E-business is having a huge impact on the hospitality industry, an impact that looks set to continue. An increasing number of people are booking and viewing restaurants and hotel rooms online, and they are working with the smartest time-saving electronic systems.

Smaller travelling agencies, among others, are more interested in the application of Internet to gain certain competitive edges over their larger counterparts.

In the past, travel agents were used for not only travel plans but they also sold transports, tours and accommodation for suppliers. Travel agents were the most common source for booking hotel rooms and any other travel components.

The internet emerged and the World Wide Web was invented, linking the world into one global network. The emergence of the internet had a great impact on all businesses including the hospitality industry.

increased choice speed greater independence more information eg services, appearance, location, virtual room tours ability to compare prices increase in direct booking, less use of intermediaries

It has been reported that the online booking in the hospitality industry (including hotel/motel, airlines, travel packages, etc.) is increasing at a very rapid speed recently. An online hotel room booking has been increased by six times just during last four years (from 1999 to 2002) from $1.1 billion in 1999 to $6.3 billion in 2002. As a result, its percentage as of total annual bookings is increased over 400% - from about 2% in 1999 to 9% in 2002

technological barriers for business and customers e.g. slow connections, inadequate hardware, slow download times, staff resistance to change, lack of staff training, requirements for web maintenance inflexibility of business structure lack of business planning e.g. cash flow forecasting, marketing strategy poor website design security for payments (perceived and real)

Organisational issues e.g. business planning, staff development, recruiting new staff; customer education and awareness campaign; support issues e.g. government support, support for web design, dedicated technical support