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Tourism Management 33 (2012) 1256e1269
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Tourism Management
journal homepage: www.elsevier .com/locate/ tourman
Factors affecting E-Marketing adoption and implementation in tourism firms:An empirical investigation of Egyptian small tourism organisations
Hatem El-Gohary*
Birmingham City University Business School, Birmingham City University, City North Campus, Birmingham, West Midlands B42 2SU, UK
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:Received 7 August 2011Accepted 30 October 2011
Keywords:Electronic MarketingE-Marketing adoptionSmall tourism organizationsTechnology Acceptance Model (TAM) andInnovation Diffusion Theory (IDT)Egypt
* Tel.: þ44 (0) 1213314616.E-mail addresses: [email protected], elgo
0261-5177/$ e see front matter � 2011 Elsevier Ltd.doi:10.1016/j.tourman.2011.10.013
a b s t r a c t
This study aims to analyze the different factors affecting the adoption of Electronic Marketing(E-Marketing) by Egyptian small tourism organizations. The study validates a conceptual frameworkextending TAM and IDT models to explain E-marketing adoption utilising a quantitative approach, inwhich data is collected based on survey strategy through questionnaires to address different levels of thestudy. Advanced statistical tools and SEM were used to analyze the collected data. The findings indicatedthat Egyptian tourism organizations internal and external factors have a great impact on the adoption ofE-Marketing by such organizations. The findings also confirmed that IT theories (namely TAM and IDT) arevalid in illustrating E-Marketing adoption by Egyptian tourism organizations. The results reinforce theimportance of environmental factors on E-Marketing adoption and add to the extremely limited number ofempirical studies that has been conducted to investigate E-Marketing adoption in developing countries.
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1. Introduction
The adoption of information technology (IT), new technologiesand the Internet has gained a lot of interest from researchers, policymakers and practitioners during the last two decades. As a result,there are a number of accepted theoretical frameworks that hasbeen used by researchers to investigate the adoption and diffusionof IT and new technologies by the business community. Moreover,recent research into IT adoption and use has been motivated by thedesire to predict factors, which can lead to successful application ina marketing context (El-Gohary, 2010; Lynn, Lipp, Akgün, & Cortez,2002: 35; Rose & Straub, 1998: 39). However Electronic Marketing(E-Marketing) is still a relatively new concept, particularly fororganizations operating in developing countries that have limitedresources, bad infrastructure, and strong competition and cannotafford to make unwise investments or wrong decisions. Therefore,there is a need to have a much clearer understanding of E-Marketing problems as well as its opportunities for such organi-zations; and how these technologies can be used to carry out theorganization marketing activities and processes in a more effectiveand efficient way than reliance on traditional marketing practices.
Meanwhile, as tourism is one of the most important sources forthe Egyptian national Gross Domestic Production (according to
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Baran, 2011: tourism represents 11% of the Egyptian national GrossDomestic Production e GDP. Within the same line, the EgyptianMinistry of Tourism reported that tourism generated 12.53 billionUSD in 2010 - Egyptian Ministry of Tourism, 2011) and it providesa great percentage of the country employability (according to thehead of Egypt Tourist Authority - ETA, there are 2.5 million peopleworking in tourist industry in Egypt - Baran, 2011), it is importantto find new ways of helping Egyptian organizations working intourism sectors in conducting its business in an effective and effi-cient way. To achieve this objective, this paper aims to explore,analyze and develop a clear understanding about the differentfactors affecting E-Marketing adoption by Egyptian small tourismorganizations which is going to build on the current body ofknowledge in the field of E-Marketing.
1.1. Electronic marketing and Egyptian small tourism organizations
E-Marketing can be viewed as a new philosophy and a modernbusiness practice involved with marketing of goods, services,information and ideas via the Internet and other electronic means.By reviewing the relevant literature it is noticed that definitions ofE-Marketing vary according to each researcher’s point of view,background and specialization. Strauss and Frost define it as: “Theuse of electronic data and applications for planning and executingthe conception, distribution and pricing of ideas, goods and servicesto create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizationalgoals” (Strauss & Frost, 2001: 454). For the purpose of defining
H. El-Gohary / Tourism Management 33 (2012) 1256e1269 1257
E-Marketing within this research the researcher will depend onStrauss and Frost definition in conducting the current study since: ittakes into consideration the main elements of E-Marketing as wellas all types of products, it illustrates the main objective of E-marketing which is mainly the creation of exchanges that satisfyboth customer and organizational needs and it is the definitionadopted by the American E-Marketing Association (eMA).
Egyptian organizations have more than seven thousand years ofrecorded history (Fakhry, 2006). Ancient Egypt was among theearliest civilizations that discovered the value of work and the realmeaning of entrepreneurship (El-Gohary, 2009). That can be seenobviously on the drawings on the temples and old papyrus papers(El-Gohary, 2009 and Fakhry, 2006). Furthermore, tourism isexpected to be the engine of economic growth in Egypt over thenext several decades and is expected to create the jobs needed byits ever growing population (Abdelhamed & Elhousaney, 2009).Moreover, with no doubt, Egypt is one of the leading touristattractions among countries of the world and is highly consideredas a unique case that cannot be matched. As a result, tourism doesplay a very important and major role in the Egyptian economytoday and is recognized as one of the main sources of economicdevelopment and employment growth in Egypt. According to theEgyptian Ministry of Tourism (2011), the number of tourists’ visitedEgypt in 2010 was 14.7 million tourist compared with only 12.5million tourist in 2009 with an increase of 2.2 million tourist(17.5%). As a result the total number of tourist nights increased from32.6 million nights in 2002 to 126.5 million nights in 2009 and147.4 million nights in 2010 generating an income of 12.53 billionAmerican Dollars in 2010 with an increase of 16.5% than the reve-nues in 2009.
As a result of the growing tourism activities in Egypt, thedevoted efforts of the Egyptian government to promote Egyptiantourism, the big investments that the Egyptian government injec-ted in all tourism sectors and massive developments in tourisminfrastructure, the number of Egyptian organizations working intourism sectors increased rapidly and dramatically from only 331company in 1982 to 1083 company in 2003 and then to 1844company in 2010. When looking to the regional distribution ofEgyptian organizations’working in tourism, although providing theregional distribution figures for these organizations will assurerepresentativeness of the sample, this is not possible due to the lackof data regarding the actual regional distribution of Egyptiantourism organizations. The author tried all the possible means toreach such datawhen conducting the researchwithout any success.However, it is commonly accepted (by Egyptian tourismresearchers and experts) that Egyptian tourism companies are welldistributed all over the country with the majority of them based inCairo. South Sinai, Cairo, and Al-Bahr El-Ahmar governorates havethe greatest tourism firm formation rates in Egypt. Cairo, being thecapital with a lot of treasures and attractions, has traditionally beenthe main location of large public and private investments. Becauseof its relatively better developed infrastructure, the availability ofgood investment opportunities and the existence of a huge market,it represents the most attractive location for new investments.Meanwhile, South Sinai and Al-Bahr El-Ahmar regions are wellknown not only for its moderate climate, long coasts and beachesbut also the beauty and magic of its nature. As a result most of theEgyptian resorts are based in these two regions.
The law associated with and organizing all the aspects related tosmall businesses (SBEs) in Egypt is: the Small Business EnterprisesDevelopment Law (Law number 141 for the year 2009). For thepurpose of conducting the current study, the Egyptian legal defi-nition for small businesses derived from the Small BusinessEnterprises Development Law will be used in defining SBEs (as theunit of analysis for this research). According to article number one
of this law (Law number 141/year 2009) a small business enterpriseis defined as:
“Any company or individual firm that conduct production, serviceor commercial economic activities with a capital no less than50,000 Egyptian pounds and no more than one million Egyptianpounds and employs 50 employees or less” (Law number 141/year2009, article 1, p 2).
The Egyptian economy depends mainly on agriculture, media,Suez Canal, tourism, the transferred income of more than 5 millionEgyptians working abroad (mainly in Saudi Arabia, the Gulf areaand Europe) and petroleum and gas exports (El-Gohary, 2009). Inthe last 30 years, the Egyptian government has started reformingthe highly centralized economy from the sixties and med seventiesera into a totally market liberalization economy. But regardless ofthat, the high level of political, social and economic corruptionwithin the country did not allow any chance of improving thecountry poor economic performance. As a result, the people ofEgypt turned against Hosni Mubarak regime and got rid of thiscorrupted regime through the 25th of January 2011 revolution.Although the revolution was demanded and conducted by thepeople, it led to major chaos in the whole country which affectedbadly all Egyptian economy sectors including tourism. According toAmr Elezabi (the head of the Egyptian Tourist Authority - ETA) theindustry has been losing $25 million dollars per day since the 1st ofFebruary 2011(Baran, 2011).
E-Marketing adoption and implementation by Egyptian tourismorganizations can be a very important tool in solving the currentproblems associated with Egyptian tourism industry as a result ofthe political unrest not only in Egypt but also in the Middle East.The adoption and implementation of E-Marketing can help Egyp-tian tourism organizations in finding leverage points that can helpsuch organizations in overcoming its current problems.
1.2. Research problem and questions
The fundamental problem motivating this study is the need toknow and understand the different factors that might have animpact on the adoption of E-Marketing by Egyptian small tourismorganizations. Meanwhile, as the theory in the field of E-Marketingis still in its infancy stage and yet not well established there isa need for having more well-established studies that can beconsidered as a step toward a theory building in the field of E-Marketing. To conduct these well-established studies, researcherswithin the field needs to acquire a good understanding about thedifferent factors affecting the adoption of E-Marketing by organi-zations operating in different sectors such as the tourism sector.Accordingly, the main three questions that the study attempts toanswer are: what are the different factors affecting the adoption ofE-Marketing by Egyptian small tourism organizations? What is therelative importance of each of these factors in affecting the adop-tion of E-Marketing by Egyptian small tourism organizations? Andwhen implementing E-Marketing by Egyptian small tourismorganizations, what are the different E-Marketing tools and formsused by these organizations?
1.3. Research objectives
The main objective of this research is to: develop a clear anddeep understanding about the different factors affecting theadoption of E-Marketing by Egyptian small tourism organizations.Subsequently, the main objectives of this research are: to investi-gate the factors affecting the adoption of E-Marketing by Egyptiansmall tourism organizations, to illustrate and clarify the importanceof each of these factors and to investigate the different E-Marketing
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tools and forms used by Egyptian small tourism organizationswhenimplementing E-Marketing. By achieving such goals researchersand scholars in the field will have a clearer view to set their attitudetowards suitable future research studies which in turn willcontribute to the related accumulated knowledge in the field.
1.4. Literature review, conceptual model, methodology andhypothesized relationships
The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) proposed by Davis(1989) provided a very good base to understand the acceptanceand usage of new technologies. The model had been tested for morethan two decades in many different technologies and had beenaccepted as a successfulmodel inpredicting and explaining behavioracross a wide variety of domains (e.g. Abbasi, Chandio, Soomro, &Shah, 2011; Anderson, Al-Gahtani, & Hubona, 2011; Baaren, van deWijngaert, & Huizer, 2011; Denis-Rémis, 2011; El-Gayar, Moran, &Hawkes, 2011; Lin, Fofanah, & Liang, 2011; Melas, Zampetakis,Dimopoulou, & Moustakis, 2011; Muthitcharoen, Palvia, & Grover,2011; Svendsen, Johnsen, Almås-Sørensen, & Vittersø, 2011; StoelTsai, Wang, & Lu, 2011;Wang, 2011;Wu, Li, & Fu, 2011; Yuan-Yuan &Peng, 2011). By reviewing the literature it is noticed that there arevery limited number of studies that had been contacted to applytechnology acceptancemodel (TAM) in the field of E-Marketing. Thestudies of El-Gohary (2009), Taylor and Strutton (2010), Ha and Stoel(2009), Vijayasarathy (2004), are examples of these studies.
Within this respect, Vijayasarathy (2004) conducted a study ononline shopping in which he extended the original TAM model byusing other constructs in an attempt to improve its ability to predictthe use and acceptance of new technologies. Vijayasarathyattempted to explain consumer intention to use online shopping byextending TAM model to include: compatibility, privacy, security,normative beliefs and self-efficacy. He found that compatibility,usefulness, ease of use and security are significant predictors ofattitude towards online shopping. He found that compatibility,usefulness, ease of use and security are significant predictors ofattitude towards online shopping. Within the same line, El-Gohary(2009) conducted a study to investigate the different factorsaffecting the adoption of E-Marketing by UK small businessenterprises. He attempted to explain E-Marketing adoption byextending TAM model to include some internal (e.g. entrepreneurskills, compatibility, ease of use and type of products) and externalfactors (e.g. market trends). The findings showed that compati-bility, ease of use, relative advantage has positive impact on E-marketing adoption by UK small businesses.
Moreover, Ha and Stoel (2009) found that usefulness and atti-tude toward e-shopping significantly influence college students’intention to shop online. These findings were supported by Taylorand Strutton (2010) who found that perceived ease of use andperceived usefulness significantly influence purchasing intentionsin the post-adoption online context. As the number of studiesinvestigating TAM in the field of E-Marketing is very limited, thereis a need to conduct more studies to investigate the model from anE-Marketing prospective.Which is applicable because: according toDavis (1989), TAM is considerably less general than the Theory ofReasoned Action (TRA), but it is designed to apply to computerusage behavior. Also TAM incorporates findings accumulated fromover a decade of IS research, for that it may be especially well-suited for modeling computer application acceptance whichinclude E-Marketing (the subject of this study). Nevertheless, themodel ignores some other important factors both within andoutside the organization that may have an impact on E-Marketingadoption. For that, when implementing the model to study theadoption of E-Marketing, themodel need to be expanded to includesome other factors.
Although TAM has been expanded to TAM2, TAM3 and UTAUT itis still a valid model and had been widely accepted as a successfulmodel in predicting and explaining new technology adoption.Venkatesh and Davis (2000) introduced TAM2 which added somesubcontracts to perceived usefulness such as subjective norm,image, job relevance, output quality and result demonstrability.Moreover, Venkatesh, Morris, Davis, and Davis (2003) analyzedeight technology acceptance and usage models (technologyacceptance model - TAM, theory of reasoned action, social cognitivetheory, theory of planned behavior, the combined theory of plan-ned behavior/technology acceptance model, innovations diffusiontheory - IDT, model of personal computer use, and motivationalmodel) and integrated them into the Unified Theory of Acceptanceand Use of Technology (UTAUT) to explain user intentions to useinformation systems and technology usage behavior through fourmain constructs (social influence, performance expectancy, effortexpectancy and facilitating conditions) and four mediate factors(age, gender, experience and voluntariness).
While TAM2, TAM3 and UTAUT are tested and believed to beeffective in investigating technology acceptance, these models (ascan be seen in its constructs) are more suitable to investigatetechnology adoption by individuals. Accordingly, for the purpose ofconducting this research, it is believed that TAM is more suitable toinvestigate E-marketing adoption by Egyptian tourism organiza-tions on a business level. This goes in line with the guidance ofRogers (1995) who defined innovation as “an idea, practice, orobject that is perceived as new by individual or another unit ofadoption” (Rogers, 1995; P: 5). Accordingly, he accepted the idea ofimplementing his model by individuals or “another unit of adop-tion” (such as small tourism organizations). Moreover, researchersin the field (e.g. Yu & Tao, 2009) argue that new technologyadoption behavior demonstrated by the whole business mightresemble that demonstrated by a single individual. This argumentis true in the case of small business enterprises where the businessdecision making process is highly similar to the individual decisionmaking process for the business owner or manager.
On the other hand, Innovation Diffusion Theory (IDT) introducedby Rogers (1983) is one of themost popular theories in the diffusionof new technology and appeared to be the most widely acceptedmodel by researchers and is often associated with research intotechnology innovation. Unsurprisingly, there are large numbers ofstudies that had tested the model since it was first presented in1983. These studies had covered a number of different technologiesand different aspects. From these studies: Wang, Lin, Chang, andHung (2011), Wang, Wu, Lin, Wang, and He (2011), So and Sun(2011), Li, Troutt, Brandyberry, and Wang (2011), Khasawneh,Regan, and Gillard (2011), Dasgupta and Sahay (2011), andAranda-Mena, Wakefield, and Lombardo (2011). Moreover, thereare a number of studies that had tested IDTmodel in the acceptanceand diffusion of electronic commercial transactions. Cheung, Chan,and Limayem (2005), Zhu and Kraemer (2005), Wu and Wang(2005), Seyal and Rahman (2003), Al-Qirim (2007, 2006) andStockdale and Standing (2006) are examples of these studies.
By reviewing the literature it is noticed that there are verylimited number of studies that had been contacted to apply the IDTin the field of E-Marketing (e.g. El-Gohary, 2010; Gyau & Stringer,2011; Vijayasarathy, 2004; and Wu & Wang, 2005). Accordingly,there is a need to conduct more research to investigate the modelfrom an E-Marketing prospective. Although the model had takenimportant factors into consideration to illustrate the diffusion ofnew technologies, it ignores some other important factors bothwithin and outside the organization that may have an impact on E-Marketing adoption. For that, when implementing the model tostudy the adoption of E-Marketing, the model need to be expandedto include some other factors.
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Furthermore, there are a number of studies that had used TAMand IDT as a combined tool to investigate the different factorsaffecting the adoption of new technologies. From these studies: El-Gohary (2009), Jie, Peiji & Jiaming (2007), Yi, Jackson, Park, andProbst (2006), and Looi (2004). However, researchers and practi-tioners working with TAM and the IDT have discovered a similarrelationship between the two theories. This similarity is clearbetween “relative advantage” and “complexity” from one side(IDT), and “perceived usefulness” and “perceived ease of use” onthe other side (TAM). Accordingly, the main constructs of interestfor the research in hand are these three main elements namely:perceived ease of use, perceive relative advantage (Usefulness) andperceived compatibility.
As a result of the high number of Internet users in developedcountries (e.g. 488 million users in the USA with a percentage of23.3 per cent of all Internet users around the world e IWS, 2011),not surprisingly a considerable number of the studies that focus onbusiness use of the Internet and the WWW have been conductedfrom a US perspective (Adam, Mulye, Deans, & Palihawadana,2002). However with regards to the literature related to E-Marketing in small business organizations, there are a considerablenumber of studies that have been conducted in other countries. Butthe research output were concentrated in four main countries: theUK, USA, Australia and New Zealand (El-Gohary, 2009).
Table 1Factors affecting new technology adoption in small businesses based on the literature.
N Factor Studies
1 Relative advantage El-Gohary (2009),Mirchandani andMehrtens, Cragg,Doolin, McLeod etPoon and SwatmaStockdale and Sta
2 Compatibility El-Gohary (2009),Poon and SwatmaAl-Qirim (2007), ASeyal and Rahman
3 Observability Seyal and Rahman4 Top management support Mirchandani and
Wongpinunwatan5 Perceived usefulness El-Gohary (2009),
Kaynak et al. (2006 Product characteristics El-Gohary (2009),7 Perceived ease of use El-Gohary (2009),8 Organizational readiness (size, cost, accessibility,
financial technical and other resources)El-Gohary (2009),Grandon and PearChwelos et al. (20Al-Qirim (2006), AWongpinunwatanPremkumar and P
9 Information intensity Doolin, McQueenAl-Qirim (2006), A
10 National infrastructure Looi (2004).11 Security Lawson et al. (200
Aldridge, White, a12 Government pressure/support El-Gohary (2009),
Simpson and Doch13 Consumer readiness Zhu et al. (2003),14 Support from technology vendors Doolin, McQueen15 International orientation of the enterprise El-Gohary (2009),
Kula and Tatoglu16 Entrepreneur skills El-Gohary (2009),
Lal (2005), Yu (2017 Complexity Stockdale and Sta18 Trialability Seyal and Rahman19 Industry pressure (competition) El-Gohary (2009),
Mehrtens et al. (2Poon and SwatmaGrandon and PearScupola (2003), Y
Meanwhile, there are a relatively little number of studies thathas been conducted in other less developed countries (LDC).Withinthis context, Hinson, Atuguba, Ofori, and Fobih (2007) and Hinsonand Sorensen (2006) conducted studies in Ghana; Lin (2008), Yu(2006), Chou, Hsu, Yeh, and Ho (2005) and Tsao, Lin, and Lin(2004) conducted studies in Taiwan; De Klerk and Kroon (2007),Elliot and Boshoff (2005), Schlenker and Crocker (2003) andMoodley (2003) conducted studies in South Africa; LertwongsatienandWongpinunwatana (2003) conducted a study in Thailand; Kulaand Tatoglu (2003), Kaynak, Tatoglu, and Kula (2005) andBüyüközkan (2004) conducted studies in Turkey; Seyal andRahman (2003) and Looi (2004) conducted studies in Brunei Dar-ussalam; Tan, Tyler, and Manica (2007) andWong, Chan, and Leung(2005) conducted studies in China and Lal (2005) and Rahman(2004) conducted studies in India. Although these studies investi-gated the different factors affecting the use of the internet or newtechnologies (illustrated in Table 1), it did not investigate E-Marketing in particular.
Regardless of the growing trend toward conducting E-Marketing related studies in LDCs, it is noticed that there is nosingle study that has been conducted in Egypt or any other Arabiccountry except for the study of Darby, Jones, and Madani (2003)which was conducted in United Arab Emirates. This reflects a gapin the field of E-Marketing in general and E-Marketing in small
Kuan and Chau (2001), Beatty, Shim, and Jones (2001),Motwani (2001), Grandon and Pearson (2004),and Mills (2001), Chwelos, Benbasat, and Dexter (2001),al. (2003), Poon and Swatman (1997), Poon and Swatman (1998),n (1999), Lawson and Keefe (2006), Al-Qirim (2007), Al-Qirim (2006),nding (2006).Beatty et. al., (2001), Mirchandani and Motwani (2001),n (1998), Poon and Swatman (1999), MacGregor and Vrazlaic (2005),l-Qirim (2006), Lertwongsatien and Wongpinunwatana (2003),(2003), Stockdale and Standing (2006).(2003), Stockdale and Standing (2006).
Motwani (2001), Al-Qirim (2007), Lertwongsatien anda (2003), Seyal and Rahman (2003), Tsao et al. (2004).Davis (1989), Dembla et al. (2007), Grandon and Pearson (2003),5), Lertwongsatien and Wongpinunwatana (2003), Looi (2004).Doolin, McQueen et al. (2003), Doolin, McLeod et al. (2003).Davis (1989).Kuan and Chau (2001), Mirchandani and Motwani (2001),son (2004), Mehrtens et al. (2001), Iacovou, Benbasat, and Dexter (1995),01), Zhu, Kraemer, and Xu (2003), Doolin, McLeod et al. (2003),l-Qirim (2007), Lawson et al. (2003), Lal (2005), Lertwongsatien anda (2003), Okazaki (2005), Kula and Tatoglu (2003), Tsao et al. (2004),otter (1995), Damaskopoulos and Evgeniou (2003).et al. (2003), Poon and Swatman (1997), Poon and Swatman (1998),l-Qirim (2007).
3), Okazaki (2005), Paul (1996), Leiby and Konkol (1996), Liddy (1996),nd Forcht (1997), Smith (2004a,b).Kuan and Chau (2001), Grandon and Pearson (2004), Chang and Cheung (2001),erty (2004), Tsao et al. (2004), Looi (2004).Doolin, McQueen et al. (2003), Poon and Swatman (1999).et al. (2003), Abell et al. (1996).Doolin, McLeod et al. (2003), Doolin, McQueen et al. (2003),(2003), Lal (2005).Al-Qirim (2006), Al-Qirim (2007), Damaskopoulos and Evgeniou (2003),06), Fillis et al. (2004), Looi (2004).nding (2006), Chang and Cheung (2001).(2003), Stockdale and Standing (2006).Kuan and Chau (2001), Grandon and Pearson (2004), Chang and Cheung (2001),001), Iacovou et al. (1995), Chwelos et al. (2001), Doolin, McLeod et al. (2003),n (1999), Zhu et al. (2003), Al-Qirim (2007), Al-Qirim (2007),son (2003), Lertwongsatien and Wongpinunwatana (2003),u (2006), Looi (2004).
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businesses in particular. To cover such a gap there is a great need toconduct research studies to investigate the different aspects of E-Marketing in Egypt as well as other Arabic countries.
To sum up, there are a number of studies that had been con-ducted to investigate different E-Marketing issues and tools such asInternet Marketing, E-Mail Marketing, Intranet Marketing, ExtranetMarketing andMobile Marketing. However, almost all these studiesconcentrated on investigating each E-Marketing tool as a sole toolwithout integrating it with other tools. Additionally, not only arethere a small number of studies investigating E-Marketing froma small businesses perspective, but even fewer studies had inves-tigated E-Marketing adoption by small businesses. Moreover, thereview of the literature failed to find any studies that examine orinvestigate the adoption of Intranet Marketing, Extranet Marketingor Mobile Marketing by Egyptian small tourism organisations orthe impact of this adoption and usage on the marketing perfor-mance of these enterprises. It is also noticed that there is no singlestudy that has been conducted in Egypt or any other Arabic countryexcept for the study of Darby et al. (2003) which was conducted inUnited Arab Emirates. This reflects gaps in the field of E-Marketingin general and E-Marketing in small tourism organisations inparticular. To cover such gaps there is a need to conduct researchstudies to investigate the different factors affecting the adoption ofE-Marketing in developing countries.
1.4.1. Extending TAM and IDTMany scholars have extended TAM and IDT in an attempt to
improve the ability of the two models to predict new technologyuse and adoption (e.g. Al-Gahtani, 2011; Choi & Totten, in press; Lee& Chang, 2011; Sundarraj & Manochehri, 2011). The main logicbehind that is, although the two models had taken importantfactors into consideration to illustrate the acceptance and diffusionof new technologies, they both ignores some other importantfactors (bothwithin and outside the organization) that may have animpact on new technology acceptance, diffusion and adoption. Forthat, when implementing these models to study the adoption of E-Marketing, the models need to be expanded to include some otherfactors. These factors will include some external and internalvariables that might have an impact on E-Marketing adoption byEgyptian small tourism organizations. To determine these factorsthe researcher investigated the literature of new technologyadoption from a tourism context to form a clear picture about thedifferent factors used by other researchers and scholars to under-stand the adoption of new technologies.
A comprehensive systematic review was conducted for theliterature related to new technology and E-Marketing adoption.Although, it is noticed that despite of the fast growth in E-Marketing research in the last decade, most of the literatureappears to be in the period from 1995 to 2011. The review of theliterature revealed that researchers in the field depended not onlyon TAM and the IDT factors but also on a number of other factors.Among these factors: top management support, product charac-teristics, organizational readiness (e.g. size, cost, accessibility,financial technical and other resources), information intensity,industry pressure (competition), national infrastructure, security,government pressure and/or support, consumer readiness, supportfrom technology vendors, international orientation of the enter-prise and owner skills. The following table summarize the differentfactors affecting new technology adoption in small businessesgenerated from the literature.
It is also noticed that organizational readiness, size, cost,accessibility, financial, technical and other resources, security,government pressure and/or support, industry pressure (competi-tion), top management support, international orientation of theenterprise and owner skills are the most investigated factors from
the researchers in the field which does not only reflect the highimportance of such factors in the adoption of new technologies byorganizations but also reflects a potential possibility to use thesefactors to investigate its impact on the adoption of other technol-ogies or electronic phenomena’s (like E-Marketing) by Egyptiansmall tourism organizations. Based on the results generated fromthe literature, for the purpose of conducting this research theresearcher will extend both TAM and IDT models to include thefollowing factors: competitive pressures, government influences,market trends, cultural orientation towards E-Marketing, ownerskills and support, organizational culture, organization resources(financial, human and technical), and size of the firm. Theresearcher classified these factors into two main groups accordingto its impact on the organization as can be seen in Table 2. Based onthe previous results the research framework was constructed(Fig. 1) to investigate the impact of these factors on E-Marketingadoption by Egyptian small tourism organizations.
1.4.2. Research hypothesesDerived from the research framework, the following hypotheses
were formed:
H1. Adopting E-Marketing by Egyptian small tourism organiza-tions is dependent on the organization external related factors.
H2. Adopting E-Marketing by Egyptian small tourism organiza-tions is dependent on the organization internal related factors.
H3. The organization internal related factors have a positiveimpact on E-Marketing perceived ease of use.
H4. The organization internal related factors have a positiveimpact on E-Marketing perceived relative advantage (usefulness).
H5. The organization internal related factors have a positiveimpact on E-Marketing perceived compatibility.
H6. E-Marketing perceived ease of use is dependent on theorganization external related factors.
H7. E-Marketing perceived relative advantage (usefulness) isdependent on the organization external related factors.
H8. E-Marketing perceived compatibility is dependent on theorganization external related factors.
H9. Adopting E-Marketing by Egyptian small tourism organiza-tions is dependent on E-Marketing perceived ease of use.
H10. Adopting E-Marketing by Egyptian small tourism organiza-tions is dependent on E-Marketing perceived relative advantage(usefulness).
H11. Adopting E-Marketing by Egyptian small tourism organiza-tions is dependent on E-Marketing perceived compatibility.
H12. When implementing E-Marketing, Egyptian small tourismorganizations depend on more than one E-Marketing tool.
H13. When implementing E-Marketing, Egyptian small tourismorganizations depend on more than one E-Marketing form.
2. Material and methods
2.1. The methodology, research population and sample
To validate the research conceptual framework a positivistresearch philosophy was utilized with a quantitative approach, inwhich quantitative data was collected based on survey strategythrough questionnaires to address different levels of the study. To
Table 2Environmental micro and macro factors of the study.
Environmental micro factors
Factor Definition/provenance
Owner skills and support - Managerial and administrative skills of the owner.- A lot of authority within the small business enterpriseis directed by the SBE owner. Accordingly, it is more likelythat most of the SBE decisions (including E-Marketing adoption)will be taken by the owner himself and in light of his experienceand skills.
- The support of the SBE owner - as the top management withinthe SBE e will lead to successful E-Marketing adoption(El-Gohary, 2009).
Organizational culture - “A system of shared values defining what is important, and norms,defining appropriate attitudes and behaviours, that guide members’ attitudes and behaviours” (O’Reilly & Chatman, 1996: 160).
- Can function as either an internal facilitator or a barrier forthe implementation of E-Marketing because it determinesthe extent to which the organization is able to adapt to change(El-Gohary, 2009).
Organization resources - The accessibility and availability of sufficient resources couldbe one of the very important factors in adopting E-Marketingby SBEs (El-Gohary, 2009).
- These resources include: financial, human and technical resources.Organization size - Size is one of the factors that lead to the adoption of new technologies
(Al-Qirim, 2007; Lal, 2005).- It can be measured through number of employees and annual turnover.
Cost - Adoption direct and indirect cost.Perceived ease of use - "The degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would
be free of effort" (Davis, 1989: 320).Perceive relative advantage
(usefulness)- “The degree to which a person believes that using a particular system wouldenhance his or her job performance" (Davis, 1989: 320).
- “The degree to which an innovation is perceived as being better than itsantecedent” (Rogers, 1995: 229).
Perceived compatibility - “The degree to which an innovation is perceived as being consistent withthe existing values, needs and past experiences of potential adopters”(Rogers, 1995: 240).
Environmental macro factors
Factor Definition/provenance
Competitive pressures - Competitive pressures and/or different market trends could be one ofthe most important factors affecting the adoption of E-Marketing(El-Gohary, 2009).
- Jacobs and Dowsland (2000), Daniel and Myers (2000) and Campbell (2000)found that smaller businesses adoptedE-Commerce as a mean of improvingtheir competitiveness.
Government influences - Government involvement.- Government support and incentives.- Government pressure.
Market trends and industrypressure
- Local market trends.- Global market trends.- Industry pressure.
Cultural orientation towardsElectronic marketing
- Customers’ attitude towards E-Marketing related activities.- Without an encouraging culture, technology might not be able to changethe traditional relationships between an enterprise and its customers(El-Gohary, 2009).
National infrastructure - Availability of good and sufficient National infrastructure.
E-Marketing tools
- Internet marketing- E-Mail marketing- Intranet marketing- Extranet marketing- Mobile marketing
E-Marketing forms
- Business to Business Marketing (B2B Marketing)- Business to Consumer Marketing (B2C Marketing)- Business to Government Marketing (B2G Marketing)
H. El-Gohary / Tourism Management 33 (2012) 1256e1269 1261
test the research hypotheses a major survey was conducted andStructure Equation Modeling (SEM) and other advanced statisticaltools were used to analyze the data collected. The survey ques-tionnaire targeted a sample of 368 Egyptian small tourism
organizations that had been selected randomly from a populationof 1837 Egyptian small tourism organizations [as the units ofanalysis used in the pilot study (7 small tourism organizations)were excluded from the population frame (1844) when calculating
Table 3Survey response summary.
Total number of questionnaires 368Number of completed and returned
questionnaires163
Unreachable small tourism organizations 8Number of small tourism organizations
declined participation2
Uncompleted questionnaires 3Response rate 45.91 %
Fig. 1. The research conceptual framework.
H. El-Gohary / Tourism Management 33 (2012) 1256e12691262
the sample size as well as the response rate]. The population framewas generated from the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism, EgyptianChamper of Commerce and The Egyptian Cabinet Information andDecision Support Center (IDSC) databases which contained theneeded information about Egyptian small tourism organizations.The population frame was generated to include only organizationsthat can satisfy the essential requirement to be considered as a unitof analysis.
The sample size was planned to be determined according to theAaker and Day (1986) sample size equation which is highlyaccepted by social science researchers since it takes into accountthe degree of required confidence, the sample error, ratio of pop-ulation characteristics available in the sample (50% in socialsciences) and population size. According to Aaker and Day (1986)the sample size can be determined depending on the followingequation:
S ¼ Z
ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiPð1� PÞ
N
r ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiN� nN� 1
r
Where: Z ¼ Degree of required confidence (95%), S ¼ Sample error(5%), P ¼ Ratio of population characteristics available in the sample(50%), N ¼ Population size, n ¼ Sample size.
As the sample size generated by the Aaker and Day (1986)equation was relatively small, the sample was chosen to repre-sent 20% of the population not only as accepted bymost researcherswithin the field but also to increase the sample confidence anddecrease the sample error. All the selected companies had imple-mented at least one of the E-Marketing techniques at least 3 yearago. A research packet, which contained a covering letter and ananonymous (self-administering) questionnaire, was mailed to thehead of marketing departments, (368 in totals). This procedureresulted in 163 useful responses or a 45.91% response rate. Theresponse rate was calculated using the method proposed by DeVaus (1991: 99) and Bryman and Bell (2003: 104). Based on thesemethods the response rate is calculated according to the followingequation (Table 3):
Number of usable questionnairesTotal sampleeunusable or un-contactable member of the sample
� 100
The development of the survey instrument was based mostly onnew scales that were newly developed as the researcher could notidentify any past studies directly addressing the phenomena underinvestigation. However, and where possible, validated measuresthat have been previously applied were used (such as the measures
of TAM and IDT related factors which were adopted from Moore &Benbasat, 1991). The instrument was pre-tested more than once (atotal of three times) to guarantee that the research respondents willunderstand all the research measurement scales used in the studyeasily. Afterwards, the research survey instrument was pilotedwitha selective sample of the research population frame. Based on thefeedback provided, the instrument was modified to fully reflect thephenomena under investigation. A lot of attention has been givenand put into the planning of this study as well as the developmentof the research questionnaire to allow consistent conclusions.Throughout the research questionnaire some reversed questionswere used to measure the research different constructs, to increasethe reliability of the measures and detect any acquiescence biasfollowing the guidelines suggested by Bazrah (2008) and Altermatt(2006). All these questions were reverse scored and its inversecorrelations were checked before conducting any data analysis toallow consistent conclusions.
Based on the descriptive analysis of the data collected throughthe survey it was found that the majority of organizations (80.4%)were located in Cairo followed by 9.8% located in Alexandria andonly 2.5% of these organizations were located in Sinai. In addition,themajority of organizations with a percentage of 66.9% of the totalnumber of enterprises participating in the study were local orga-nizations while 22.7% were international organizations and 10.4%were joint ventures. The research sample was distributed amongtwelve different tourism sectors with the largest number of orga-nizations (35) in the restaurants and similar sector, representing21.5% of the sample followed by 18.4% and 14.7% in the waterpassenger transport services sector and second home ownershipsector respectively. Companies were classified into three mainbusiness classification namely Business to Business (B2B), Businessto Consumer (B2C) and both (B2B and B2C). With regards to thenumber of employees, it was found that the majority of organiza-tions (63 enterprises with a percentage of 38.7% of the total numberof enterprises) fall into the category of enterprises that havebetween 20e29 employees followed by the category of enterprisesthat have between 30e39 employees (49 enterprises witha percentage of 30.1%).
Meanwhile, the majority of organizations within the study(22.1%) had less than 250.000 of annual sales (36 Organizations)followed by 19.6% that generated annual sales of 250.000e499.000Egyptian Pounds (LE) and 5.000.000e9.999.000 LE respectively. Inaddition, the majority of study organizations (40.5%) had
a marketing budget that is between 10 and 20 % of total enterprisebudget (66 organizations) and most of the research organizations(31.3%) were in business for more than 20 years (51 Organizations).It was also found that the majority of organizations within thestudy (37.4%) had a capital of 750.000e1.000.000 LE. With
Table 5Results of the exploratory factor analysis.
Items (constructs) Component
1 2
Owner skills 0.756Organizational culture 0.821Organization resources 0.681Cost 0.766Size 0.513Ease of use 0.822Compatibility 0.849Relative advantage 0.812Competitive pressures 0.638Government influences 0.915Cultural orientation 0.868Market trends 0.900National infrastructure 0.919Initial eigenvalues 6.603 2.348% of variance 50.794 18.059Cumulative % 50.794 68.853
Table 4Research measures and constructs reliability.
Constructs Cronbach’sAlpha ifitem deleted
Correcteditemetotalcorrelation
Mean Std. Deviation
Owner skills 0.925 0.557 4.2580 0.52547Organizational
culture0.921 0.686 4.0801 0.54793
Organizationresources
0.920 0.744 3.9304 0.51536
Cost 0.921 0.731 4.0102 0.47741Size 0.926 0.504 3.8662 0.58740Ease of use 0.921 0.700 4.0678 0.61840Compatibility 0.922 0.668 4.0794 0.64927Relative advantage 0.922 0.645 4.0896 0.61583Competitive
pressures0.925 0.574 4.1696 0.63443
Governmentinfluences
0.921 0.706 3.8812 0.69224
Cultural orientation 0.922 0.667 3.8465 0.68502Market trends 0.922 0.642 3.9226 0.62097National
infrastructure0.921 0.692 3.8619 0.51414
Internal factors 0.920 0.782 3.8462 0.42799External factors 0.923 0.779 4.0046 0.27442E-Marketing adoption 0.927 0.423 3.9378 0.40154
H. El-Gohary / Tourism Management 33 (2012) 1256e1269 1263
reference to the research individual participants, it was found thatthe majority of individuals participants were the organizationsmarketing managers (69.9% of the total), aged between 30 and 40years (41.7% of the total), worked within their enterprises for 5e10years (46% of the total), participated and were involved in E-Marketing implementation within their enterprises (85.9% of thetotal) and university graduates (73% of the total).
It was also found that Egyptian small tourism organizationswithin the study were using two basic E-Marketing forms (namely;B2C, and B2B) and five basic E-Marketing tools (namely; InternetMarketing; E-Mail Marketing; Mobile Marketing; IntranetMarketing; and Extranet Marketing) when conduct their E-Marketing activities. The results indicated that although a largenumber of Egyptian small tourism organizations used a combina-tion of E-Marketing forms when implementing E-Marketing (63organizations with a percentage of 38.65%), the majority ofrespondents (100 organizations with a percentage of 61.35%) useda single E-Marketing form. Moreover, the majority of the researchrespondents (159 organizations - 97.5%) used Internet Marketing asan E-Marketing tool. In addition 94.5% of the respondents (154organizations) used E-Mail Marketing, 37.4% (61 organizations)used Mobile Marketing, 15.3% (25 organizations) used IntranetMarketing and finally 22.1% (36 organizations) used ExtranetMarketing as an E-Marketing tool. Accordingly, almost all theresearch respondents used Internet Marketing as an E-Marketingtool and a significant number of these organizations used one ormore E-Marketing tools.
2.2. Analysis and results
Firstly, reliability analysis was conducted depending on thecalculation of the item-to-total correlation and the coefficient alpha(Cronbach alpha) for the research measures and constructs. Theresults showed that all the research variables had a very good item-to-total correlation values ranging from 0.423 to 0.782 and highreliability coefficient ranged from 0.920 to 0.927 with a Cronbach’sAlpha Based on Standardized Items equal 0.933 (Table 4). Thevalues of item-to-total correlation and Cronbach’s Alpha areconsiderably and significantly higher than the reliability acceptablelevels suggested by Edgett (1991), Magal, Carr, and Watson (1988)and Nunnally (1978). Consequently, the research measures aresatisfactory acceptable for conducting further data analysis throughinferential statistics to test the research hypotheses.
Secondly, to assess and sustain the validity of the collected data,an exploratory factor analysis was performed (Table 5) dependingon a Varimax rotation method and Eigenvalues extract to examinethe data and insure that research constructs share particularfundamental factors. Following the guidance of Hair, Ralph, andRonald (1998), any item(s) with a dominant loading less than 0.5,and/or with cross-loadings more than 0.35 was going to beexcluded. A two-factor structure was suggested using an Eigen-value greater than 1 and the extracted factors accounted for68.853% of the total variance. All factor loadings were highlyacceptable with the lowest factor loading equal to 0.513 and thehighest equal to 0.919. Meanwhile, the KaisereMeyereOlkin andBartlett’s Test results was very high recording a value of 0.885 withhigh significance (0.000). All the research itemswere loaded into itsdesigned factor and all of it had a dominant loading that is greaterthan 0.5 (as suggested by Hair et al., 1998), which support thediscriminant validity of the research constructs.
Although the results indicated that 68.853% of the total varianceis explained by the two-factor structure proposed by this research,it also showed that some other factors might be missing and canhave an impact on E-Marketing adoption by Egyptian small tourismorganizations (explaining 31.147% of the total variance). These
factors might include (based on the review of the literature):information intensity (Al-Qirim, 2006; and Al-Qirim, 2007),product characteristics (Doolin, McLeod, McQueen, &Watton 2003;Doolin, McQueen, & Watton 2003; Fillis, Johannson, & Wagner,2004; Ng, 2005), security (Lawson, Alcock, Cooper, & Burgess,2003; Okazaki, 2005; Smith, 2004b), consumer readiness (Zhu &Kraemer, 2005; Doolin, McLeod et al., 2003; Doolin, McQueenet al., 2003; Poon & Swatman, 1999), support from technologyvendors (Doolin, McQueen et al., 2003; Abell, Lim, & Centre forComputing and, B1996), and product characteristics (Doolin,McLeod et al., 2003; Doolin, McQueen et al., 2003; Fillis et al.,2004; Ng, 2005). As these factors are beyond the focus of thisresearch, it represents a base for future research to investigate itsimpact on E-Marketing adoption by small tourism organizations.
In the light of the satisfactory results of the exploratory factoranalysis, confirmatory factor analysis was performed to test theunidimensionality of the research scales. Many fit statistics weregenerated and utilized to evaluate the adequacy, suitability andsatisfactoriness of each of the factor models resulted from theconfirmatory factor analysis as illustrated in Table 6. The goodness-of fit of the confirmatory factor analysis of the model constructs
Table 7Fit Indices for the path model.
Goodness offit Index (GFI)
Root meansquare Residual(RMSEA)
Comparative fitIndex (CFI)
Incremental fitIndex (IFI)
0.941 0.013 0.986 0.892
H. El-Gohary / Tourism Management 33 (2012) 1256e12691264
were found to be highly acceptable as all the research constructsexceeded the recommended levels of fitness.
Thirdly, to test the hypothesized relationships among theconstructs within the researchmodel, Structure Equation Modeling(SEM) was used to test the research hypotheses related to the totalimpact of the organization internal and external related factors onits E-Marketing adoption. Although Bartlett, Kotrlik & Higgins(2010) argued that when determining the sample size for a SEMresearch,10 observations per each indicator (independent variable)is traditionally recommended, Westland (2010) illustrated that therequisite sample size is not a linear function solely of indicatorcount (Westland, 2010; P476). Since the sample size of 163 cases isnot sufficient to support a structural equation model at the level ofcomplete disaggregation of measured variables (by using themultiple measured variables as indicators for each construct), theresearcher used the factor scores as single item indicators andperformed a path analysis, applying the maximum likelihoodestimates (MLE) method, following the guidelines suggested byJöreskog and Sörbom (1982) and supported by El-Gohary (2009).
However, there are some general guidelines that have beenproposed by some researchers with regards to the suitable samplesize to be used when using structural equation modeling in dataanalysis. For example; Hair et al. (1998) suggest that a sample witha size of less than 100 is considered to be a small sample. They alsosuggest that a medium sample size is between 100 and 200, anda large sample size is more than 200. Meanwhile, Garson (2009)suggest that a sample size has to be more than 100. Moreover,many researchers have used a sample size of around 100 to conductresearch using structural equation modeling (e.g. Eid, 2003; El-Gohary 2009; Khong, 2005). Based on that, it is generally regar-ded that a sample size of 100 is the practical acceptable size for usingstructural equation modeling. Accordingly, the current researchsample size is a practically acceptable size for employing SEM.
Data were analyzed using path analysis, which is a multivariateanalytical methodology for empirically examining sets of relation-ships in the form of linear causal models (Garson, 2009). The aim ofusing path analysis is to examine the direct and indirect effects ofeach hypothesis on the basis of knowledge and theoreticalconstructs (Kenny, 2008). As discussed earlier, Fig. 1 illustrates theproposed framework (path diagram) that reflects the relationshipsbetween the different adoption variables. To calculate the value ofthe path coefficient associated with each path which represents thestrength of each linear influence, the structural equation modelingpackage, AMOS V18, was used to test the hypotheses developed inthe framework applying the maximum likelihood estimates (MLE)method, following the guidelines suggested by Jöreskog andSörbom (1984) and Jöreskog and Sörbom (1982).
2.3. Results of hypotheses testing
To satisfy the analysis requirements, the multivariate normalityof the data was investigated by conducting skewness test of
Table 6Confirmatory factor analysis of the model constructs.
Construct Chi-square P GFI IFI AGFI CFI RMSEA
Internal factors 15.378 0.000 0.999 0.921 0.992 0.989 0.0382External factors 11.047 0.000 0.995 0.933 0.905 0.917 0.0696
Statistic suggested
Goodness-of-fit index (GFI) � 0.90Adjusted goodness-of- fit index (AGFI) � 0.80Comparative Fit Index (CFI) � 0.90Root mean square residual (RMSEA) � 0.10Incremental Fit Index (IFI) � 0.80Chi-Square Significant � 0.05
normality (Garson, 2009) and investigating the histograms of theadoption different variables. The results indicated no departurefrom normality. The framework (Fig. 1) indicated very good fit ofthe data (Table 7) and the obtained results confirmed that themodel have a very good fit.
2.3.1. Testing the hypothesized causal relationshipsFig. 2 shows the Path diagram for the studymodel which reflects
the estimated standardized parameters for the paths, their level ofsignificance and the square multiple correlations for eachconstruct. Table 8 illustrate the regression weight of all the causalpaths and the significance of each path. Meanwhile, to strengthenthe model results, the overall impact of the research variableswithin the model were calculated to get hold of the direct andindirect relationships impact among the research variables. As theeffect of research variables on E-Marketing adoption might bedirect or indirect (i.e., mediated via the effect of other variables), orboth, calculating the direct and indirect effect of each variablewould be fruitful (Table 9).
Results indicated that Egyptian small tourism organizationsinternal factors positively affects the organization perceived ease ofuse (Standardized Estimate SE ¼ 0.746, P < 0.001), relativeadvantage (SE ¼ 0.654, P < 0.001), compatibility (SE ¼ 0.661,P < 0.001) and E-Marketing adoption (SE ¼ 0.021, P < 0.05). It wasalso found that external factors have insignificant positive impacton the organization perceived ease of use (SE ¼ 0.150, P ¼ 0.466),perceived relative advantage (SE ¼ 0.249, P ¼ 0.230) and perceivedcompatibility (SE¼ 0.344, P¼ 0.116) as well as a significant positiveimpact on E-Marketing adoption (SE ¼ 0.342, P ¼ 0.01). Withregards to the impact of the organization perceived ease of use,perceived relative advantage and perceived compatibility on E-Marketing adoption, all the three factors positively affects E-Marketing adoption by Egyptian small tourism organizations.Within this regard, perceived ease of use and perceived compati-bility have a significant positive impact on the adoption of E-Marketing by Egyptian small tourism organizations. The highesteffect on E-Marketing adoption occurred by perceived compati-bility (SE ¼ 0.231, P < 0.01) and the lowest impact occurred byperceived ease of use (SE ¼ 0.128, P < 0.05). Meanwhile, perceived
Fig. 2. Results of path analysis (where: *** Significant at 0.001, ** Significant at 0.01, *Significant at 0.05, ns not significant).
Table 8Regressionweight of all the causal paths and the significance of each path within themodel (where: *** Significant at 0.001, ** Significant at 0.01, * Significant at 0.05).
Hypothesised relationships Standardisedestimate
Significance
From To
Internal factors Ease of use 0.746 ***
Internal factors Relative advantage 0.654 ***
Internal factors Compatibility 0.661 ***
External factors Compatibility 0.344 0.116External factors Relative advantage 0.249 0.230External factors Ease of use 0.150 0.466Internal factors E-Marketing adoption 0.021 *
External factors E-Marketing adoption 0.342 **
Compatibility E-Marketing adoption 0.231 **
Relative advantage E-Marketing adoption 0.065 0.421Ease of use E-Marketing adoption 0.128 *
H. El-Gohary / Tourism Management 33 (2012) 1256e1269 1265
relative advantage was found to have insignificant positive impacton E-Marketing adoption.
Finally, as discussed earlier, to test the two hypotheses relatedto forms and tools of implementing E-Marketing by Egyptian smalltourism organizations, statistical frequencies were used. In thiscontext, frequency analysis was used to distribute the partici-pating organizations according to E-Marketing forms and toolsimplemented by these organizations. The results indicated thatalthough a large number of Egyptian small tourism organizationsused a combination of E-Marketing forms when implementing E-Marketing, the majority of respondents (61.35%) used a single E-Marketing form. Meanwhile, almost all the research respondentsused Internet Marketing as an E-Marketing tool and a significantnumber of these organizations used one or more E-Marketingtools.
2.4. Discussions
The results of the study indicate that Egyptian small tourismorganizations internal factors such as owner skills, availableresources, organizational culture, organization size, E-Marketingadoption cost, E-Marketing perceived ease of use, and E-Marketingperceived compatibility are the most important factors affectingthe adoption of E-Marketing by these organizations. These resultsgoes in line with the findings of El-Gohary (2009) who found thatinternal factors have a high positive impact on E-Marketing adop-tion by UK enterprises. It also goes in line with the findings ofGrandon and Pearson (2003) and Moon and Kim (2001) who foundthat perceived ease of use has a stronger effect on Internet usageand E-Commerce adoption as well as the findings of Dembla, Palvia,and Krishnan (2007), Al-Qirim (2007, 2006), Stockdale andStanding (2006), Kaynak et al. (2005), Looi (2004), and Davis(1989).
Furthermore, E-Marketing adoption by these organizations wasfound to be affected directly and indirectly by the organizationinternal factors, E-Marketing compatibility, and ease of use. In this
Table 9The direct, indirect and total effects of all the research variables.
Dependent variables Electronic marketing adoption
Direct effect Indirect effect Total effect
Compatibility 0.194 0.000 0.194Relative advantage 0.360 0.000 0.360Ease of use 0.097 0.000 0.097Internal factors 0.022 0.107 0.129External factors 0.235 0.053 0.287
context, the findings indicated that while internal factors havea powerful positive direct impact on E-Marketing compatibility,relative advantage and ease of use; external factors had a very weakdirect impact on the same factors (E-Marketing compatibility,relative advantage and ease of use). Within the same line, internalfactors, E-Marketing compatibility, and ease of use had a reasonablepositive direct impact on E-Marketing adoption by Egyptian smalltourism organizations. Meanwhile, perceived relative advantagehad insignificant positive impact on E-Marketing adoption by theseorganizations. This result is different from that of Eid (2003) whofound that perceived relative advantage have the highest effect onthe usage of the Internet by B2B companies as well as the findingsof Dembla et al. (2007), Al-Qirim (2007, 2006), and Stockdale andStanding (2006), but is consistent with the findings of Fenech(1998) who found that perceived relative advantage is inadequateas predictor of usage acceptance of the World Wide Web.Furthermore, external factors (competitive pressures, governmentinfluence, market trends, national infrastructure and culturalorientation towards E-Marketing by the organization customers)were found to have a significant impact on E-Marketing adoptionby these organizations. As a result, hypotheses: H1, H2, H3, H4, H5,H9, H11 and H13 can be supported. In contrast, hypotheses: H6, H7,H8, H10 and H12 are rejected.
2.5. Research implications
This research has theoretical (academic) and managerial(practical) implications. In terms of academic implications, theresearch can be considered as a unique research in the field ofE-Marketing in general and E-Marketing in Egyptian smalltourism organizations in particular. The study has not only madea considerable contribution to the accumulative knowledge inits direct field, but it has also some implications for the widerbody of knowledge. The first significant implication of thisresearch in E-Marketing field is based on not only validatingTAM and IDT in the context of E-Marketing adoption in devel-oping countries but also the extension of the two models toincrease their ability to illustrate this adoption. The findings ofthis research confirm the findings of other researchers in thefield (e.g. Al-Gahtani, 2011; Choi & Totten, in press; Lee & Chang,2011; Sundarraj & Manochehri, 2011) and prove that extendingTAM and IDT increase the two models ability to illustrateE-Marketing adoption. Also this research contributes to thetheory of E-Marketing by the examination of the phenomenonunder investigation in Egyptian small tourism organizationscontext. Although the number of studies conducted to investi-gate E-Marketing adoption in developing countries is limited,the findings of this research confirm that there are some simi-larities as well as dissimilarities between the factors applied inEgyptian organisations and other factors applied in the litera-ture. Within this regard, the impact of internal factors onE-Marketing adoption by Egyptian organisations was similar toits impact on other types of organisations in developed anddeveloping countries. In contrast, the impact of external factorsand perceived relative advantage on E-Marketing adoption byEgyptian organisations was different than its impact on othertypes of organisations in developed and developing countries.Through this, the research also contributes to the expansion ofthe studies on E-Marketing in small tourism organizations.Thirdly, not only does this study provide an empirical evaluationof the most important factors affecting the adoption ofE-Marketing by Egyptian small tourism organizations, but it alsomeasure the importance of such factors.
The findings confirmed that internal factors, E-Marketingcompatibility, and ease of use had a positive impact on E-Marketing
Constructs, Scale items and sources.
Construct Measures used tocapture constructs
Source
Internalfactors
- Owner skillsand support
Adopted fromEl-Gohary (2009)
- Organizational culture- Organization resources- Organizationsize
- CostTAM and IDT
factors- Perceived easeof use
Adopted from Mooreand Benbasat (1991)
- Perceive relativeadvantage (usefulness)
- Perceived compatibilityExternal
factors- Competitive pressures New scale based on
El-Gohary (2009)- Government influences- Market trendsand industry pressure
- Cultural orientationtowards E-Marketing
- National infrastructure
(continued on next page)
H. El-Gohary / Tourism Management 33 (2012) 1256e12691266
adoption by Egyptian small tourism organizations. Based on theimportance of these factors revealed from the findings, govern-mental agencies, nongovernmental organizations (NGO’s) andother institutions (not only in Egypt but also for all similar coun-tries) linked with small tourism organizations will have a betterunderstanding about the different factors affecting the adoption ofE-Marketing by such organizations which then can be used inplanning and directing the future policies, plans and strategies ofthese agencies and institutions. Within this regard; as owner skills,available resources, and E-Marketing adoption cost are among themost important factors affecting E-Marketing adoption, govern-mental agencies and NGOs can provide small tourism organizationsowners with suitable training (e.g. business, IT, IS, marketing, andentrepreneurship training) to increase their skills and help them tounderstand the importance of E-Marketing adoption. Govern-mental agencies can also develop some policies to provide smalltourism organizations with the needed resources (e.g. financial andtechnical resources) to adopt E-Marketing. Moreover, suchgovernmental agencies can work in reducing the cost associatedwith E-Marketing adoption. This will in turn increase the diffusionof E-Marketing practices by tourism organizations and might leadto a positive impact on the economy. Fourthly, the study findingsconfirm that IT theories (namely TAM and IDT) are valid in illus-trating the adoption of E-Marketing by Egyptian small tourismorganizations.
3. Conclusion, limitations and recommendations
Generally, the research findings support the researchmodel andplace support to most of the hypotheses. The results helped tounderstand the effect of the different environmental factors on theadoption of E-Marketing by Egyptian small tourism organizations.Within the study, it has been found that Egyptian small tourismorganizations internal and external factors (such as: owner skills,the available resources of the organization, the organizationorganizational culture, E-Marketing adoption cost, size of theorganization, ease of use, compatibility, competitive pressures,government influence, market trends, national infrastructure, andcultural orientation towards E-Marketing by the organizationcustomers) have a significant positive impact on E-Marketingadoption. A lot of attention has been given and put into theplanning of this study as well as the development of the researchmethodology, data collection and data analysis. As a result, itis hoped that the research contributes in a significant way tothe accumulative knowledge of E-Marketing in general andE-Marketing adoption by Egyptian small tourism organizations inparticular.
Despite that, as is the case with other research studies, thisstudy also has a number of limitations, thementioning of which canbe valuable to future research. Most of the limitations are princi-pally associated with the broadness of the phenomenon underinvestigation and lack of measurements as E-Marketing is stilla relatively new area of research where the theory is still in itsinfancy stage. This motivated the researcher to follow an empiricalapproach in this study to develop a holistic and integrated under-standing of E-Marketing. This required increasing the scope of thestudy by reviewing a large body of appropriate literature and col-lecting a large set of related data. However, while the researcher hasattempted to meet such a requirement by reviewing various liter-atures in the field, it could not be claimed that the empiricalinvestigation of this study has come from across all the differentissues related to this perspective. An extra limitation of this study isassociated with its reliance on subjective, self-report and judg-mental indicators to measure the research constructs within thesurvey questionnaire.
However, the reliability examination for the researchmeasures through the calculation of item-to-total correlationand Cronbach Alpha coefficient are considerably and signifi-cantly higher than the reliability acceptable levels suggested byEdgett (1991) and Nunnally (1978). This indicates that theresearch measures are satisfactorily acceptable. Subsequently,the above limitation notwithstanding, the results representa promising step toward the establishment of good measures forthe research variables. Meanwhile, as there are little number ofstudies that has investigated the impact and/or effect of ownerskills and top management support on the adoption of newtechnologies, such as E-Marketing, E-commerce and E-business;there is a need to conduct more research to investigate thisimpact in an E-Marketing context. Meanwhile, there are a smallnumber of studies that have researched the impact of organi-zational culture on the adoption of E-Marketing or electroniccommercial transactions. Accordingly, there is a need to inves-tigate the impact of organizational culture on the adoption ofE-Marketing in tourism organizations.
The impact of international orientation of the organizationon its adoption of E-Marketing also needs to be investigated.This will lead to a greater and deep understanding of the factorsthat affect the adoption of E-Marketing by tourism organizationsand will add to the accumulated knowledge in the field ofE-Marketing. Moreover, the logical progression of this studywould be to conduct some similar studies relating to othereconomic sectors, other types of enterprises and sizes (e.g.micro businesses, medium sized businesses, large companies).The results of such studies could be compared with the resultsof this research. Moreover, the scope of this research could beenhanced by expanding the different environmental factorsemployed within the research. Within this context, moreinternal or external environmental factors (generated from theliterature) could be added to the research model developedwithin this study (e.g. information intensity, product charac-teristics, security, consumer readiness, support from technologyvendors and product characteristics). Finally, similar studiescould be conducted in other developing countries to observe thedifferent similarities and dissimilarities related to the factorsaffecting the adoption of E-Marketing by small tourismorganizations.
Appendix 1
Appendix 1 (continued)
Construct Measures used tocapture constructs
Source
E-Marketingadoption
- E-Marketing adoptionplanning
New scale based onWatson, Kennedy,Nwoha, and Rea(2007), El-Gohary(2009) and El-Gohary(2010)
- Internet access- E-marketing resourcesusage
- Supporting enterprisetraditional commercialactivities
- Systematic and/or regularupdates for web site
- Website connection tocustomer database
- Interacting with customers- Using E-marketingresources to conductcommercial transactions
- Computerised customerdatabase
- Minimizing manualinput
E-Marketingtools
- Internet Marketing. Adopted fromEl-Gohary (2009)- E-Mail Marketing
- Intranet Marketing- Extranet marketing- Mobile marketing
E-Marketingforms
- Business toBusiness Marketing(B2B Marketing).
New scale based onEl-Gohary (2009)
- Business toConsumer Marketing(B2C Marketing)
- Business toGovernment Marketing(B2G Marketing)
H. El-Gohary / Tourism Management 33 (2012) 1256e1269 1267
Appendix. Supplementary data
Supplementary data related to this article can be found online atdoi:10.1016/j.tourman.2011.10.013.
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