The impact of the Internet on travel agencies

This paper examines tourist perceptions of the potential for the elimination of travel agencies in the presence of the Internet. The opinions of 413 tourists on making transactions through both Internet‐based (hereafter, online) and traditional distribution channels were analysed. Experimental results illustrated that tourists still used professional services and advice offered by travel agencies. Tourists also agreed that more information could be found through the Internet. Following the findings, the paper suggests that both online and traditional distributional channels can coexist in the future.