Abstract
Tourism which is regarded as information intensive sector is the mostly affected sector by technology revolution and its traditional trading structures have been totally changed. The adoption and use of e-commerce in tourism sector is regarded as a tool to widen market reach and improve efficiency and effectiveness of business operations. The degree of impact of e-commerce use on business performance depends on the intensity of its usage in organization’s key value-chain activities. However, the intensity of e-commerce use is influenced by technological, organizational and environmental (TOE) contextual factors. Based on TOE model and the existing literature on post-adoption use of e-commerce, a set of factors that affect the intensity of e-commerce use in Tanzanian tourism sector was identified. A survey was conducted with 181Tanzanian tourism firms that have already adopted e-commerce and structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze the data. The findings indicated that the scope of e-commerce use has a positive impact on business performance in terms of improved internal processes, competitive position, customer service delivery, overall business performance and increased customer base. The scope of e-commerce use is affected positively by pressure intensity and perceived benefits and negatively by barriers to e-commerce use. The findings have highlighted key areas that require immediate actions from both the government and private sector in order to promote a successful growth of e commerce in the country.
Highlights
The emergence of e-commerce has impacted the way business is done across the world
Two related questions were investigated: What are the factors influencing the intensity of post-adoption ecommerce use in firms in Tanzania’s tourism industry? How does the intensity of e-commerce use influence firm performance? In the hypothesized model, the authors used four factors to address the first question and one factor for the second one
The results indicate a significant relationship between the intensity of e-commerce use and firm performance
Summary
The emergence of e-commerce has impacted the way business is done across the world. Ecommerce has introduced new ways of performing tasks, interacting with customers, and conducting business (Quaddus & Achjari, 2005). In this regard, e-commerce is considered to be a key driver of tourism firms in terms of facilitating global marketing, expanding the customer base, and improving productivity. The adoption and use of e-commerce in the tourism industry has created new opportunities for introducing innovative business practices. The ability of e-commerce to reduce business costs and improve productivity is a key driver of its increasing adoption and use. Given the opportunities created by globalization, the use of e-commerce can facilitate the expansion of markets at the global level by increasing the customer base and better serving existing customers
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