Relationship Marketing and Information and Communication Technologies: Analysis of Retail Travel Agencies

and inbound travel agents or handling agencies (Buhalis and Laws 2001). They were supported by computer reservation systems, global distribution systems, or tour operators ’ video-text systems (leisure travel networks) (Bordat 1999; Kärcher 1996, 1997). Nowadays, the development of the Internet and electronic commerce (e-commerce) has changed buying habits of tourism products. The Internet allows individuals to gain access to high-quality information very quickly and eas-ily (Avlonitis and Karayanni 2000; Zolkiewski and Littler 2004). The ease of shopping online and the Internet’s all-day, every-day availability are just some of the characteristics that influence customers ’ positive assessment of business on the Net (O’Connor and Frew 2000; Werthner and Klein 1999). In this sense, the development of the Internet as a mar-keting channel for tourism products and services has espe-cially affected retail travel agencies (Bitner and Boom