E-commerce in the travel and tourism industry in Sub-Saharan Africa

The e-commerce revolution in business can help African countries expand their tourism industry. Africa, with its great wealth in wildlife and unique resorts, can benefit from the ever increasing user population of the Internet, particularly in the USA and Western Europe where most of the tourists to Africa come from (Internet World Stats, 2004). E-commerce which runs on the backbone of the Internet can help the African tourism industry break into international tourism, thus increasing the flows of the much needed foreign currency. As there was little empirical data on the e-commerce activities in the African tourism industry the researcher first and foremost examined a large number of websites in order to paint a picture of the nature and extent of the e-commerce activities in four -African countries. For comparison, websites of tourism organisations from USA and Western Europe were also examined. The surveys revealed that few of the African organisations are embracing e-commerce and that although some websites were comparable to those of their western counterparts the majority had room for considerable improvement. After examining the websites another survey was carried out to find the current progress of e-commerce adoption and usage from the perspective of the African tourism organisations. Analysis of the data collected showed that e-commerce adoption among the tourism organisations was slow. This led to more surveys being carried out to find the barriers to e-commerce among tourism organisations with information-only websites and those whose websites had limited interactive facilities. These surveys revealed that tourism organisations with information-only websites faced more barriers than those with websites which had limited interactive features. They also revealed that the most common barriers were technological and security and legal barriers. The ultimate survey involved finding out from tourism organisations with fully-fledged e-commerce websites how they overcame the e-commerce barriers. The methods used by these organisations to overcome e-commerce barriers together with recommendations made in the surveys carried out earlier were used to formulate recommendations and guidelines for those organisations intending to adopt and e-commerce. The recommendations and guidelines were tested and results showed that they are helpful and easy to follow

The development of the e-commerce technology adoption in Libya : evidence from the Libyan oil and gas industry

The style of doing business electronically, especially using the Internet, is now popularly known as e-Commerce technology. It is generally acknowledged that e-Commerce is revolutionizing the way of doing business. Internet and e-Commerce experts and researchers have recognized the potential of e-Commerce applications for the success of any organization. There is evidence that many companies have benefited from such technology. However, despite numerous studies of e-Commerce, there is a little research identifying the factors associated with the adoption of e-Commerce within petroleum companies. This research investigates factors that influence the adoption of e-Commerce in Libyan Oil and Gas Companies (LOGCs). The study provides insights into the perceptions of Internet and e-Commerce in Libyan petroleum companies who are developing or will develop Internet and e-Commerce technology. However, the LOGCs lack information technology (IT) infrastructure, technical expertise and good management, which appear to be real barriers to adopting e-Commerce. This study will assist those LOGCs that are considering or currently conducting their business using the Internet and e-Commerce. A framework of e-Commerce adoption will be developed to investigate the factors that potentially influence the adoption of e-Commerce. Many oil and gas companies are transferring part of their businesses to the Internet. So how are the LOGCs rising to face the challenges of the fast-moving information age? The Libyan petroleum industry seems to be very slow in responding to this area of information technology. If so, then the full potential of the industry and economy will be compromised. This research examines the factors that hinder or facilitate e- Commerce adoption. A questionnaire was developed utilizing ideas from the existing literature. The sample consisted of top managers in LOGCs (n--21 1). Multiple methods were used to collect and analyse the data: descriptive statistics, correlation and regression analysis. All analysis was performed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences. The results confirmed the findings of the literature survey, in that organizational characteristics influence e-Commerce adoption level. This study proposes a theoretical framework with influential factor groups including organizational, innovation, industry, and environmental factors. Some themes have emerged from previous literature explaining the reasons for rejecting e-Commerce adoption. The results confirm that organizational factors are highly significant in explaining e-Commerce adoption. The results also confirm that environmental factors are crucial and there was a significant relationship between the level of e-Commerce adoption and environmental factors. It is also confirmed that the perceived benefit coefficient has a negative sign and it is not significantly related to adoption level. Finally, the industry factors are not related to e-Commerce adoption level as hypothesized. This study has various limitations, and further research is needed in order to develop a more comprehensive e-Commerce technology adoption model

WTO and e-commerce diffusion in developing countries : the case of China's coastal urban area

The increasing use of Internet and the potential of e-commerce give rise to important policy issues relating to both national economic policy and multilateral rules of international trade. Motivated by the argument that the liberalization commitments made at the World Trade Organization (WTO) may have a major impact on the e-commerce development, this research aims to investigate the relationship between WTO commitments and e-commerce diffusion in developing countries by using China’s coastal urban area as a case study. Taking critical realism as the underlying philosophy, the research develops two process models to answer the research questions. The model at the lower level focuses on the single process of how the WTO commitments can affect an individual infrastructural sector related to e-commerce. It was developed by analyzing the four most important e-commerce input sectors: telecommunications, banking, logistics and express delivery, and information technology (IT). The model at the higher level is a network combining the processes at the lower level, examining the overall effects of WTO commitments on e-commerce diffusion. Nine propositions were made from the higher-level model. Conclusions are drawn from outcomes in verifying these propositions. The WTO commitments are found to have indirect effects on liberalization in telecommunications, banking, and logistics and express delivery services. Improvements in these sectors have made information infrastructure and commercial services less important barriers to e-commerce than other issues. In addition, the WTO commitments have directly boosted Chinese enterprises’ interest in e-commerce adoption and positively affected the taxation policy on e-commerce. All these have positively influenced e-commerce diffusion in China, while the effects of the WTO commitments on IT product imports, computer and related services, intellectual property rights (IPRs) protection, and educational services have not been evident. This research is the first study to use a specific case to examine the WTO rules in the context of e-commerce diffusion. It has implications for both research and practice. First, by examining the interactions between the external pressure from multilateral agreements and internal forces of domestic institutions, the research investigates the actual process of how the impacts of the WTO rules can be materialized. Second, the thesis confirms the argument that while the socio-economic challenges to e-commerce are difficult to surmount, the path to reducing regulatory barriers is clearer and the benefits quicker to observe. Government action is critical to removing these impediments to electronic commerce