The Effects of ICT Innovation and Industry Regulation on Chinese Travel Website´s Marketing Logic

Over ten more years of development, travel website has been the intuitive and effective information facility for an ever increasing share of individual and business travelers in China. Notably, with the fast scale expansion of domestic users and online suppliers, the e-tourism market has shown signs of monopolistic competition, which is featured by IT companies dominating instead of travel agencies. Besides, when more and more travel websites characterized by information searching and booking services are well acknowledged as online travel agencies, no matter they are owned by IT companies or travel agencies, operators have to face increasingly fierce market competition as well as the decreasing advantages of cost saving and low price. For better understanding of Chinese travel website´s marketing logic, which is affected by technological and non-technological factors, this paper proposes a conceptual framework on basis of marketing logic, ICT (information and communication technology) innovation and industry regulation, which is followed by a comparative case study of Chinese leading travel websites.