Egyptian Travel Agents and e-Commerce Mohamed Abou-Shouk, Wai Mun Lim Plymouth Business School University of Plymouth, UK mohamed.aboushouk@plymouth.ac.uk Abstract The rapid growth of the Internet has provided travel agents with the opportunity to embrace it as an extension of their traditional activities. An effective website could potentially bring the world into the customers’ home, and increase their loyalty to the enterprise. The evaluation of websites is one of many ways to benchmark travel agents’ websites against their competitors, and to determine their enhancement directions. This research aims to highlight information offered on Egyptian travel agents’ websites; and to rank these websites in relation to their readiness for electronic commerce. Surveyed websites showed that the most frequent features are company information and contact details. Websites that have been ranked as practicing 1 st phase e-commerce are the majority, while websites supporting the 2 nd and the 3 rd phases are few, and for between websites ranked as practising 4 th phase e-commerce are a minority. Keywords: e-commerce; websites; travel agencies; Egypt 1 Introduction The Internet has become an important modern day tool for businesses, especially small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) (Ayeh, 2006; Buhalis, 2002; Khanchouch, 2005; Patricia, 2008; Rosen, 2002; Scarborough & Zimmerer, 2003). Travel agents are typically classified as SMEs (Gammack, Molinar, Chu, & Chanpayom, 2004; Karanasios, 2008; Liu, 2000; Standing, Borbely, & Vasudavan, 1999). Increased number of Travellers make reservations online has motivated travel enterprises to provide their services online (Albuquerque & Belchior, 2002; Lu & Deng, 2007). To support online reservation, the design of websites has become a critical success factor (Hung & McQueen, 2004). The decision makers are continually learning about the factors that affect website and e-business success (Lee & Kozar, 2006). On the other hand, evaluation of websites could help businesses to identify their weaknesses, and the tools for enhancement (Liu & Arnett, 2000; Lu & Deng 2007; Walcott, 2007). In general, the research aims to evaluate the readiness of developing countries travel agencies’ websites for e-commerce purposes. Recommendations for further research on e-commerce adoption boundaries in Egyptian travel agents and strategies to enhance their diffusion of such technologies will be discussed. 2 Adoption Strategies of e-Commerce in SMEs Past studies have divided the stages of e-commerce implementation process into many levels within their models. This study reviews 20 models that examine these stages presented hierarchically. Table (1) shows in details to these models. Abou-Shouk M. and Lim W M, 2010. Egyptian travel agents and e-commerce. In: Gretzel, U., Law, R. and Fuchs, M. ed. Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2010. Lugano, Switzerland: Springer-Verlag, U.S.A., 357-368.