A Study on the Status Quo and the Improvements of Blue Tourism Websites in the Context of Electronic Commerce

해양관광 사이트의 전자상거래 지원지능에 대한 실태 및 개선방안

To develop an blue tourism website(BTW) for electronic commerce(EC), information requirements of BTW are defined firstly. We defined information requirements of BTW from two aspects, i.e., front office and back office. Information requirements for front office were derived by consumer purchasing decision process. And information requirements for back office were derived by tourism value chain. Total 29 functions are identified as critical EC related functions of BTW. Among them, 25 functions were investigated into BTW. BTWs were searched by search engines - Yahoo and Empas - to Korean websites. There are 12 specialized BTWs, except one cyber museum website. For 12 websites, 25 functions were probed. By the results, in need recognition stage of blue tourism, only weather information was provided in most websites. In information search stage of blue tourism, package recommendation and various contents were provided in most websites. In consumption stage of blue tourism, traffic information were provided in most websites. And in after - sales service stage of blue tourism, bulletin board function was implemented in most websites. The rest of the functions were scarcely implemented. On the whole, it was concluded that most EC related functions of BTW in Korea were not implemented properly. To improve the status quo, it is expected in the dimension of individual website, that marketing planning, customized service, intelligent service, reinforcing purchasing assistance functions, customer relationship management, and escrow service etc. need to be implemented. And it is expected in the dimension of blue tourism industry, that standardizing product catalog, security assistance policy, information sharing by industrial database, finding referral model of BTW, elevating information mind, revising related laws etc. are needed.