Main Body

1. Role of service provider in tourism
A service provider (SP) is a company that provides organizations with consulting, legal, real estate, education, communications, storage, processing, and many other services. Although the term service provider can refer to organizational sub-units, it is more generally used to refer to third party or outsourced suppliers, including telecommunications service providers (TSPs), application service providers (ASPs), storage service providers (SSPs), and Internet service providers (ISPs).

The role of the service providers, the tourism businesses is to: (Main Roles)
Supply products (hotel rooms, food, drinks, tickets etc.)
supply services (book flights, give advice, give information)
They make money (profit) –for those who work in the tourist industry. [2]

Roles:

• receive and allocate sources of funding (direct government

funding, local authority funding, grants, self-funding mechanisms,

sponsorship, partnership)

• to advise government and public bodies on issues affecting the

British tourism industry (for example)

• tourism development and marketing

• public-private partnerships

• liaison with regional development agencies

• quality management

• coordination and representation of the industry

• research and analysis

• maximise positive impacts and minimise negative impacts

(destination management)

• channels of communication

2.THE ROLE AND IMPORTANCE OF THE INTERNET IN CONTEMPORARY TOURISM IN TRAVEL AGENCIES BUSINESS

The appearance of the Internet and the incredibly rapid development of highly sophisticated computer and telecommunication technology have made the world a global village in a real sense. 'Communication network satellites provide the quickest and the cheapest data transfer to all parts of the world, a great agreement among thousands of computer systems that communicate with each other is represented by the Internet.'(Kent, P. 1994). Development of information technology and the creation of computer networks and the Internet have enabled a new way of communication. The internet provides a better access to numerous sources of information around the world, as well as direct communication with all users. ‘The Internet is a collection of computer networks around the world and as such is the largest computer system that millions of computer users can use and share all kinds of information: numbers, text, sound and image. ‘(Gates, B., 1999).
The Internet has become a support to more complex and critical functions in tourism and hospitality industry and it contributed to its significant innovation. Due to the appearance of the Internet, there have been some changes in the tourism subjects business and those are the following:

1. Each serious subject in the tourism and hospitality industry has a website that can be classified into four broad groups: ‘holding corporation identity websites, chains, concession and membership websites, websites of individual sites and facilities, and portals and vortals.’(Koelzer, W., Cox, B., 2005). ‘Portal can be defined as a vehicle that offers a rounded set of services for specific well-defined group of users.’(Kalakota, R., 2002). ‘Vortal is a website that provides information and resources about a particular and specific industry.’(Webopedia - On line Computer Dictionary for Computer and Internet Terms and Definitions).

2. ‘The Internet offers the possibility of expansion, rapid data transfer and flexibility (websites can always change, the changes are immediately visible and are not limited to space and time).’(Raza, I., 2006).

3. ‘Contemporary business in tourism market is characterized by the implementation of various booking systems into business systems of travel agencies, hotel chains, airlines, car rental companies and other participants in tourism product formation.’(Dobre, R., 2005).

4. Organization and distribution costs are decreased in various tourist subjects business conducting (travel agencies, hotel chains, independent hotels...).

5. New intermediaries on the Internet are created and traditional ones must change their role.

6. The Internet allows high-quality and effective market research and ‘industrial espionage’.