Abstract:

E-commerce is said to be growing in developed and developing countries, and has been described as offering significant benefits to small businesses. In developing countries however, the use of e-commerce by small businesses has proven to be the exception rather that the norm. Small businesses in developing countries face a broad range of obstacles, some of which are: access to capital, availability of telecommunications and lack of internal skills.

This paper proposes a conceptual e-readiness framework for small tourism enterprises. The framework identifies factors with three contextual areas that collectively contribute to the e-readiness of a business.