A Framework for Competitive Advantage in eTourism

The importance of new information and communication technologies (ICT) for the travel and tourism industry has increased enormously over the past few years. The tourism area is one of those industries which can gain huge synergy effects from the use of the Internet. This research addresses the issue of competitive advantage for the travel and tourism area by using information technologies, in particular the Internet and the Web. Therefore, we propose a framework to counteract the threats caused by the Internet showing how companies can adopt their business to gain competitive advantage by using eBusiness. Based on this research, in our future work, we look at the effects of the Internet on the competitive strategy of SME hotel companies and provide an overall picture of this important industry.