• tourists are less protected, especially when they buy from foreign agents, because of the differences
in national legislations.
There are few studies about, how Internet had changed traditional tourism industry in developed
countries. Furthermore there are only a few researches into the classification of electronic services in
websites of tourism agencies in Albania. Some publications of results do exist but they do not
specifically address tourism websites.
4. THE ONLINE PRESENCE OF TOURISTIC AGENCIES IN ALBANIA.
Evaluation of websites has been the focus of many empirical studies. Despite of this results of
research and researchers vary according to different studies. Most of them emphasize the presence of
more than a billion pages on the Internet. Websites are become part of the market space and
communication. They offer great opportunities for companies round the world. However,
organizations today have to balanced opportunities and constraints offered by the internet. According
to Sterne, the company's online presence results for two main reasons: First, the perceived need to be
in touch with customers or competitors, in terms of image design and provision of services. Second,
Internet is a vital tool for marketing activities of the organization. Touristic agencies use a variety of
published and computer-based sources for information on departure and arrival times, fares, hotels
accommodations, different kind of offers or promotions. Touristic agencies who primarily work for
tour operators and other travel arrangers may help develop, arrange, and sell the company's own
package tours and travel services. They may promote these services, using telemarketing, direct mail,
and the Internet. Things have changed dramatically over the past several years in terms of website
design and electronic services in it. Today some touristic agency websites are starting to find other
uses of their websites, such as providing interactive functions and personalizing and customizing its
contents based on the characteristics of their target markets. Touristic agencies have come to realize
that their websites serve as extended office to their customers and represent the quality of their
products and services as well as their reputation. Agencies are trying to introduce new electronic
services to attract and maintain the consumers. The Albanian tourism industry has developed its
online services and obtained some initial experience. Albania has a different tourism ecommerce
development environment in which barriers and challenges are still present. This also applies for
Albania and was clearly shown in the results of the internet user’s field research, where 52 % of the
respondents said that they have used the internet to find information about tourist services. In the
beginning, touristic agency websites were simply used as an ‘online brochure’, in other words,
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providing static information for the online consumers to view. The National Agency of Tourism of
Albania, has started its activity since the year 2005 and serve as main online directory for touristic
agencies, hotels, restaurants, night club, guesthouse, etc. At the beginning of 2013 there were 125
touristic agencies in Albania. According to content analyze, the number of agencies who had built
their presence on line is growing up. The number of agencies is growing up during 2010-2013. The
touristic agencies are focus towards online presence. From 2011 to 2013 the number of agencies who
has built their presence online is growing about 10%.
Years
Agencies number
Website& e-Mail
Only E-mail
None of them
Table 1. Albanian Touristic Agencies
2010
2011
2012
104
113
120
38%
43 %
45%
58%
53%
51 %
15%
12 %
12 %
2013 (July)
125
48%
43%
9%
5. CONSUMER PERCEPTIONS TOWARDS ELECTRONIC SERVICES.
5.1 Consumer Profile. As mentioned above the number of Internet users has grown enormously
recently. This growing trend is also evident in Albania. This trend is accompanied by increasing
people's confidence in doing business online. Table 2 shows the customer profile by age, sex,
educational level, nationality and frequency of e-services. The characteristics of these respondents
were similar to Internet user profiles gathered in other studies.
Table 2. Demographic Data
Demographic Data
AGE Younger than 20 years
20-35 years
36-50 years
More than 50 years
GENDER Male
Female
EDUCATION Secondary School
High School
Professional Education
University Bachelor
University Master
Higher than Master (PhD candidate, PhD, other)
Other
INCOMES
Under 300$
301 – 500$
Over 500$
Frequently of use e-services of touristic agencies
Less than a year
13 years
4- 6 years
More than 6 years
NATIONALITY Albanian, Macedonia, Greece, Kosovo.
European nationalities (e.g., French, German, British, Italian, etc.)
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Percentage of respondents
9.2%
29%
33.6%
28.2%
42%
58%
4.9%
27.2%
6.0%
40.8%
15.4%
3.5%
2.2%
15%
46%
39%
14%
42%
34%
10%
92%
8.0%
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Volume 4, Issue 5, September - October (2013)
5.2 Customer perception towards electronic services
The third section of questionnaires was design to provide information about what are the
most influential e-service in websites of touristic agencies by the customer perspective using a five
point Likert scale. Table 3 presents the most important electronic services listed by respondents. The
results of web-based survey with customer of touristic agencies found that 14 selected electronic
services in the study constitute a reliable profile of electronic services offered by websites of tourist
agencies. Information, purchase and reservation online are the most important features of a website.
As it seen from the table, the electronic services that are perceived more important by respondents
with higher average are informative aspects of the website, so information for the agency, products
and tourist destinations as well as the opportunity for online transactions and payments, than
interactive features. Consumers are aware that all touristic agencies make every effort to provide
secure transactions through their websites. They have increased and diversified their electronic
services to meet customer needs as well as possible. The quality of the presence of a destination in
the internet (easiness to find and access content, structure, design etc.) is nowadays of crucial
importance and constitutes a selection criterion.
Table 3. Electronic Services
Electronic Services
Rank
Average of importance
1
Information for touristic destination
4.8
2
Safety and security
4.8
3
4
Information for touristic agencies
Online payment
4.6
4.6
5
Online order tracking and reservation
4.6
6
Products catalog
4.4
7
Product personalization
4.4
8
Location features
4.2
9
10
Website-s map
Direct links with other site-s
4.0
4.0
11
Direct links with other sites
3.9
12
Website Customization
3.8
13
Search engine (browser)
3.8
14
Visual aspects
3.7
15
FAQ-s, Chat room, guest book, etc
3.5
If we summarize these services to broad category we can say that the information, transaction
and interaction categories are estimated as most important for the consumer. The information
category, in other words, this is an additional channel of marketing strategies, offering the
company’s information online. The transaction and interaction categories are the broadest and most
complex ecommerce application since they enables the company to process multiple tasks such as
online sales, online orders, online delivery (especially for digital products) and online payment. The
technical and design categories are considered less important by the consumer but they are estimated
positively too.
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The broad category
Information Category
Transaction Category
Interaction Category
Technical Category
Design Category
Mean
Standard deviation
4.5093
4.4352
4.4092
4.0133
3.7878
0.43568
0.52161
0.54568
0.63154
0.75207
6. KEY FINDINGS
The number of websites continues to grow up and the touristic agencies are looking for the
better ways in order to satisfy the consumer’s needs. The ability of websites to attract customers will
become increasingly critical for business survival.
The results show that online touristic agencies in Albania have mainly moderate level of
website development. The content of the websites sometimes is not well designed. Generally, the
designers of the websites will take in account some critical details such as what are the customer’s
needs and how can attract them to our sites. The pages are so filled with massive duties and
sometime are poor of information or online service which customer really expect to get.
Some websites are not update. This is a big problem for the websites users.
Some touristic agencies have used heavy videos as their front-page, but sometime this is not a
good choice due of the technical problems in loading the page.
The key factor for developing a successful website is to correctly define user needs or
requirements. Some touristic agencies websites are not satisfactory. Therefore, as obtaining
information is still the main aim of web users so improving the quality and level of web information
are major tasks for touristic agencies.
About 10% of touristic agencies websites are constantly under construction, or even inactive,
as mentioned in the focus groups discussions and also confirmed during the field research. On the
contrary, the others (professional websites) show much better results, mainly due to their personal
involvement and close following up of technological developments.
7. CONCLUSIONS
Tourism is characterized by a large amount of data so travel agencies can benefit from the use
of internet marketing techniques to reach their target market.
The intensity and pressure of competition both domestically and abroad appeal for
differentiation through electronic services to provide competitive advantages. The main purpose of
online touristic agencies is to provide, communicate and deliver value to their customers. This will
be accomplished through differentiation strategies, thus providing a high value on customer activities
on the website. Touristic agencies sector already understands the role and importance of electronic
service distribution for their customers. By improving the quality of electronic services touristic
agencies are able to obtain competitive advantages and differentiate their offerings in the market.
The field of electronic services in touristic agencies websites remains subject to study and this will
be reflected in the knowledge and practice of their managers. The most important electronic services
for the customers ( as perceived by them) are : information about the product / service , booking and
online payments, security of transactions and after sales services. As online consumers are not able
to see or touch characteristics of tourism products or services, agencies must provide superior value
for their electronic services. However, it is important to mention the reputation of the agency or the
prices of products / services.
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8. LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS
There are some limitations to the current study. First, of all the sample of respondents was
focused mainly on website users in Albania. The participants in this study may possess attributes and
behaviors that differ from the potential users. The level of respondents, satisfy the inquiries of SPSS
program. In the future the number of respondent will be dublicate.
Next, as mentioned earlier in the data collection section, it was impossible to send follow-up surveys.
In this research we focus on respondents who used a vary actions on internet. In future research we
will focus on specific service quality dimensions. Their perception about services quality may differ
from the other part of consumer who takes different actions like, gathering information or “take a
look”. These are more interested about the information, website configuration and easy of
navigation.
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