The impact of goods and services tax (GST) towards Malaysian travelers' intention to use travel agency in Malaysia / Anisha Ramli

The implementation of Goods and Services Tax (GST) in Malaysia has changed the way people buy a product and services in Malaysia. The increasing of price has contributed to the changes of buying decision. In the tourism industry, the tax also could change the way people travel or medium that they use in order to plan their vacation or travel activities. One of the traditional intermediaries that can be affected by this tax is travel agencies in Malaysia. The existence of the Internet has made travel agencies lost their customers and some of them need to shut down their businesses and with the implementation of GST, the travel agents could be in higher risk of disintermediation. This research aims to investigate the impacts of GST towards travelers' intention to use travel agencies in Malaysia. This research focused on local travelers who have the experience using travel agents to travel inside and outside Malaysia. A total of 327 respondents answered the questionnaire related to the travel related services which are bookings, travel insurance, travel advice and services. The result of this study shows that travelers use travel agency for booking (hotels room, tickets, transportation and trip), to get travel advice (travel destinations, budget, travel consultation and information) and also because of the services that the travel agents provide such as tourist guide, preparing visa or passport and arrange travel itineraries. For travel insurance, the travelers did not use travel agency to get the insurance because they have their own insurance or they did not need the insurance and the implementation of GST has affected travelers intention to use travel agencies.