{"title":"Digitization of European SMEs in Tourism and Hospitality: The Case of Greek Hoteliers","authors":"Joanna K. Konstantinou","volume":113,"journal":"International Journal of Social and Business Sciences","pagesStart":1558,"pagesEnd":1563,"ISSN":"1307-6892","URL":"https:\/\/publications.waset.org\/pdf\/10004407","abstract":"
The aim of this study is to explore the need of small and medium-sized businesses in tourism and hospitality industry to adopt technology and enhance their degree of digitalization, along with the main benefits enjoyed by technology and the main challenges that hinder its adoption. Within a hermeneutic phenomenological perspective, semi-structured interviews were conducted with three hotel owners and the focus was to identify the main reasons of adoption of technology, enablers and barriers. The findings were grouped with the goal of identifying typology of business practices in using and adopting technology.<\/p>\r\n","references":"[1]\tM. Abou-Shouk, W. M. Lim, and P. Megicks, \u201cE-Commerce and Small Tourism Businesses in Developing Countries: Drivers versus Boundaries of Adoption,\u201d Tour. Plan. Dev., vol. 10, no. 3, pp. 249\u2013266, 2013.\r\n[2]\tAirbnb, \u201cThe Economic Impacts of Home Sharing in cities around the world,\u201d 2015.\r\n[3]\tAmadeus, \u201cShaping the Future of Travel,\u201d Oxford Econ., p. 42, 2015.\r\n[4]\tEuropean Union, \u201cBusiness Innovation Observatory Innovative Business Models for Competitiveness Social media for internationalisation Social media for internationalisation,\u201d 2014.\r\n[5]\tR. R. Croes and D. V. Tesone, \u201cSmall firms embracing technology and tourism development: Evidence from two nations in Central America,\u201d Int. J. Hosp. Manag., vol. 23, no. 5 SPEC.ISS., pp. 557\u2013564, 2004.\r\n[6]\tDimitrios Buhalis; Ourania Deimezi, \u201ceTourism Developments in Greece: Information Communication Technologies adoption for the strategic management of the Greek tourism industry Abstract,\u201d Int. J. Parasitol., vol. 11, no. 5, pp. 341\u2013342, 1981.\r\n[7]\tTOURISMlink, \u201cThe European Tourism Market, its structure and the role of ICTs,\u201d 2012.\r\n[8]\tC. M. Parker and T. Castleman, \u201cNew directions for research on SME-eBusiness: insights from an analysis of journal articles from 2003 to 2006,\u201d J. Inf. Syst. small Bus., vol. 1, no. 1\u20132, pp. 21\u201340, 2007.\r\n[9]\tA. Sukumar and D. Edgar, \u201cE-Business, SMEs and Risks: Towards a Research Agenda,\u201d Int. J. Manag. Innov. Syst., vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 1\u201319, 2009.\r\n[10]\tM. Taylor and A. Murphy, \u201cSMEs and e\u2010business,\u201d J. Small Bus. Enterp. Dev., vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 280\u2013289, 2004.\r\n[11]\tG. D. Garson, \u201cUNWTO Tourism Highlights,\u201d 2015.\r\n[12]\tZ. Xiang, V. P. Magnini, and D. R. Fesenmaier, \u201cInformation technology and consumer behavior in travel and tourism: Insights from travel planning using the internet,\u201d J. Retail. Consum. Serv., vol. 22, pp. 244\u2013249, 2015.\r\n[13]\tM. del Mar Alonso-Almeida and J. Llach, \u201cAdoption and use of technology in small business environments,\u201d Serv. Ind. J., vol. 33, no. 15\u201316, pp. 1456\u20131472, 2013.\r\n[14]\tD. Benckendorff, P, Sheldon, P and Fesenmaier, Tourism Information Technology. Cambridge: CABI Tourism Texts, 2014.\r\n[15]\tSmith, Interpretative phenomenological analysis. London: SAGE Publications Ltd, 2006.","publisher":"World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology","index":"Open Science Index 113, 2016"}