What are the functions of travel agencies?

1. Save transaction costs and provide cheap and good products. Travel agencies have made great contributions to the development of tourism in saving transaction costs. The appearance of travel agencies changed the original N*M tourism market transaction model into N+M model, but the transaction cost it saved was limited. Similarly, suppose there are n producers and m consumers of heterogeneous products in the market, and there are x travel agencies with the same level of competition. Due to the incompleteness of information and regional independence, in the same period, there were n/x producers and m/x consumers in each travel agency. In this way, the transaction cost saved by each travel agency is n/x * m/x-(n/x+m/x), then the cost saved in the whole market △ txc1 = x * [n/x * m/x-(n/x+m/x)] = n * m/x-(n+) However, if an internet with complete information is used as an intermediary, the result is △ TXC2 = n * m-(n+m). Compared with the traditional travel agency business, tourism e-commerce saves (1-1/x) * n * m units of funds, and this value will increase with the increase of the number of travel agencies. This shows that tourism e-commerce is more suitable for a region with a broad market like China. With the intensification of global business integration, tourism e-commerce will play a greater role. Tourism e-commerce not only reduces the sales links between products such as eating, living, traveling, traveling, shopping and entertainment and tourists, but more importantly, it realizes "institutional streamlining" within the travel agency industry. Traditional travel agencies operate in a relatively closed environment with strong competition. Travelers add a little commission and sell it to domestic wholesalers, and domestic wholesalers add some commission and give it to foreign retailers, which then sell it to consumers through local travel agents. Because every business needs to get the price difference, after many twists and turns, it will not only take time and money, but also add extra expenses to consumers. The difference between the tour price that consumers finally get and the total retail price of all kinds of tourism products they need is minimal. Tourism e-commerce saves many intermediate links, and directly connects producers and consumers through the network platform, which also achieves the purpose of wholesale and transfer of tourism products at low prices. If each transaction is increased by 7 points, the travel agencies will go through a series of wholesale and retail links, and the cost will increase by at least 3%. At present, the larger e-commerce travel companies in the world, such as YahooOnline and Expedia, only increase the cost of their products reaching the market by 3-5 points. Compared with travel agencies, their costs are much lower, realizing the real sense of good quality and low price. 2. The information is highly concentrated, and the operation is convenient and fast. Tourism products are intangible, which makes it impossible for tourism products to enter the circulation field in physical form, but can only be expressed in the form of information. Information transmission is the key to travel agency marketing. The information in the traditional tourism industry is usually transmitted through advertisements in TV, newspapers and other media, and the information has the characteristics of small capacity, insufficient richness and poor pertinence. This defect increases the workload of people searching and screening information. People often shop around for cheap and good products, and even take the trouble to find a lot of advertising materials for hotline consultation, while online tourism allows products to meet users. As long as consumers choose the specifications and prices of the products they need on the network platform, and then click on the query, it will be clear at a glance. More conveniently, such complicated processes as reservation, transaction and settlement can be completed online at one time. 3. Pursuing individuality and adapting to market demand At present, travel agencies are operating in a buyer's market, and the market demand has changed from passively accepting the "package" provided by travel agencies in the past to actively pursuing diversity and individualization. More and more merchants have realized that "marketable" has become the mainstream of the market, and gradually turned from product sales to product development. However, in the face of the trend of independent and personalized international individual travel, they feel powerless, and it has become a long-standing problem to choose which kind of personalized market to develop. People's psychology of seeking novelty and novelty increases the autonomy and independence of consumption, and the market is further subdivided. It is obviously unrealistic for a relatively closed and weak travel agency to produce all-inclusive products, but market segmentation means a decrease in market share. Network tourism came into being in the environment of personalized tourism, which fully met the needs of consumers with different personalities and psychology. Through the community on the website, online tourism collects the demand information of different tourists in time and obtains the sales feedback information of producers. The BtoC and CtoC modes of tourism e-commerce use the information obtained from the suppliers and demanders to find new highlights in the development market, and the BTOC and CTOC modes strengthen the connection between producers and consumers, making self-organized routes and self-help outings completely become a reality. Not long ago, the success of Goodbye City, a well-known domestic tourism website, further confirmed the feasibility of online tourism. 4. Coordinate the contradiction between supply and demand and guide the allocation of resources. Tourism demand is characterized by "diversity and small quantity", while tourism supply is characterized by "less samples and more quantity". How can we alleviate this contradiction between supply and demand? Travel agencies in the traditional tourism industry have played an important role in this respect, which can make use of the effective information of both the supply and demand sides to diversify the supply and quantify the demand, and finally tend to balance. However, due to the incomplete information of the travel agency, it is impossible for it to guide the supply and demand completely and correctly. Its response to market changes is relatively slow, which will create the illusion of short-term seller's market and worsen the contradiction between supply and demand. Take the holiday tourism economy as an example, the blind speculation of travel agencies only for immediate interests often leads to the imbalance between supply and demand, creating the illusion that demand exceeds supply, while the tourism e-commerce system can respond sensitively to the subtle changes of the market because it occupies a considerable amount of information. Through the nationwide early warning system, the contradiction between supply and demand can be coordinated in time and the passenger flow can be diverted, which is conducive to the comprehensive and all-round development of the tourism market and the sustainable development of the tourism industry. 3) The existence of travel agencies There is no doubt that tourism e-commerce has occupied the travel agency market with great advantages. Does this mean that travel agencies have since withdrawn from the historical stage? 1. The concept that the travel agency will not quit the market in the short term is really refreshing, but the real arrival of the online travel era is based on a mature and sound network. At present, the development of the network is still far from perfect, and it cannot take over the historical responsibility of travel agencies as tourism intermediaries. First of all, the operability of the network is poor, and it must be based on certain computer network knowledge, which is not easy to popularize. Online consumers are mostly high-income or well-educated classes, and users are mostly distributed in coastal open cities, and the eastern coast is generally higher than the northwest inland areas. Secondly, security and speed are the bottlenecks of network development. Network virtuality and the invasion of network hackers increase the imperceptibility of tourism products and the risk of purchasing behavior. The speed of the Internet is far below the expectations of consumers, so it is hard to imagine that a consumer will order a newspaper of the day that can be bought at the bookstall online. Third, the network reputation cannot be guaranteed. Despite the online booking and payment, the online "promise" may not be fulfilled, which not only needs a high level of social morality to support, but also needs to be restricted by law to ensure its realization. 2. In the long run, the humanized service of travel agencies will always be the vacancy of tourism e-commerce. Travel agencies are engaged in a kind of humanized service. With the development of social economy, people's call for humanity and their desire for feelings are getting stronger and stronger. And people's feelings are irreplaceable by electronic and information technology. Although in the future, people will rely heavily on network information to choose tourism products, and even be equipped with professional electronic guides to provide them with explanation services, but they will not be respected and realize their self-worth. From the perspective of Maslow's demand theory, people have the need to be respected by others, and people travel to a certain extent driven by the unmet need to be respected. Only the real service of people can satisfy this innate vanity. Furthermore, special services for different consumer groups should also belong to the category of humanized services, such as the elderly and children. These two types of people have their own age characteristics, so it is impossible to catch up with the wave of online self-help tourism. They need more care in their travel to ensure the smooth progress of tourism activities. Only the extra high-quality and high-grade services provided by travel agencies can make them feel at home. ) (4) The new travel agency business model is coming to the fore. 1. Taking advantage of business, developing e-commerce, and changing from real operation to network "virtual operation" online tourism is not a subversion of traditional tourism, but a fusion of network and tourism. Never deny the performance and role of travel agencies because of the advantages of tourism e-commerce. The defects of modern tourism network in information arrangement and market development are the result of the lack of tourism intervention. Travel agencies are intermediaries in the tourism industry. They should intervene in the network with skilled business skills, conduct e-commerce, and conduct "virtual operation" with the network platform as the desk. The so-called virtual management is to engage in information processing and transmission, and change from price difference profit to information profit. Travel agencies should change their business model on the basis of occupying resources and marketing network, and cooperate with online tourism to complement each other's advantages, so that China's travel agencies will have strong competitiveness after joining the WTO. 2. Segmenting the market and strengthening humanized service If "virtual management" is just a kind of reinvention, then market segmentation can be regarded as the real evolution of travel agencies. Travel agency is still a travel agency, but it must be positioned in the specific market given to it by the era of online travel. First, provide intermediary services between tour guides and individual travelers, and charge intermediary fees. This requires the establishment of a large number of complete tour guide information files. The employment relationship between travel agencies and tour guides has changed into the employment relationship between tourists and tour guides, which is a respect for tourists' autonomy and completely conforms to the development trend of tourism. Second, develop the children's market and the elderly market. Children and the elderly are two markets with both money and yang, which have great development potential.

adopt it.