Factors Affecting the Use of Information Technology for Collaboration among Government, Educational and Tourism Small Business Sectors

Abstract

Tourism business is recognized as one of the main income source for Thailand for several decades. This is evident by the numbers of tourist visitors and the revenue from them has increased for several years. Besides, in the year 2015, Thailand will enter to the Asian Economic Community (AEC); Thailand then will be recognized as the main country providing tourism and aviation business within this community. As a result, such will enlarge the tourism industry in Thailand. This paper investigates the factors influencing the use of information technology for combining the operations among government, educational and tourism small business sectors in Chiang Mai. In particular, it measures the attitude of small tourism operators on how the information technology can be employed to collaborate among such government, educational and tourism small business sectors so as to sustain the business. With the use of questionnaire, the data is analyzed by using the Structural Equation Modeling to clarify the relationship between all related variables. The result is then used to provide appropriate recommendations for all parties on how information technology can be augmented the sustainability of tourism industry in Thailand.