An evaluation of the factors influencing the adoption of e-commerce in the purchasing of leisure travel by the residents of Cascais, Portugal

The emergence of the Internet has enabled the development of e-commerce, which is defined as the process of buying and selling or exchanging products, services and information via computer networks (Turban et al, 2002). Since the early stages of the development of the Internet there were claims that travel had the potential to become one of the most sold e-commerce products (Buhalis, 1998; Turban et al, 2002). The reality, however, is that in the first years of the twenty first century only a minority of travel purchasing is conducted over the Internet. By 2002 only 3.6 percent of worldwide travel sales were made over the Internet in 2002, with this figure expected to increase to 7.4% by 2006 (Marcussen, 2003). Moreover, although the trend in overall online market size in Western Europe is positive, the annual growth rates have decreased in recent years. This research arose from an interest in obtaining an insight into the reasons for the lower than anticipated rate of adoption of electronic commerce in the purchasing of leisure travel. The main aim of the research was to evaluate those factors influencing the adoption of e-commerce in the purchasing of leisure travel. The study was developed based on the adoption of innovations paradigm because e-commerce can be regarded as an innovative practice. The research attempted to explicitly develop and test the concept of innovation interdependence. The assumption underlying innovation interdependence is that some innovations are developed upon other innovations and hence the adoption of certain innovations tend to be connected. Following on from this rationale, besides the factors related to the adoption of purchasing leisure travel over the Internet, factors related to the adoption of computers and of the Internet were also included as component parts of the conceptual framework. In addition, the conceptual framework also outlined product-category behaviour as an important factor influencing the adoption of e-commerce in the purchase of that product-category. In order to achieve the research aim, a representative sample of residents in the Borough of Cascais (Lisbon, Portugal) was surveyed. The analysis and discussion of the results was centred on the practical significance of the descriptive data and on the results of the hypothesis testing, based on the following definition of three stages in the e-commerce adoption path: individuals who had never used the Internet (stage 1), individuals who used the Internet but had never purchased by the means of e-commerce (stage 2), and individuals who purchased a product/service over the Internet (stage 3). Those in stage three of the e-commerce adoption path were further divided into two subgroups: those who had never purchased travel over the Internet and those who had purchased. The findings of this research indicate that the factors influencing the adoption of e-commerce in the purchasing of leisure travel vary according to the stage in the e-commerce adoption path. They demonstrate that there is, indeed, a positive relationship between the adoption of computers and the Internet and the adoption of e-commerce in the purchasing of leisure travel. However,the results suggest that the adoption of computers and the Internet play a secondary role and might serve as a facilitator rather than motivator. Rather, the travel and purchasing behaviour of the individual may be the more important influence in their decision to use e-commerce in the purchasing of leisure travel. The study discusses both the theoretical and practical implications and provides some future areas of research in the field of consumer adoption of e-commerce in the purchasing of leisure travel.