The travel industry especially those who are just commissioned agent on ticketing is moving toward lower ticket margin and would be focusing more on professional fees and/or volumes transaction. These are moved by two major forces according to Michael Porter structural analysis.

1. Change /advent of new technologies such as Internet provides a direct-selling for the airlines

2. The bargaining power is on the suppliers side (not too many airlines)

If a travel agent operates in traditional manual way, high turnover and large amount of documents involved in transactions will require more human workload or the staff have to work on extra-time, at a low profit margin. Sometimes, the low profit margin cannot justify the man-hour spent and the risk to be borne. Besides, travel industry is very much season influenced and sensitive to macroeconomics factors. When sales increased, mostly workload and overhead will be increased in proportion. The key is can we use IT to increase productivity while maintaining the same amount of workforce when the sales increase.

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