ایجاد یک مدل اتحاد استراتژیک تجارت الکترونیکی B2B تحت یک محیط نامطمئن برای آژانس های مسافرتی تایوان

E-travel agencies adopt B2B strategic alliances in order to strengthen their competitive advantages in the e-commerce travel market and because they are an effective tool to gain wider sustainable gains. External environmental and internal organizational factors impacting the success of strategic alliances model are themselves a crucial issue. This study uses multiple methods to collect data from multiple sources and uses qualitative and quantitative surveys. A two-stage research design is adopted to explore the present strategic alliances between Taiwan's wholesaler e-travel agencies and retailer sub-agencies. The results provide an in-depth understanding into the B2B e-commerce strategic alliance model. According to this research, Taiwanese e-travel agencies consider three external environment uncertainties, five internal organization motivations, five partner selection criteria, and two performance measurements of alliance strategies. Finally, the paper proposes an optimal B2B e-commerce strategic alliance model that matches the essential development needs of B2B e-commerce and overcomes the environmental uncertainties.

Travel agencies possess low overall entry and exit barriers and market competition is extremely intense. E-commerce is now becoming more accessible and other travel-related suppliers have even adopted a dis-intermediary policy. Facing such a policy threat and competitive pressure, travel agencies now have to quickly understand how to use B2B technology in order to strengthen their own competitive advantages and build up higher entry barriers. Increasingly, travel shoppers undertake their entire tourism product search and booking by going on-line, and therefore they require flexible, specialized, accessible, interactive products, and communication with tourism organizations (Garces, Gorgemans, Sanchez, & Perez, 2004). Through this method, both practitioners and consumers have much more opportunities to eliminate one of the largest cost components in travel distribution. Hence, the use of the Internet to facilitate commerce among travel-related companies promises vast benefits: dramatically reduced costs, greater access to buyers and sellers, improved marketplace liquidity, and a whole new array of efficient and flexible transaction methods (Wise & Morrison, 2000). In Hong Kong, most travel agencies are small- to medium-sized enterprises. These travel agencies are able to benefit by implementing e-commerce so as to improve their operational efficiency (Heung, 2003). Travel agencies in Taiwan face the same situation as above and e-commerce in their industry began as early as in 1999. After the e-commerce business model exploring period, a few large e-travel agencies now cover most of the total market share. Their accumulated e-commerce operating experience, know-how, and expertise have given them advantages over newcomers. On the contrary, small- and medium-sized travel agencies not only now face a scarcity of resources but they also lack IT technology when compared to large e-travel agencies. Despite the apparent benefits of Internet-based commerce to small businesses, a number of barriers to increased adoption are evident (Morrison & King, 2002). The most immediate potential for growth and profitability lies in the B2B market, particularly in the development of vertical portals or community extranets. These include virtual spaces enabling travel buyers and suppliers to trade on-line (Alford, 2000). Previous related e-commerce researches (Tsai, Huang, & Lin, 2005) and other current evidences indicate that e-commerce is not just a substitute for travel agencies, but is indeed a crucial tool to be used by all competitors to reach the market and grow their business. Therefore, wholesaler e-travel agencies must find a way to create sustainable competitive advantages that relate to specific e-commerce developing strategies. However, the competition that travel agents face comes not only from travel-related suppliers but also from other travel agencies who already perform e-commerce transaction services and offer almost the same travel products or even similar prices. Due to the above pressure from e-commerce businesses, B2B transaction mechanisms have been generated by the large travel agencies in Taiwan's travel market. In the B2B e-commerce travel market, a wholesaler has the capability to develop dynamic virtual transaction platforms where buyers and suppliers are brought together. From the value chain's point of view, in order to be more efficient, a B2B model enables e-travel agencies to gain performance improvements by offering electronic services. It is these reasons that make Taiwan's travel agencies an ideal setting to study the adoption of a B2B e-commerce business model. Therefore, this study is quite innovative in that no related studies so far have analyzed nor tried to build up an optimal B2B strategic alliances model for e-travel agencies.

As travel markets become more competitive, transaction profits steadily eroded. The travel industry has changed dramatically since the founding of the B2B e-commerce transaction model, which has also been an important part of travel agencies’ responses to globalization competition. Strategy alliances can also have extremely anti-competitive effects. They not only can upgrade travel agencies’ economic scale but also improve marketing distribution efficiency under external environment certainty. The strategic alliance among non-leaders (in order to compete with the market leader) is likely to increase competition and thus benefit both the alliance partners and travel shoppers. In this age of e-commerce era, small travel agencies that do not keep up with their e-commerce capabilities are usually replaced. Wholesaler e-travel agencies in Taiwan adopt B2B strategic alliances due to their lack of geographical constraints and boundaries in order to rapidly grow and create a larger travel market in places where they cannot do so alone. Therefore, partner selection positively affects the performance of strategic alliances. B2B e-commerce strategy alliances indeed improve e-travel agencies’ performances. The Lion web platform has the functions of external and internal networks to support its B2B transaction mechanism, which is one of the best distribution networks in Taiwan. Lion Travel also has adopted an innovative B2B2C model. As a matter of fact, a strategic alliance with retailers is imperative for wholesalers to effectively implement e-commerce strategies. A decrease in transaction costs have led travel agencies to emphasize e-commerce services in order to enhance profit margins, cement customer relationships, and lock in controllable sub-agents’ sale revenue streams. Through Lion Travel's practical e-commerce experience and this study's findings, the B2B E-Commerce Strategic Alliance Model (see Fig. 2) has already become a feature of the travel industry's transaction model mainstream and the role of B2B's future is indeed blossoming. The benefits of a B2B e-commerce transaction mechanism include: 1. Transaction costs will decline for both parties when transaction processes are automated or partially on-line. 2. Conveniences for consumers will increase through decreasing trouble of product insufficient, searching cost decline. 3. Sales expenses, marketing costs, and customer service costs will decline. 4. Improved efficiency of internal operations is significant through e-commerce of information transfer. 5. Market information response times will be cut and the service feedback received will be faster due to efficient customer responses (ECR).