Obstacles to Implementation of Online Booking in Saudi Travel Agencies

This paper examines current experience of online booking technology within travel agencies. A qualitative exploratory approach to research is adopted with a focus examining Saudi travel agent utilization and experience of booking systems and their attitudes and propensity to adopt online booking processes. Also it focuses on the travel agent perspective and identifies barriers to implementation of online booking technology. Fourteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with managers and staff at selected travel agencies in Saudi Arabia. A technology acceptance model (TAM) was applied and developed to address the online booking and purchase in travel services and to explain the factors influencing user acceptance of online booking and purchase in travel services. Findings showed that customer culture, lack of customer trust and security, e-payment process, lack of government support, internet services connections, Understanding of services and its benefits have efficiency considerable influences on the perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use of online booking/purchasing acceptance. Keywords: online booking technology; travel agencies in Saudi Arabia; attitudes; customer trust; security; customer cultur

Assessing web content accessibility of E-commerce websites for people with disabilities

In recent years online shopping has grown significantly. Due to the rapid growth of technology, companies also continuing to extend the functionality and design of their Business-to-Consumer (B2C) e-business websites. However, it is also important to adopt web accessibility such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines in B2C websites to increase the consumer's satisfaction of all ages and with disabilities. This study analyses 30 Australian B2C websites in accordance to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) using an automated web service. The result shows that B2C websites in Australia are not paying attention to web accessibility for people with disabilities. However, e-commerce will succeed in meeting WCAG 2.0 by making B2C e-commerce websites accessible to consumer of all ages and with disabilities. Recommendations are proposed in order to improve web accessibility for people with sensory (hearing and vision), motor (limited use of hands) and cognition (language and learning) disabilities in B2C e-commerce websites

The Impact of E-commerce on Sierra Leone Tourism Industry

The importance of electronic commerce is felt and greatly emphasized in the present business field. Today, all the industries have started adopting e-commerce concepts, where tourism is probably the most affected industry by e-commerce. The E-tourism and its utility provide a lot of information on Sierra Leone destination, hotels, facilities, price and tariff, geographical features and climate. More number of companies integrated all the services on their websites and provides a complete package with a competitive price to the required customers. E-tourism companies in Sierra Leone also provide mobile application facilities to the consumers. E-tourism companies need to follow certain procedures laid down by the Government. The objectives of the study is to identify the level of impact of e-commerce technology on tourism industry in Sierra Leone and the opportunities and challenges. A systematic research methodology is adopted, data has been collected from the tour operators through questionnaire and suitable statistical tools were applied. With the help of the collected data a detailed analysis was made, understand the impact of e- Commerce on Sierra Leone tourism industry identify the opportunities and challenges as well as the market trend

Integration of policy aspects into information security issues in South African organisations

Information for individual organisations should always be secured. Organisations need to protect their information from attackers or competitors as these could lead to law suits or loss of business. With the more advanced network technology, information security risks and threats are believed to be on the increase and becoming even more sophisticated. This paper assesses how South African organisations integrate legal and policy aspects when they deal with information security issues. Qualitative research methods were employed to gather and analyse data for the study. Results show that participation by top management in the provision of information security policies is very minimal in organisations. Again, most information security practitioners are not familiar with the legal and policy aspects that they are supposed to integrate in the implementation of information security and thus most organisations in the country are not complying with the law.Institute for Corporate Citizenshi

Systematic literature review of e-Commerce implementation studies

E-Commerce implementation is a crucial process for organization to make it successful and beneficial. As a consequence, intensive research works in the area of e-Commerce implementation from a diverse range of views and findings have been studied by many researchers. However, the aspect of Business-to-Customer (B2C) e-Commerce implementation has yet been undertaken in an understandable manner in the context of a full life cycle of information systems development. This paper provides a systematic literature review of existing research studies on e-Commerce implementation to discover the extent focus of work based on theme in the implementation phases: pre-implementation, during implementation and post implementation. Sixty five (65) selected primary research studies have been analysed on the basis of implementation phase theme, research approach and research area. The results show that majority papers discussed B2C e-Commerce in the pre-implementation phase (49%) and applied quantitative approach (63%) as the most popular research method. Two other implementation phases namely during implementation phase and post implementation phase has not been sufficiently addressed in the existing literature. Furthermore, existing literature have significantly addressed factors related to e-Commerce implementation but were not mapped to the appropriate implementation phases. These factors list remains on surface without clear direction in which e-Commerce implementation process is crucial for organizations. Thus, through a systematic literature review this study suggests that more research is needed for understanding the complex process of e-Commerce implementation in a more holistic manner. In addition, there is a need for study to screen these factors to a particular and more accurately “map” in the process of e-Commerce implementatio

An investigation into e-commerce in hospitality: A Cape Town study

Much has changed in the business world since the birth of technology and the subsequent discovery of the world wide web (www) in 1989. Global communication between potential buyers/customers and suppliers became a reality and with it, so did the sale of products through the use of this platform. Electronic transactions also known as E-Commerce, gained momentum in the last few decades enabling customers to search for products online and purchase their desired findings through a host of electronic payment methods. A common misconception is that e-commerce refers only to the sale of tangible products through the internet, although “services” such as found in the tourism and hospitality industry also use this medium of sales. Tourism is a key sector in South Africa and vital contributor to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country. According to South African Tourism (2015), more than 180 million bed nights were sold in 2015, making the hotel industry an attractive client of e-commerce. Hotel rooms are advertised on company websites, and these in turn are also linked to websites such as Booking.com and Expedia.com, which facilitate the room sales of subscribing hospitality properties across the globe

Effects of Personalized Travel Destination Visual Image on Travel Motivation

This study examines the personalization of shown travel destination visual images using professional photography upon travel motivations, feelings, and purchase intentions of consumers in the online environment. The research design was experimental and used data from a questionnaire via Qualtrics. A pilot test of the instrument was conducted. The final questionnaire contained 25 items. A total of 194 questionnaires were collected and participants were randomly assigned to one of four groups. Each group of 50 participants was exposed to a specific set of travel destination visual images. Further, several hypotheses related to the effects of personalization, professional photography toward travel motivation, emotion, and purchase intention were tested. The results indicated that: (1) travel motivation was affected by both personalization, and professional photography of travel destination visual image; (2) personalization had an influence on positive emotion, but professional photography did not; (3) it was expected that personalization would act as a “push” factor on travel motivation, and professional photography would influence the “pull” factor on travel motivation, but these two hypotheses were not supported; (4) travel motivation and emotion positively affected purchase intention, however this was only partially supported. Furthermore, the results of the present study implied that the “push – pull” travel motivation theory was considered not entirely separate. Practical recommendations are presented for online tourism marketers to enhance their service

La influencia del comercio electrónico en las ventas de los servicios de Hotel Royal INN de la ciudad de Juliaca, periodos 2013-2014

El trabajo de investigación titulado “La influencia del comercio electrónico en las ventas de los servicios de Hotel Royal Inn de la ciudad de Juliaca, periodo 2013 2014 ”, se realizó con el objetivo de evaluar la influencia del comercio electrónico en las ventas de servicios; la investigación realizada es de tipo descriptivo, desarrollado por medio de la aplicación de un cuestionario estructurado a la empresa, una entrevista personal al gerente y revisión de documentos referentes a las ventas online. Según la investigación realizada hemos tenido los siguientes resultados que están plasmados en el resumen de las principales conclusiones: La forma de comercializar sus servicios del Hotel Royal Inn ha evolucionado conforme a las exigencias de mercados globales, los usuarios hacen uso cada vez más de herramientas del comercio electrónico para la elección de sus destinos. El lento avance del uso de la herramientas del comercio electrónico por la falta de información y preparación adecuada para una mejor utilización de la página web, redes sociales y otas de parte del gerente; Las causas que determinan la falta de uso del comercio electrónico en el hotel Royal Inn de la ciudad de Juliaca, es la escases de información que tiene el gerente acerca de los beneficios que brinda el uso del comercio electrónico, en cuanto a la inversión, todavía se puede observar que gran parte prefieren invertir en la comercialización tradicional y no el comercio electrónico que vendría a ser más económico y efectivo; Las ventas online del periodo 2014 incrementaron en un 13% con respecto al 2013, en proporción a la venta tradicional, las ventas realizadas mediante el comercio electrónico son mínimasTesi

Legal and policy aspects to consider when providing information security in the corporate environment

E-commerce is growing rapidly due to the massive usage of the Internet to conduct commercial transactions. This growth has presented both customers and merchants with many advantages. However, one of the challenges in E-commerce is information security. In order to mitigate e-crime, the South African government promulgated laws that contain information security legal aspects that should be integrated into the establishment of information security. Although several authors have written about legal and policy aspects regarding information security in the South African context, it has not yet been explained how these aspects are used in the provision of information security in the South African corporate environment. This is the premise upon which the study was undertaken. Forty-five South African organisations participated in this research. Data gathering methods included individual interviews, website analysis, and document analysis. The findings of this study indicate that most organisations in South Africa are not integrating legal aspects into their information security policies. One of the most important outcomes of this study is the proposed Concept Model of Legal Compliance in the Corporate Environment. This Concept Model embodies the contribution of this study and demonstrates how legal requirements can be incorporated into information security endeavours. The fact that the proposed Concept Model is technology-independent and that it can be implemented in a real corporate environment, regardless of the organisation’s governance and management structure, holds great promise for the future of information security in South Africa and abroad. Furthermore, this thesis has generated a topology for linking legislation to the provision of information security which can be used by any academic or practitioner who intends to implement information security measures in line with the provisions of the law. It is on the basis of this premise that practitioners can, to some extent, construe that the integration of legislation into information security policies can be done in other South African organisations that did not participate in this study. Although this study has yielded theoretical, methodological and practical contributions, there is, in reality, more research work to be done in this area.School of ComputingD. Phil. (Information Systems

The use of information and communication technologies in South African hotels : a self-evaluation by hotel managers.

It is fair to assume that the level of participation in a world economy depends on the capacity of business organisations to use technology efficiently. Conducting business in the world today is driven by information technology. Internet technology has changed various business activities and transactions. In the Internet age, the development of electronic commerce (EC) is considered a major indicator of the overall competitiveness of organisations. An EC marketing channel can bring customers more benefits such as greater shopping convenience and potentially lower prices. Today, most hotels have been forced by the market to consider adopting EC to carry out business processes more efficiently. Hence, the purpose of the study is to determine the determinants of EC adoption by hotels in South Africa. This study is based on Tornatzky and Fleicher’s (1990) technological, organizational and environmental (TOE) model that includes technological context, organisational context and environmental context. The TOE model has been widely used to examine the factors that influence organisational technology adoption. The research model looked at eight determinants, which are (1) relative advantage, (2) compatibility, (3) complexity, (4) organisational size, (5) technology knowledge, (6) managers’ attitudes towards EC, (7) information intensity and (8) competition. A quantitative research design was used and a questionnaire was used to collect data and answer the research questions in the study. Four hundred hotels were randomly selected from the three groups of hotels suggested by the South African Tourism office, i.e. (1) Tourism Grading council hotel listing, (2) Tshwane accommodation listing and (3) AA travel accommodation. A total of 332 questionnaires were collected for data analysis, which represents a 94.9% response rate. Descriptive statistics, correlational statistics, one way analysis of variance, (ANOVA), regression analysis, cross tabulation tests and multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVA) were used to analyse the data. The results indicated that all three contexts (TOE) were important in the decision of EC adoption by the hotels in South Africa. The findings indicated that not all the determinants used had a statistically significant relationship with the extent of EC adoption in the hotel industry. The researcher also found out that hotels were more concerned about the benefits of EC than the organisational ability to adopt EC, the hotels that had sufficient resources were more willing to adopt EC. The findings also indicated that managers’ attitude towards EC adoption is influential on the extent of EC adoption. Finally, findings indicated that there is a lot of pressure from suppliers and customers for the hotels to use EC. Even though the mangers that filled in the questionnaire were computer literate, technology knowledge of EC would help managers to realise which systems are most appropriate.Thesis (Ph.D)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2011