E-tourism in Malaysia

Tourism is increasingly important to the development of Malaysian

economy, it affect the growth of service industries, particularly food and

beverages, accommodation, transport, entertainment, shopping and other

small and medium-sized industries. The tourism industry has been

identified as a key driver of growth in the services sector which it

experienced a rapid growth. Now, the industry is still one of the key

foreign exchange earners, contributing to GDP (gross domestic product)

growth, investment and employment as well as strengthening the balance

payments of services account (Johan, 2009).

When tourism industry relies more on information and

communication technology (ICT), it helps enhance the smoothness of

tourism business. E-tourism is the digitization of all the processes and

value chains in the tourism, travel, hospitality and catering industries that

enable organizations to maximize their efficiency and effectiveness

(Buhalis, 2003). ICT, especially the Internet, have providing new

challenges and opportunities in promoting and selling their products and

services for tourism stakeholders. It dramatically changed the pattern of

how the consumers plan and buy their holidays. It able the process of

exchange information about products and services which will raise the

awareness of services offered (Johan, 2009).

Internet is now becoming the preferred media choice for many

travelers to obtain travel information, therefore Tourism Malaysia (TM) tied

up with Yahoo and MSN as platforms to enhance the “Malaysia Truly Asia”

brand visibility globally by showcasing Malaysia’s unique tourist

destinations on both websites. Through the online advertising campaign,

Tourism Malaysia aims to engage potential travelers to see Malaysia as a

value-for-money destination, and lead them to Tourism Malaysia’s official

website so that they can sign up for packages to visit Malaysia (Johan,
2009).

There is also a great potential for ICTs implementation for tourism

SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) operators and for homestay

programme operators in remote areas. Tourism SMEs can have a

comparative advantage in this sector, offering a wide variety of attractions

to today's increasingly demanding and sophisticated travelers. Until now,

a total of 2,808 homestay operators from 142 villages throughout the

country have been trained and licensed by the Ministry of Tourism

Malaysia. In 2007, more than 68,000 tourists, both local and foreign, had a

taste of the kampung lifestyle at the various homestay programmes

offered in Malaysia. Since ICT enables direct communication with clients

and improves efficiency and effectiveness of customer service therefore,

e-tourism enables homestay operators who are in a position to exploit it.

Homestay operators can access customers directly, with their websites

offering authentic flavour, unique insights and specialized local knowledge

(Johan, 2009).

The introduction of e-marketing is assessing the opportunities and

impact of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in the

marketing of the tourism sector. Influences of brand image on a tourism

destination are important to define the e-marketing practices that applied

in tourism sector. For example, the Air Asia provide low cost carrier and

has expended its operation. Now, they also offer many more routes within

and outside the country. In the year 2009, the travel and accommodation

reservations were performed via the face-to-face or using the telephone.

With internet, the retailing remaining very much niches channel. However,

the internet booking continues to increase rapidly. Air Asia becomes the

leader of the internet sales by minimizing operating costs (Euromonitor

International, 2010).

E-ticketing is used in many airlines to reduce costs of ticket printing.

The travelers do not need to carry the paper ticket which means that the

tension of misplacing a ticket is eliminated. They can check in online on

the website and choose the seats on the screen. According to Hopkin,

2005, the electronic management of ticket information helps the

companies to tracking their expenditures and support corporate travel

policies better.

Internet and electronic device become more and more common in

Malaysia. But, there are challenges to build e-tourism in the whole country.

Dr Supachai said there were still challenges to meet in building e-tourism

capacity at regional and local levels in order for local communities to be

competitive in a globalised economy. (Malaysia’s website “a model of e-

tourism”, 2007) E-tourism is very popular, but it used only by the major

city in Malaysia. Many of rural area are still lack of ICT. Promotional

campaigns are needed lots of financial support, due to a lack of

substantial financial, rural area communities are not able to conduct e-

tourism product in short period. Government needed to support them with

financial to promote their tourism. Besides, the advance of eMediaries(e.g.

on-line travel agents, portals) has become a threat to the traditional

eMediaries (e.g. GDSs and Viewdata). This will affect the tour operator for

their traditional way of doing tourism businesses. New eMediaries has

their cons while traditional eMediaries has its pros. Therefore, a balance

between the eMediaries and traditional eMediaries needed to be achieved.

E-tourism was responsible for the Asia-Pacific region becoming one

of the fastest-growing areas for international tourist arrivals and the

number one destination by 2020. (Malaysia’s website “a model of e-

tourism”, 2007) In future, tourists will become more and more familiar to

the ICT world and using e-channel to travel to Malaysia. Malaysia will

become more successful in e-tourism compare by now. E-tourism will bring

more convenience to the tourists and brings extra income to the country.
 We can see that Malaysia is not the leader in technology therefore

Malaysia does not have the most advance technology. The country does

try to catch up with the technology. With the introduction of the internet in

1995, Malaysia is also experiencing globalization. The government and

private sector use internet as an intermediary to spread information, to

communicate and also to get information for their own benefit. This led to

the development of e-commerce and eventually e-tourism.

E-commerce really shaped the e-tourism in Malaysia. Without e-

commerce, only a few of travel agency would use internet as one of the

intermediary. By allowing people to do transaction online, more businesses

will be brought to the company through online. In Malaysia, travel

agencies also rely on the internet to stay competitive. The larger company

would of course use one of the main global distribution systems. But the

smaller company would use their own system. Some of the travel agency

would conduct businesses using email and use the email provider as their

information storage. One of the problems using email is that it is

inefficient. The efficiency relies on the staffs who are handling the email.

This resulted in small companies will be unable to compete with larger

companies.

The good thing about internet is that we can use creativity to

attract customer. The design of the website and information play

important role in e-tourism. These criteria give small company an

opportunity to stay competitive as normally the larger companies have a

standard website design. In the end, the e-tourism in Malaysia still has a

lot of room to grow and improve. To achieve a high standard of e-tourism,

more effort and learning needed to be done.

Reference

Malaysia’s website “a model of e-tourism”. (2007, March 15) The Star

Online.

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http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?

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Buhalis, D. (2003). eTourism: information technology for strategic tourism

management,

London: Pearson (Financial Times/Prentice Hall)

Euromonitor International. (July, 2010). Travel and Tourism in Malaysia.

Travel and

Tourism report

Hopkins,R.,”Travel Management Faces New Tests”, Euromoney,

(26:435),2005pp 188-

193.

Johan, M. (2009, May 11). The merits of e-tourism. The Star Online.

Retrieved March

8, 2011, from http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?

file=/2007/3/15/nation/17145093&sec=nation

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