E-commerce adoption by travel agencies in Jordan
Creators: name: Alrousan, Mohammad Kasim
Publisher: name: Cardiff Metropolitan University
Year: 2022
Subjects: Other commerce, management, tourism and services not elsewhere classified

description: The advents of information and communication technologies (ICTs), especially the Internet applications, have become indispensable tool to the tourism industry. ICTs have had a major influence in changing the structure of this industry, to be information-intensive industry. Travel agencies category of SMEs , have a vital role in tourism; managing, coordinating and supplying all aspects thereof, such as transport sector, hospitality sector and leisure attractions. The factorsaffecting e-commerce adoption by SMEs have been well-documented in developed countries, but inadequate studies have been conducted regarding e-commerce adoption in the developing countries; particularly in Arab countries. Moreover, it has been found that in spite of potential benefits for travel agencies of adoption of e-commerce, travel agencies are commonly regarded as slow adopters of e-commerce, lagging far behind the developed countries. Therefore, the focus of this study is on investigating the factors affecting e-commerce adoption by focusing on Jordanian travel agencies. To achieve this objective; an integrated conceptual framework was developed on the basis of previous models and theories relevant to ICTs and e-commerce adoption, namely Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovation model, the Technology-Organisation-Environment model and Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions theory. The conceptual framework was developed for the explanation of the factors affecting e-commerce adoption by travel agencies. These factors were used to identify different levels of e-commerce adoption. These levels include: non-adoption, e-connectivity, e-window, e-interactivity, e-transaction and e-enterprise. The quantitative method was applied in this study for data collection using self-administrated questionnaire distributed to 300 Jordanian travel agents. The total number of valid questionnaires was 206, constituting a response rate of 68.6%. The descriptive analysis was used to explain demographic profiles of participants and current state of e-commerce adoption level. Multinomial Logistic Regression was used to test the research hypotheses.The research findings revealed that there are three different adoption levels of e-commerce by Jordanian travel agencies: e-connectivity, e-window and e-interactivity. The results showed that relative advantage, observability, business/partner pressure, uncertainty avoidance and government support were the significant predictors differentiating e-window from e-connectivity. Moreover, relative advantage, observability, financial barriers, power distance, business/partner pressure and government support proved to be significant predictors differentiating between e-interactivity and e-connectivity. It was also found that observability, competitive pressure, firm size and complexity were significant predictors differentiating between e-interactivity and e-window. On the other hand, the results showed that compatibility, iitrialability, employees’ IT knowledge, top management support, manager’s attitude, and customer pressure were insignificant predictors of any of the e-commerce adoption levels. Upon that, it canbe argued with confidence that different levels of e-commerce adoption are affected by different factors. This entails the necessity of addressing the above ten significant predictors as they can be useful for managers, IT/webvendors and policy makers in drawing a roadmap and strategies for expanding the use and benefits of e-commerce adoption. Moreover, the conceptual framework of the study provide a best explanation of factors affecting e-commerce adoption levels in travel agencies as an example of SMEs, which contribute to the knowledge in the area of information systems particularly in the context of e-commerce adoption in developing countries.