Tourism and Internet Adoption: a Developing World Perspective

This paper provides a new perspective of the realities faced by small tourism enterprises in the developing world. Given the well-recognised value of the Internet in tourism, we sought to identify how entrepreneurs mitigate Internet adoption obstacles such as the inadequate and unreliable telecommunications infrastructure, the cost of the technology, and a lack of knowledge and skills that characterise developing nations. A qualitative study was performed on small tourism enterprises in rural and metropolitan areas of Malaysia and Ecuador. We found that entrepreneurs established ways to overcome obstacles, with some applying quite innovative solutions. This paper helps to understand the role of entrepreneurs in innovation adoption and improve knowledge of Internet appropriation among small tourism enterprises in developing nations. A number of transferable lessons are identified. Copyright (c) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.