With the explosive growth of the Internet, online travel agents (OTAs) have gained an increasing market share in the online booking market. However, OTAs are facing fierce competition from hotels' direct booking channels, as well as competition among themselves. Therefore, there is a need for an understanding of the evolution of the OTA market from a dynamic perspective. The purpose of this study is to investigate the long-term effect of OTAs on the hospitality industry and to find whether an equilibrium of this effect exists in the context of e-commerce.,To gain a better understanding of the OTA market process, a mathematical framework is constructed on the basis of four assumptions. NetLogo 5.1.0 is used to perform a series of numerical simulations.,The results indicate the following: (1) the development of the OTA market helps to improve net social welfare, but hotels (especially economy hotels) have suffered as a result; (2) clever exploitation of both online and offline channels that are based on hotels' historical data may improve hotels' performance; (3) a scale-priority strategy can be more helpful than a profit-priority strategy for enabling OTAs to maintain their long-term competitiveness; (4) the timing of participation in online-channel competition is a crucial factor in determining whether OTAs can achieve business success.,In this study, it is shown how consumer habits have changed since the development of OTAs. The online channels provided by OTAs create a convenient, low-cost user experience, and they consequently improve the net welfare of customers. OTAs should be encouraged appropriately, although some economy hotels may suffer from the rise of OTAs.,In this empirical study, a mathematical framework is developed to describe the process of evolution in the OTA market, and it uses simulations as a means to validate prior research findings. Unlike previous studies, a dynamic perspective is used in this investigation to interpret the emergence of OTAs and to analyze their enormous impact on the hospitality industry. Thus, the findings of this study capture the competitive characteristics of online and offline channels in a network context and indicate potential strategies for the development of OTAs and which hotels may use OTAs to achieve better performance. In addition, the study findings could be easily extended to explain many of the classical economic phenomena regarding firms with intangible products.

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了解在线旅行社的出现和发展：一种动态评估和模拟方法

随着互联网的爆发式增长，在线旅行社（OTA）在在线预订市场中的市场份额越来越大。然而，OTA面临着来自酒店直接预订渠道的激烈竞争，以及它们之间的竞争。因此，需要从动态的角度来理解OTA市场的演变。本研究的目的是调查 OTA 对酒店业的长期影响，并找出电子商务背景下是否存在这种影响的均衡。为了更好地了解 OTA 市场过程，一个数学框架建立在四个假设的基础上。NetLogo 5.1.0用于进行一系列数值模拟，结果表明：(1) OTA市场的发展有助于提高净社会福利，但酒店（尤其是经济型酒店）却因此受到了影响；(2) 巧妙利用基于酒店历史数据的线上线下渠道，提升酒店业绩；(3) 规模优先策略比利润优先策略更有助于OTA保持长期竞争力；(4)参与在线渠道竞争的时机是决定OTA能否取得商业成功的关键因素。,本研究展示了OTA发展以来消费者习惯的变化。OTA 提供的在线渠道创造了便捷、低成本的用户体验，从而提高了客户的净福利。应适当鼓励OTA，尽管一些经济型酒店可能会受到 OTA 兴起的影响。,在这项实证研究中，开发了一个数学框架来描述 OTA 市场的演变过程，并使用模拟作为验证先前研究结果的手段。与以往的研究不同，本次调查使用动态视角来解释 OTA 的出现并分析它们对酒店业的巨大影响。因此，本研究的结果捕捉了网络环境中线上和线下渠道的竞争特征，并指出了 OTA 发展的潜在策略以及哪些酒店可能会使用 OTA 来实现更好的绩效。此外，研究结果可以很容易地扩展到解释许多关于无形产品公司的经典经济现象。