DEVELOPING A FRAMEWORK FOR THE ASSESSMENT OF ETOURISM CAPABILITY

Sofia Reino

Queen Margaret University College, School of Business and Enterprise sreinopardinas@qmuc.ac.uk

ABTRACT The influence of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the tourism industry is increasingly being acknowledged in the literature. Many publications evaluate the challenges and opportunities that ICT applications have brought into specific sectors or industries. Destination Management Organisations (DMOs) are increasing their interest in the employment of technology, in order to enhance the promotion, distribution and quality of their services. However, little previous research has been carried out for the assessment of eTourism. This study attempts to address this gap in the field, proposing a new line of research in eTourism, built upon previous research in eTourism, eBusiness and ICT, which aims to develop an assessment model for eTourism capabilities at a given destination. This assessment mechanism will facilitate cross-destination benchmarking, supporting the management of tourism destinations. Keywords: eTourism, eTourism Capabilities, eTourism Assessment, Tourism, eBusiness measures, DMOs, ICT. 1. INTRODUCTION Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are leading structural changes in the tourism industry (Inkpen, 1998). They generate suitable conditions for the emergence of a new range of promotion and distribution channels in the industry. The rapid development of computers, management software applications, a plethora of digital appliances and excellent communications networks have improved inter and intra organisational communication, as well as consumer accessibility. The full range of ICT applications supporting all business activities, so-called eBusiness (Beynon-Davies, 2004), are especially relevant to tourism, due to the industry’s vast data processing need, its perishable products and its intensive reliance on information provision (Sheldon, 1997). This eBusiness application to tourism is known as eTourism, “the digitalisation of all processes and value chains” (Buhalis, 2003) in tourism organisations. Even though the potential opportunities for tourism products and destinations brought by information and communication tools is being increasingly acknowledged in the literature (Grazter et al., 2002), there is little previous research attempting to quantify, assess or evaluate the level of performance of tourism destinations as regards to their eTourism capability. In an attempt to address this gap, this paper aims to establish a theoretical framework for this new line of research, which will allow the development a model for the assessment of eTourism capability in a prescribed geographical area - in the first instance Scotland - and will ultimately allow comparisons between this and other destinations’ performance. Therefore, the scope of those terms which relate to the use of ICT in tourism will be examined, and their working boundaries will be established, in order to select those ICT tools

which are relevant for the assessment of eTourism capability at a given destination. Furthermore, the literature concerning capability measurement and assessment, in the broad fields of eTourism and eBusiness, will be critically reviewed, in order to approach the diverse evaluation methods which have been applied in previous research. Finally, an appraisal of those stakeholders which play a major role in incoming Scottish tourism will be carried out, in order to delimit the scale of the project without compromising the desired generalisation of findings. 2. DEFINING THE WORKING BOUNDARIES FOR ETOURISM Many authors have emphasised the influence that ICT usage has had in shaping the present tourism marketplace and distribution channels (Buhalis 1998;Poon 1993;Sheldon 1997). The number of related publications is constantly increasing (Grazter et al., 2002). However, little previous research has attempted to quantify, assess or evaluate eTourism capabilities. Communication and information transmission tools are indispensable to the global marketing, product distribution and service provision of the tourism industry. They allow organisations to augment their internal efficiency, and to enhance their communication with the external world by establishing partnerships with trusted stakeholders (Buhalis 2003). Unlike durable goods, tourism services cannot be inspected at the point of sale, and therefore depend almost exclusively upon representations and descriptions. Tourism products’ perishable condition enhances the industry’s susceptibility to rely on accurate information provision and real-time communication within the supply chain. Furthermore, serving consumers electronically is considered to contribute to businesses’ cost reduction, enabling organisations to increase interaction with consumers and the development of one-to-one marketing, by recording individual preferences (Sheldon 1997). 2.1. The tourism industry players

An important issue to be considered previous to the assessment of eTourism is related to the organisations which should be included in this type of research. The purpose of this project is to bring an insight into the level of development of eTourism at the industry level. In order to do so, specific organisations will be analysed in an attempt to get data suitable for generalisations and reveal the eTourism capability at a given destination. The tourism product, heterogeneous, compounded by an amalgam of diverse services, brings together a large and diverse number of interrelated and interdependent players involved in the production, distribution and consumption of services (Karcher 1997). Not only the concluding service but also the process by which the product is distributed between these players, and finally reaches the customer, will influence in the final customer satisfaction (Werthner and Klein 1999). Therefore, ICT plays a major role in the effective distribution process as well as in tourism organisations’ service provision, which will eventually depend on the specific companies’ intra-organisational processes and their ability to communicate with suppliers. This demands a precise and rapid response to other businesses’ requirements, and consequently ICT developments in specific sectors of the tourism industry might and have actually affected other divisions, such as, such as those related to the development of GDSs in the airline sector, which has directly impacted in travel agents’ technology adoption. Even though some sectors within the tourism industry will present common or complementing ICT requirements, some applications will only apply to specific organisations, which should be reflected in this type of assessment models. Consequently, the suppliers and intermediaries which play an indispensable role in the generation of incoming tourism to a given destination should be carefully selected, previous to the analysis of those ICT capabilities which should be included in the study.

According to Inkpen (1998) three elements need to be considered when attempting to understand the industry structure. The supply-side companies, whose products are mainly directed to other tourism companies; the demand-side, which directly deals with the traveller; and the distribution channel in which they operate. The industry players will include organisations which deal with tourism planning and regulations, such as national, regional and local government; suppliers, which includes the entire range of information, transport, accommodation, tours, attractions, and finance providers; intermediaries, which comprises GDSs, new intermediaries and tourist boards; the networks which support the distribution channels; and the final intermediaries which direct the product distribution to consumers and includes travel agencies, tourist information centres and self-service kiosks (Inkpen 1998; Sheldon 1997; Werthner and Klein 1999). As a result, the appraisal of eTourism capabilities will depend on each of these players performance independently as well as interdependently. However, this list includes an extensive range of organisations, which play an important role in the final tourism product. Due to project limitations, the examination of the entire range of players would not be feasible if the study attempts to get reliable samples. Therefore the working boundaries, focusing the study on the main players of the industry, need to be established, delimiting the scale of the project without compromising the desired generalisation of findings. 2.2. ICT in the tourism industry Tourism is one of the leading industries in the application of eBusiness to support communications both with consumers - B2C - as well as with other businesses -B2B (Liu 2005). Even though in some sectors of the tourism industry, networking applications have been introduced since the mid 1970s in order to support the distribution process, tourism has experimented fundamental changes throughout the different stages of the information technologies’ evolution presented by Nolan in an adaptation of his original work (Nolan 1979). This author distinguishes three different stages of development, starting with the “data processing era” (1960-1980), followed by the “information technology era”, where ICT tools supporting management operations were introduced (1980-1995), and the “current networking era” (1995-2010). During the last decades, further advances in ICT have been creating new challenges and opportunities in the industry. The Internet has already become the number one source of information consulted by North Americans choosing or planning a vacation (Travel and Tourism Association of America 2005). Internet users enjoy the advantage that it can be accessed from the comfort of home, or the office, at any time, and does not require additional sources of information to be obtained (Duff 2002). However, an entire range of ICT applications will necessarily backup the accurate functionality of these communication system, influence businesses’ readiness for future market challenges and will at some point of the leisure experience determine the potential achievement of tourists’ satisfaction, whether this technological demand is generated by customers for their direct use or in order to assist tourism organisations in the achievement of timely and effective day to day operations. It was in the 1950s when airline travel became a mass phenomenon, generating large amounts of information to deal with, related to flights, fares, seat inventories, crew, passengers, cargo and baggage. Problems related to effective control of this data contributed to strong investments in information technology, which resulted in the design and introduction of computerised reservation systems – CRSs (Buhalis 2003;Poon 1993;Sheldon 1997;Werthner and Klein 1999). Travel agencies access to this data was mainly enabled by contacting airlines' agents through the phone, telex or their specific CRS till the mid 70s, when technological progression and the increasing need to access real-time information from a diverse number of airlines incited the development of an integrated reservation systems, Global Distribution Systems – GDS – which would facilitate travel agents access to different airlines and setting up the first tourism industry’s networks.

The deployment of ICT has not taken place in all tourism sectors at the same time. The accommodation sector was more averse to the employment of ICT and it was not till the 90s that the majority of the hotels were computerised (Van Hoof et al. 1996). Property management systems – PMS – represent the most generalised ICT application in the accommodation service. They support reservations, front and back office operations and managerial functions. PMSs also operate as an interface for interconnecting other systems, such as electronic lockers, entertainment services, in-room refreshments and telecommunications. Both hotels and car rentals have also been progressively introducing their products in major GDSs, in order to increase their market prospects (Buhalis 2003). Tourism attractions, include a varied range of entertainment exhibitions and activities and conform an essential part of the tourism experience. They employ ICT in order to monitor the use of their activities through entrance control applications, to generate an enhanced visitor experience by the usage of multimedia, and for marketing and business planning operations (Sheldon 1997). Destination Management Organisations – DMOs, have already started to realise the potential opportunities brought in by the ICTs and employ technology in order to improve and expand their market operations. Through the use of the Internet, DMOs can integrate the entire range of tourism products under a unique brand image, the destination itself, which generally conforms the main pulling factor in the tourism product’s compound (Buhalis 2003). Consequently, some ICT applications, such as the Internet, might be considered to be playing an essential role in all sectors of the tourism industry. However some particular business could be relying on other set of technological tools. Specific indicators for each sector should be developed, in accordance to their particular requirements. 2.3. eTourism definition Different terms in the literature refer to the application of ICT tools supporting tourism business activities, such as eTourism, Online Tourism, Tourism eBusiness or Tourism eCommerce. Scholars’ interpretation of the scope of these terms remains diverse and unclear. The field requires integrated and consistent definitions to base its knowledge on, and consequently these terms should be reviewed, to establish the basis of the discipline, clarifying and integrating information technology and electronic business-related nomenclature within the current tourism research. In many occasions the term eTourism - or e-tourism - is used by the industry as a reflection of internet-based applications, limiting the scope of this term to the World Wide Web (Duff 2002), in which case the use of alternative terms such as Online Tourism (Sharma, et al 2000) would become more appropriated, as a reflection of the activity’s direct relation with the Internet. eTourism is the digitisation of procedures in the travel and tourism industry, including both tactical and strategic use of ICT applications (Buhalis 2003). According to (Werthner and Klein 1999) its research would build upon four pillar-disciplines, that is Computer science, Information Systems, Management Science and Tourism knowledge. Even though the term eTourism started to be used very recently, and its employment is not standardised and generalised, its relation to the eBusiness concept and its specific focus on the tourism industry, reflecting its particular dynamics, is increasing its use among researchers such as (Aichholzer et al. 2003; Buhalis and Licata 2002; Duff 2002;Grazter et al. 2002). However, this direct link of eTourism to the eBusiness’ conceptual framework does not necessarily clarify the terminological debate. There is also a lack of agreement about eBusiness terminology and the scope of associated terms within the relevant literature and both eBusiness and eCommerce are often used indiscriminately by scholars (Chaffey 2004; Turban et al. 2000). Nevertheless, and according to some authors (Chaffey 2004; Colecchia 1999;

Kalakota and Whinston 1997) eCommerce reflects those transactions which take place through the Internet, narrowing down the range of activities to be included into the boundaries of the concept. They relate eBusiness, a broader term, not only to the transactions over the Internet, but also to other communication-related operations which might or not end up in an economical operation, such as knowledge transfer with partnerships or information provision. However, this term still remains strongly associated to those Internet-based applications only. Although the influence of the Internet in today’s economy is highly recognised by the author of this paper, there is an entire range of software, hardware and netware applications which support business operations which are not accessible online, and which still play an essential role in companies’ service provision as well in their communication process with consumers, other business and within the organisation. Mesenbourg (2000) identified this lack of consistence in the definition of the digital economy. He attempted to clarify these interrelated terms and their definitions, without compromising their flexibility of adaptation to changes in the field. According to this author, the eBusiness infrastructure would include “hardware, software, telecommunication networks, support services, and human capital”. Therefore, not only should the Internet be considered when assessing companies’ ICT capabilities, but also all sort of ICT tools which support the entire range of business activities. In business and also in tourism-related organisations, the leading and pursued communication process is going to be that one which brings together customer with business and desirably, from the business perspective, it will eventually be followed by an economical agreement. Even though by limiting the study to this essential area of communication an insight might be brought into the industry’s ICT capabilities, organisations’ effective communication with suppliers and other partners would presumably affect their timely and satisfactory service delivery, as well as their readiness for future industry challenges. Therefore, the project will appraise ICT used by tourism organisations in order to support information processes as well as B2C (business to consumer) and B2B (business to business). For the purpose of this project eTourism will be considered as the employment of the entire range of ICT by tourism-related organisations in supporting intra-organisational processes as well as their communication with customers and other organisation, being ICT considered as not only the IP based applications but also the remainder non-IP based computer and communications technologies, including all the software, hardware and networking equipment. 2.4. eBusiness assessment The employment of ICT, within business environments, has been extensively researched since the 1980s, in industries such as manufacturing (Hitt and Brynjolfsson 1996), insurance industry (Harris and Katz 1989), banking (Parsons et al. 1990) and wholesalers (Cron and Sobol 1983). Van der Heijden (2000) differentiates between two different types of research in this field, the empirical and the conceptual one. Within the conceptual one, (Feeny and Willcocks 1998) define Information Systems as a set of nine capabilities which become essential for facing challenges from the business, technology, service and governmental environment. These authors propose the assessment of these capabilities by the “perceived occurrence of these behaviours”. In the same line of research (Earl 2000) introduces a model in which six different stages would identify the level of eBusiness progression in a given organisation. The different stages would be represented by the creation of a website, the development of Intranets, eCommerce, eBusiness, eEnterprise and the successful implementation of the earlier stages. These models could be applied to a significant sample and reveal, in this way, the level of development of the entire industry. However, and according to (Renken 2004)’s literature review of previous research in the assessment of ICT capabilities, these a need for a quantitative research project, in order to empirically verify organisations’ level of maturity in

the application of technology. He suggests that previous research does not establish specific measurements to assess whether companies have achieved each of the proposed stages, and when these theories are applied to a research study, their approaches are semi-structured and subjective. Furthermore, and according to (Corrocher and Ordanini 2002) ICT indicators need to be objectively weighed when assessing digital capabilities. The empirical line of research explores and aims to identify measurable mechanisms for ICT in the target sectors. After several decades of technological revolution, and heavy investments in ICT, its effectiveness and value generation started to be questioned during the 1980s (Kauffman and Weill 1989). The main input variable adopted for these studies was ICT investment and three different outputs were considered, namely economic growth, labour productivity and consumer welfare (Hitt and Brynjolfsson 1996). These studies were mostly carried out in specific firms (Bharadwaj et al. 1999) however, some macroeconomic projects attempted to identify profitability outputs such as GDP at the country level (Oliner and Sichel 2000). Some of these studies identified ICT playing a major role in the economic growth which took place during the late 1990s (Dedrick et al. 2003). Despite their important contribution, these projects did not establish measurement mechanisms for the assessment of ICT capabilities. In recent years, research interest regarding the assessment of eCommerce and eBusiness capabilities has emerged, which attempts to establish key e-metrics in order to enable website evaluation (Jutla et al. 1999). However, these projects do not pursue the assessment of eBusiness, but the evaluation of specific ICT tools within the field. Furthermore,

it is often claimed that information technology has the potential to transform entire industries…. [However,]...very little IS research has been conducted at the industry level (Crowston and Myers 2004, p.5).

2.5. eTourism Assessment

eTourism has been widely researched during the last ten years (Grazter et al. 2002). The focus of each of these projects has been diverse. Some studies have covered the challenges and opportunities brought in by ICTs to particular tourism sectors, such as travel agencies (Lang 2000) or the accommodation industry (Lituchy and Rail 2000) or specific types of businesses, such as SMEs (Braun 2002); others are related to specific ICTs applications or communication platforms within the tourism industry, such as the Internet (Mitsche 2005), mobile service technology (Maglogiannis et al. 2005), wireless technology (Flouri and Buhalis 2004), and there is also a line of research focused on the ICT usage within specific types of tourism, such as cultural tourism (Alfaro et al. 2004). Research aimed to measure or assess ICT in tourism, is mainly related to web evaluation and online traffic records (Mich et al. 2004; Michopoulou and Buhalis 2004; Pineda and Paraskevas 2004), which follows a similar paradigm to that one observed in eBusiness, there is little previous research in eTourism measurement and assessment at the industry level. This research project will therefore, address this gap in the academic research by developing a model for the assessment of eTourism capability in a prescribed geographical area (in the first instance Scotland) which will ultimately allow comparisons between this and other destinations’ performance. Although this project presents a new line of academic research, some public corporations have brought an insight into the field. The Scottish Executive published a report (Flett and Grant, 2005) which assessed the use of ICT in Scotland’s tourist, sporting and cultural organisations, and the European Commission (2005) examined the level of ICT in different industries, including tourism, through specific indicators.

3. RESEARCH APPROACH The investigation will follow a multi-method approach, carried out in six interrelated stages. Firstly, the Delphi technique will be used to identify those organisations which are considered to play a major role in the attraction and reception of tourism in a given destination, bearing in mind the nature of this project and the subsequently use of this technique for the establishment of eTourism capability indicators. Delphi, a method for structuring a group of communication process, is mainly employed for forecasting procedures; however there is a surprising variety of applications (Mitroff and Turoff 1975). Bharadwaj et al. (1999) developed a model to assess a given firm’s IT capabilities by applying the Delphi method to a panel of IT management experts. The method has also been used in the tourism field for the establishment of suitable indicators. Miller (2001) applied the Delphi method in order to get sustainability indicators for tourism resorts. The selection of this technique responds to the need to move towards consensus on a complex issue that requires the input of geographically disperse experts. This first stage of the research methods starts with the creation of the panel of experts who will participate in the Delphi for the identification of Scottish tourism stakeholders, and subsequent establishment of suitable eTourism capability indicators for the defined stakeholders. The panel of experts consists of people who have presented tourism and ICT-related work in at least one international conference or published it in a main tourism and/or ICT journal (Tourism Management, Annals of Tourism Research, Journal of Travel Research, Information Technology and Tourism, Communications of ACM, Decision Support Systems, IEEE Computer, IEEE Internet Computing, Information Management and Computer Security, International Journal of Electronic Commerce, Internet Research, Journal of Organizational Computing and Electronic Commerce, Journal of MISS and MIS Quarterly, Proceedings of International Conference on Information Systems) during the last two years. The format of the panel and the inclusion of both academic and non-academic experts are considered as vital determiner of the Delphi’s effective application (Wheeller et al. 1989), therefore, people from diverse tourism-related organisations and different areas of the world are being contacted and invited to participate. The Delphi aims, at this stage to generate suitable knowledge to give start to the entire research process. Secondly, the same panel of experts will be asked to weigh the indicators arising from the Delphi (Corrocher and Ordanini 2002), through the application of the Analytic Hierarchy Process – AHP - proposed by Saaty. The AHP is a weighted multi-factor scoring method for decision making support. It involves the identification of the overall decision to be taken, the subsequent factors to be weighted and those alternative choices from which a decision is to be made (Saaty 1990). The experts will at this stage have the opportunity to rate their firstly suggested indicators against each other, which will assist in the selection of suitable indicators, stating their importance in the resulting priority matrix. Thirdly, the results from the AHP will inform a questionnaire to test the validity, and subsequently applicability of the findings to the real world (Bryman, 2004). This will be an electronic survey, which will be distributed to a variety of stakeholders. The sample frame will be selected by stratified random sample. The survey will aim to pilot the obtained indicators and will also include open-ended questions. Participants will, therefore, be able to express their opinions about the surveys’ measurement mechanisms, generating qualitative data. The results from the surveys will constitute the fourth stage whereby the panel of experts will have the opportunity to comment on the changed indicators as a means of assuring the reliability, as well as measurement and external validity (Corbeta, 2003).

The fifth stage of the work comprises reflection and development of a model which will seek to assess the eTourism capabilities in a given destination this will lead to the fifth and final stage, a quantitative questionnaire will be derived from the model input requirements, which will be implemented with a representative sample of stakeholders in test destinations thus an indicative measure of a destinations’ eTourism capabilities is enabled as well as the possibility of inter-destination comparison. 4. CONCLUSION AND OUTLOOK The project arises from an original proposal which aimed to identify possible correlations between eTourism capability and the tourism industry welfare. However, the lack of assessment methods within the field revealed a major gap in research, which this project aims to address. The project will be initially focused on the identification of the main players in the generation of incoming tourism in a given destination, and the following development of indicators for the assessment of eTourism. Both objectives directed to the establishment of an assessment model for eTourism capability. The application of the resulting model aspires to bring an insight into the level of ICT usage in tourism organisations, and which will subsequently allow a holistic understanding of eTourism at the industry’s level. Even thought this model will be applied to Scotland in first instance, it is intended to provide a benchmarking mechanism for tourism destinations, and its applicability to any given destination is therefore a major goal of this research. The model will constitute an assessment tool aimed to assist DMOs in their promotion and development planning. In order to achieve the objectives of this project, the implementation of each interrelated stage will depend on the timely and accurate completion of its predecessor. This is a main challenge for the research. As a result, strict time planning and the achievement of the established deadlines are considered a main issue for the development of this study. However, time planning becomes an extremely difficult task when some external factors, of which the researcher has little control, might compromise the progression of the project, such as the desired number of responses from the contacted experts to develop the Delphi, the AHP and the surveyed tourism organisations, a large database with possible participants has to be created. The establishment of two objectives within the first stage of the project, namely the identification of the main players and the suggestion of suitable indicators for eTourism capability constitute a risky but essential step for the project to get started. Therefore, those questions which will constitute the Delphi need special consideration in order to ensure that the experts’ clear understanding of the aims of the project and a careful selected structure to facilitate participants’ contribution. The structure and length of the surveys might represent an obstacle when attempting to achieve a significant participation rate. eTourism capability is a broad term which includes an enormous range of ICT applications. Therefore, an effective synthesis during the analysis of findings and a systematic planning and piloting process throughout the entire project will aim to enhance the development of a realistic and reliable assessment model.

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