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JEIM
22,1/2 Relative size and complexity:
e-business use in small and
medium sized tourism enterprises
212
in Thailand
David H. Brown and Laddawan Kaewkitipong
Department of Management Science, Lancaster University Management School,
Lancaster, UK

Abstract
Purpose – The research documented in this paper aims to explore e-business uses in small and
medium-sized tourism enterprises compared with their larger counterparts.
Design/methodology/approach – Five case studies were conducted with Thai tourism SMEs to
investigate their technology adoption and use experiences. For large-sized enterprises, an extensive
review of industry’s practice was conducted. A comparison was then carried out based on the scope of
the technology, namely inter-organisation, intra-organisation, and front-end side linking to customers.
Findings – In terms of e-business use, it is not surprising that Thai SMEs remain less advanced in
utilising e-business technology. However, size is found to be a significant factor in determining SME
behaviour not only in comparison to larger travel agencies or hotels, but also with the SME sector
itself. Associated with this is application complexity that is again significant and linked to relative
size. Finally, the choices made by small hotels and travel agents are shown to be influenced by the
technology providers.
Research limitations/implications – The main research limitation is a limited generalisibility.
Future research on SMEs in developing countries would make the comparison more sound and
increase generalisability.
Practical implications – SMEs should pay more attention on strategic use of IT in order to compete
with their larger competitors. At the policy level, more education on IT development skills and
business potentials of IT are needed.
Originality/value – The paper adds to the literature on IT adoption in SMEs particularly with
respect to size within the SME sector, the importance of complexity and the role of technology
provider.
Keywords Electronic commerce, Small to medium-sized enterprises, Complexity theory,
Tourism management, Thailand
Paper type Case study

1. Introduction
The research reported here is part of wider research into the adoption and evaluation of
e-business technologies by Thai SMEs in the combined travel and accommodation
service sector. In 2006 Thailand generated US$13,780 million from inbound tourism,

Journal of Enterprise Information The authors would like to thank the Royal Thai Government for their financial support to this
Management
Vol. 22 No. 1/2, 2009 research project and all the individual firms for their valuable time and information. The authors
pp. 212-231 also thank the Department of Management Science, Lancaster University Management School
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1741-0398
for financial support. In addition, the authors would like to express their thanks to the editors
DOI 10.1108/17410390910932849 and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments.
and the travel and accommodation sector accounted for 40 per cent of this revenue Relative size and
(TAT, 2007). The sector is interesting in that large numbers of SMEs are active and the complexity
use of e-business technologies is widespread. Of primary interest in this paper are the
different experiences of e-business adoption in small and medium-sized tourism
enterprises, and the comparison with their larger counterparts. The paper compares
the e-business technologies used in Thai tourism SMEs with large-sized travel agents
and hotel chains, namely Expedia.com, Asia Web Direct, Ratestogo.com, Accor and 213
BestWestern. This is of significance in two ways. Firstly, the particular issues
associated with introducing e-technologies in developing economies are
under-represented in the research literature. And, secondly the comparison of
e-business use in large and small firms in the same sector can contribute to our
understanding of the importance of firm size, particularly size within the SME sector.
The paper is structured into five parts. The first part starts with a consideration of
the stakeholders in the travel industry and an understanding of the business models of
both the users and the technology providers. There are considerable tensions here as
companies of very different sizes are required to both compete and to collaborate. Part
two reviews selected prior literature on ICTs adoption in SMEs. In part three the
methodology and details of the empirical sample are outlined. Part four discusses the
ICT developments within the SMEs and compares these with the practices in
established large travel sector firms. Finally, part five discusses the findings and their
implications, particularly with respect to size within SME sector.

2. Literature review
The review is in two sections. In the first an introduction to the characteristics and
environment of tourism industry is described to provide a context for the travel service
sector and its use of ICT. In the second section the review focuses on prior literature for
ICT adoption in SMEs. Together these two literatures provide a basis for discussion on
e-business technology adoption in tourism SMEs in comparison to their larger
counterparts.

2.1 Tourism industry and the e-business technology used in this industry
The tourism industry in Thailand consists of three main sectors: travel and
accommodation; leisure facilities and entertainment; and tourism organisations. Our
particular interest to this paper is the combined sector of travel and accommodation,
which is heavily ICT dependent. This sector, also known as the travel service sector,
has a similar structure to conventional retail/wholesale businesses. Stakeholders
include suppliers, intermediaries such as wholesalers, retail travel agencies, technology
providers and customers or travellers. Tourism products include flight tickets, room
reservations, package tour bookings, car hire, cruise tickets, and other related services.
Distribution channels can be direct or indirect through intermediaries. Traditionally,
the hotels and airlines used wholesalers and travel agencies as their main distribution
channels and as the means to access and new and expanding markets. Particularly in
the airline industry, the travel agents provided the focus for airline reservations,
ticketing, transactions, travel advice, market presence and packaging (Vasudavan and
Standing, 1999). Customers or travellers, therefore, continue to make booking with
travel agencies, but increasingly customers are booking travel and accommodation
directly. The current relationship of each player in the industry is shown in Figure 1.
JEIM
22,1/2

214

Figure 1.
Relationship among
stakeholders of the travel
industry

From the relationship map, it can be seen that communications are of paramount
importance to the stakeholders, and the internet plays an important role in linking all
players together and facilitating communication and information provision for travel
trade among them (Pender, 2001). The dotted lines represent the more recent direct
links facilitated by the internet potentials. Further details on how each player uses the
Internet and e-business technologies to support their business are discussed below.
2.1.1 Suppliers. Suppliers are those who provide products or services for others in
the supply chain. In the travel industry, suppliers encompass hotels, airlines, car rental,
cruise, and so on. Only hotels and airlines are of particular interest to this paper.
2.1.1.1 Hotels. In the past, hotels relied on travel agencies as their selling channels.
Currently, with the internet, hotels can easily provide room information and room
availability on their web sites. The huge number of online travellers attracts the hotels,
especially the larger-sized hotel chains such as Best Western, Accor, and Ibis. These
hotels, which typically have significant IT capability and resources, provide an online
booking channel that is fully integrated into their web sites and back-office functions.
This delivers more direct customers and yields more margin than reservations made
through travel agencies. For local small or medium-sized hotels an online booking
system fully integrated into their web sites and back-office functions is normally
beyond their resources. They have tended to rely more on travel agencies. Some
large-sized travel agencies, however, can provide a means for a small or medium-sized
hotel to put its room availabilities for a specified period into their web sites. In this
way, customers who search on the internet can find the hotel, check for availability and
book for a room through the agents’ web sites. Another recent approach is a hosted
booking system, which can be easily integrated into a hotel’s web site and work as if it
is a feature provided by the hotel’s site. More about such systems is discussed in
technology provider section.
2.1.1.2 Airlines. Airlines were amongst the first adopters of e-business technology
(Pender, 2001). The most extensively used e-business application in the airline sector
was the computerised reservation system (CRS), which was used to control inventory
and to improve accessibility to information within and between partners. CRS
operations that book and sell tickets for multiple airlines are known as global
distribution systems (GDS). Currently, the four major GDSs are SABRE, Worldspan,
Amadeus, and Galileo (Buhalis, 2004). Each GDS is strong in different market Relative size and
depending on where its parent airlines are operating. SABRE, for example, is strong in
the American market, whilst Amadeus is strong in the European market (Starkov,
complexity
2001). Each GDS competes vigorously to recruit as many travel agencies as possible to
penetrate into broader markets (Buhalis, 2004).
Apart from GDSs, e-business technology can be used to help the airlines develop
and manage their business as well as to monitor the external environment and 215
competition. Buhalis highlighted the strategic significance of the ICTs in the
contemporary airline industry in a recent paper. The strategic ICTs uses include not
only internal operations but also revenue analysis, demand forecasting, branding, and
communicating with all stakeholders:
ICTs play a critical role in the strategic and operational management of airlines. They not
only contribute to the formulation of all elements of the marketing mix, but they will also
determine the strategic directions, partnerships, and ownership of airlines (Buhalis, 2004,
p. 823).
Furthermore, the internet has emphasised the opportunities for cost reduction in the
travel service sector (Mazhatul and Suraya, 2005). Airlines, which have long relied on
travel agencies as their gateway and distribution channels to customers, have realised
that the internet allows greater chances to reach customers directly and to cut the cost
of intermediaries. Thus, the airlines are taking advantages from such an open,
beneficial channel by launching their online booking system to increase direct
bookings and diminish the travel agents’ power. Nevertheless, the major limitation of
the airlines’ own online booking system is that they provide information and options of
their own flights only. Many airlines therefore further compete using reward or loyalty
programs in order to encourage direct purchasing with the airlines and to obtain
repeated customers (Buhalis, 1998; Bennett and Lai, 2005).
Overall, the airlines market is characterised by the larger-sized players. Within a
growing market each has competed to gain more customers, with an increasing focus
on lowering prices to customers and lowering costs within the distribution channels.
The challenge for most airlines is to manage the tensions associated with dual
distribution channels that are potentially competitive with each other.
2.1.2 Intermediaries. According to Wynne et al. (2002), intermediaries in the travel
service sector are those who facilitate the searching process of both the buyers and the
sellers by combining and compiling information, which is of interest to both parties in a
systematic and comparable form. Importantly, the intermediaries support the efficient
and effective exchange process, including issuing tickets and forwarding money, as well
as help reduce uncertainty for both parties (Lewis et al., 1998). Major intermediaries in
the travel industry are generally either travel agencies or aggregators.
2.1.2.1 Travel agencies. Travel agencies can be usefully divided into wholesalers
and retailers. Wholesale agencies typically have a large number of contracts with
many suppliers including the big hotel chains (which do not normally contract with
small travel agencies) and conduct their business on a B2B model. These agencies
resell their inventory to the retail travel agencies. Examples of wholesalers are
Gullivers Travel Associates (GTA), Kuoni, etc. The retail travel agencies, however,
normally have direct contact with suppliers and/or indirect contact via wholesale
agents. Generally, the travel agencies are closest to the travellers and assist them on
searching and booking their choices of products or services (Wynne et al., 2002).
JEIM Operationally, the e-business technology facilitates the agent’s online booking
22,1/2 transactions and payments. However, the Internet is exerting an influence on the
structure of distribution. The technology profoundly affects the agencies and their
strategic position. It helps them provide a more informed service but at the same time
empowers the traveller through direct contact with the suppliers (Bennett and Lai,
2005). As the searching and buying transactions are made easier, and travellers
216 become more computer-literate, it is argued that the travel agencies’ power on the
distribution channels will diminish unless they can offer complimentary advice which
satisfies customers’ needs. In other words, to prevent the disintermediation of the
sector, they have to be more service-based and technologically-oriented in their
advisory role (Lewis et al., 1998; Bennett and Lai, 2005).
2.1.2.2 Aggregators. According to Figure 1, the aggregators have come into play as
another kind of intermediary. Normally, they specialise in searching the web sites of
suppliers and other travel agencies and combine, sort and organise information on the
various special deals offered by these web sites. The aggregators do no direct selling.
They direct customers to the online agents or suppliers, and charge the latter a referral
fee (Beirne, 2005). Examples of well-known aggregators are Cheapflights.com,
Kayak.com, and Yahoo! Travel. The emergence of the aggregators has been a
significant development.
2.1.3 Technology providers. According to Wyckoff (1997), internet technology not
only changes the way these companies conduct their business, but also creates new
kinds of intermediary such as providers of electronic payment systems and service for
authentication and certification of transactions. In the online travel industry, this kind
of intermediary includes the e-payment providers, the application service providers,
which provide (mostly web-based) booking system for travel agencies, wholesalers and
suppliers. The GDS provider can also be classified as a technology provider. Typically,
these service providers do not link directly to the travellers, but they support the
suppliers and/or travel agencies’ business activities. The revenue model of these
providers is varied, depending on the application/service they provided, and how they
contract with their customers (e.g. hotels, airlines, travel agencies). Tariffs are typically
based on combinations of transactions and service rentals. Examples of the technology
providers are hosted hotel booking systems, Pelican and Pegasus[1].
Overall, it has been long argued that tourism is an extremely information-intensive
industry (Poon, 1993). The internet has opened up new opportunities for all players in
the industry to present themselves, offer their products online, and improve many of
their business activities. The competition between suppliers and travel agencies has
thus inevitably increased. They have to be better able in offering distinctive value to
their customers, based on a well-defined and robust business model. Obviously, the
expertise on the internet and e-business technology, if used properly, can be of great
help in achieving this goal. Nevertheless, it is the case that most benefits and impacts
of e-business use as discussed above are reported in the context of larger-sized
enterprises in the industry. Hence, although the internet can help the small travel
agencies to be able to expand their market worldwide and to run 24-7 type stores, they
remain disadvantaged in such a highly information-based market. They usually lack
technology expertise and cannot offer the complex, full-option price comparison
system that large travel agencies like Expedia, e-bookers, etc. provide. The next section
explores this further through a review of the prior literature on ICTs adoption in SMEs.
2.2 SMEs and ICTs adoption Relative size and
Early research on the internet adoption in SMEs focuses primarily on factors that complexity
affect the Internet adoption decision. One of the most often cited papers is that of
Mehrtens et al. (2001). Attempting to study a model of internet adoption by SMEs, the
authors adopted the study of EDI adoption in SMEs by Iacovou et al. (1995), indicating
that perceived benefits, organisational readiness, and external pressure are major
factors which influence the EDI adoption. Mehrtens et al. (2001) found that these three 217
factors are also applicable in the case of internet adoption. Perceived benefit is also
considered a driver of internet adoption in the study by Poon and Swatman (1997).
Other supporting factors are business sector and nature (Poon and Swatman, 1999;
Fillis et al., 2004; Windrum and Berranger, 2002), owner’s enthusiasm and growth
ambition (Cragg and King, 1993; Poon and Swatman, 1999; Fillis et al., 2004), location
(Windrum and Berranger, 2002), application complexity (Brown and Lockett, 2004),
and the provider perspective (Brown and Lockett, 2004).
Table I groups the factors into three contexts – technology, organisation and
external environment – and links these to the individual factors (Tornatzky and
Fleischer, 1990). Overall, less attention has been paid by researchers to the technology
context, although Wolfe (1994) and Tornatzky and Fleischer (1990) have pointed out its
importance to the study of the diffusion and adoption process of an innovation.
Similarly, in the external environment Brown and Lockett (2004) point out that
application complexity is the absent factor in most of the current theories of adoption.
In general, it can be seen from Table I that the research on factors influencing IT
adoption yields coherent results. However, there are differences. For example, while
Riemenschneider et al. (2003) and Brown and Lockett (2004) found technology
complexity one of the factors significantly influencing adoption, Grandon and Pearson
(2004) found complexity an insignificant factor, but confirmed organisational readiness
as a significantly influential factor. In contrast, Mirchandani and Motwani (2001)
reported organisational readiness as insignificantly influencing adoption. Al-Qirim
(2006), and especially Parker and Castleman (2007), also highlight inconsistencies.
Parker and Castleman (2007) examined the reasons underlying such differences and
concluded that prior research in this area had tended to treat SMEs and e-business
applications homogeneously rather than as diverse and complex entities. Furthermore,
the majority of existing research adopted of the perspective of the SMEs themselves
without considering the impact of complex relationship that the SMEs may have with
friends, family, other businesses and technology providers.
Regarding to the issues of limited generalisability Burke (2005) and Levenburg
(2005), who focused on the impact of firm size on internet use and e-supply chain use
respectively, agreed that a more variety of size groupings will be helpful in treating
and understanding the heterogeneity of the SMEs. Specific to Thai SMEs,
Lertwongsatien and Wongpinunwatana (2003) identified firm size as one of the
influential factors on e-commerce adoption decision in the sampled Thai SMEs.
Similarly, Khemthong and Roberts (2006), who studied adoption of internet and
web-based marketing tools in Thai Hotels, also confirmed the importance of firm size
and pointed out that larger hotels were more ready for the adoption and adopted the
Internet technologies earlier than the smaller hotels. This study, however, sampled all
hotels rather than the smaller (SME) hotels. Additionally, both studies were survey
JEIM
Context Adoption factors Authors
22,1/2
Technology Perceived compatibility Tornatzky and Fleischer (1990) (mention as a
part of technology characteristic)
Lertwongsatien and Wongpinunwattana (2003)
Grandon and Pearson (2004)
218 Khemthong and Roberts (2006)
Perceived benefits/values Poon and Swatman (1997, 1999)
Iacovou et al. (1995)
Mehrtens et al. (2001)
Lertwongsatien and Wongpinunwattana (2003)
Grandon and Pearson (2004)
Wymer and Regan (2005)
Al-Qirim (2006)
Chong (2006)
Gemino et al. (2006)
Technology MacGregor and Vrazalic (2005)
knowledge/understanding Martin (2005)
Khemthong and Roberts (2006)
Application complexity Riemenscheider et al. (2003)
Brown and Lockett (2004)
Organisation Firm size Tornatzky and Fleischer (1990)
Windrum and Berranger (2002)
Lertwongsatien and Wongpinunwattana (2003)
Burke (2005)
Levy et al. (2005)
Levenburg (2005)
Khemthong and Roberts (2006)
Owner-manger/CEO Cragg and King (1993)
Poon and Swatman (1999)
Fillis et al. (2004)
Martin (2005)
Al-Qirim (2006)
Formal/informal linking Tornatzky and Fleischer (1990)
structure Rogers (2003)
Strategic intent Levy et al. (2005)
Levenburg et al. (2006)
Innovation Brown and Lockett (2007)
External Business Tornatzky and Fleischer (1990)
environment sector/characteristic Poon and Swatman (1999)
Windrum and Berranger (2002)
Fillis et al. (2004)
Levenburg et al. (2006)
External Tornatzky and Fleischer (1990)
pressure/competitiveness Iacovou et al. (1995)
Mehrtens et al. (2001)
Lertwongsatien and Wongpinunwattana (2003)
Grandon and Pearson (2004)
Wymer and Regan (2005)
Al-Qirim (2006)
Table I. Chong (2006)
Major factors influencing Technology provider Brown and Lockett (2004)
ICT adoption and use Lockett et al. (2006)
based and treated adoption as an “event”, rather than process involving intermediaries Relative size and
such as aggregators. complexity
In summary, the industry review provides a basic understanding of the large
players and their relationships as well as information technologies they use, whilst the
review of literature on e-business adoption in SMEs considers factors influencing IT
adoption in SMEs. The issue of heterogeneity of SMEs is taken as a primary concern
here. In relation to firm size the above review suggests that a finer grained 219
understanding of firm size within SMEs is needed. Additionally, to complement the
large body of survey-based adoption research, there is a requirement for work that is
capable of explaining firm actions from an understanding of individual firm contexts
both internal and external. Through the adoption of a case based approach the paper
seeks to contributes to this aim.

3. Research methodology
This paper draws on wider ongoing research focusing on investigating e-business
adoption and evaluation in Thai small or medium-sized tourism enterprises. In the
research, five SMEs (three tourist agencies (TA) and two hotels (H)) were selected
based primarily on accessibility (since they had to be willing to commit considerable
time to on-site discussions etc), their size and their e-business use. SMEs were selected
that had committed to using internet technology beyond simple e-mail and a static web
site, which are ubiquitous. This would allow a richer discussion on the experience of
using the technology and its evaluation. In this paper the adoption decision and
experience of technology in use by the subject SMEs are compared among themselves,
as well as with their larger-sized counterparts, to provide further insights into the
impact of size and the realities of ICT adoption.
In respect of the larger-sized travel agents and hotels, their e-business technologies
and applications were collected using extensive secondary data and used for comparison
and as context for the SMEs. The large companies were selected on the basis of the
availability, accessibility and reliability of their secondary data but also took into
account the views of the SMEs, who knew of, or had direct experience of, these larger
firms. Eventually, Expedia.com, Asia Web Direct, and Ratestogo.com were selected as
the large-sized travel agent examples, and BestWestern and Accor were selected for the
large-sized hotels. All these companies, except Expedia.com, were resident in Thailand.
Secondary data were collected from the companies’ web site, online travel industry
forums (i.e. hotel-online.com, hotelsmag.com, etc.) and from case materials produced by
technology providers (e.g. Microsoft.com) (ElementK.com, 2007). These were collected
and analysed to see what technologies the companies had adopted and used to enhance
their online business. Wherever possible multiple secondary sources were used to cross
check data. The individual in-company adoption decisions, however, were not included
because of access difficulties and because the adoption processes for these very large
firms was outside the scope of the main research. Comparison of ICT between SMEs,
and their large-sized counterparts, thus focused on the technology in use, rather than
adoption.
In the case of the SMEs the sample was split into two. In the travel agencies’
sub-sector the majority of firms are SMEs when defined by the standard convention of
employees (i.e. less than 250 employees) (SBS, 2003). Here three firms were selected one
each in the micro (0-9), small (10-49) and medium (50-99) sub sectors of the SME sector.
JEIM In the hotels’ sub-sector, the definition and classification of Thai “hotels” is
22,1/2 problematic. Very small establishments are classified as “guest houses”, “motels”, or
“inns”, rather than hotels. The majority of Thai establishments that are typically
officially licensed as hotels are 100 rooms or more, and have staff complements that
define them as large SMEs, or simply large firms (i.e. over 250 employees). The two
selected hotels in the sample are large SMEs that are private family owned hotels.
220 From the literature review, the summary of major factors influencing IT adoption in
SMEs (Table I) was used as a lens to investigate the five selected SMEs to see how each
factor plays a role in each of these SMEs. Semi-structured interviews were conducted
with owner-managers or managers who were responsible for IT adoption. The
questions were open-ended, aimed to elicit the interviewees to discuss factors, both
internal and external, influencing their e-business technology adoptions. The technology
and business issues were also discussed to learn about their use experience including
how the technology has been used to support or enable their business. Overall, the cases
are detailed with over 20 hours of interview access in each SME.
The sample characteristics are summarised in Table II.

4. Comparisons between SMEs and large firms

In this section, the factors found influencing ICT adoption in the selected SMEs are
discussed first in 4.1 using the classification of factors outlined in Table I. This is
followed by a discussion of ICT usage in the SME travel agencies and hotels (4.2 and
4.3 respectively), with reference to their larger counter-parts.

4.1 Adoption by SMEs

In discussions the two hotels emphasised the primacy of environmental factors in their
decision to adopt internet based technologies reflecting the trend for online booking by
agents and by customers. The need for intensive and timely information by customers
also reinforced this trend. The clear conclusion from the hotels was that the travel
agencies had been the most influential in shaping their ICT policies. In turn, for the
travel agencies the adoption, particularly of the GDS, was forced predominantly by the
industry-wide supplier systems. The agents needed the GDS in order to check
availability and flight schedule and also to issue flight tickets. These unequivocal
observations that for SMEs in the travel service sector industry-specific factors are the
major influence on e-business adoptions is interesting, but may not hold in other
industries. This is revisited later in section 5.
Technological factors were second in importance to environmental factors
according to all the SMEs. In this category perceived benefits of the technology
were highlighted as their main concern. Benefits, provided they were clearly identified
and particularly matched their business goals, which were typically related to growth,
positively influenced the adoption decision in all five cases. Application complexity
was also found to be a major issue in the two hotels (H1 and H2) and the smallest travel
agent (TA1). These three SMEs felt they lacked adequate ICT capability and financial
resources to develop or oversee the new technologies. They were totally dependent on
the technology providers who supplied application services and support on a rental or
commission model for the advanced applications such as billing or integration into
other agencies room inventories. Without this support it is likely that these SMEs would
not have progressed beyond e-mail and static web sites. The two other larger travel
 Number
of
Company Business Customer Ownership employees Turnover Information technology

TA1 Travel agent, Individual customers Family 5 £100K AMADEUS

focusing on flight within Thailand owned/owner-manager E-mail
ticketing Internet
Web site
A link (on the web site) to an affiliated
online hotel booking system provided by a
large-sized travel agent
TA2 Travel agent, Corporate customers Family 25 £350K AMADEUS
focusing on flight within Thailand owned/owner-manager E-mail
ticketing Internet
Web site
Online booking system provided by a
large-sized travel agent (but did not
integrate to company’s web site)
Internally developed online booking
system
TA3 Travel agent, Large market based of Entrepreneur 80 £6.8M Online, internal back-end system
focusing on hotel individual online owned/professional Web site with e-commerce feature and
booking customers from around management team instant confirmation feature
the world Online marketing tools
AMADEUS
H1 Hotel Individual customers Family 150 £2M Pelican system
from anywhere owned/professional Online booking systems provided by
management team large-sized travel agent
H2 Hotel Individual customers Family 150 £1.5M Pelican system
from anywhere owned/professional Online booking systems provided by
management team large-sized travel agent

Case characteristics
complexity
Relative size and

221

Table II.
JEIM agencies also used application services but their level of dependency was less and their
22,1/2 discussions with providers were more informed. This led to higher levels of
customisation and additional functionality.
Finally, in relation to organisational factors the SMEs did not consider their size
an absolute barrier or facilitator of their adoption decision. Indirectly, however, the
smaller firms were conscious of their lack of financial or technical resources and
222 this affected their thinking significantly as described above. In contrast the owner’s
or manager’s enthusiasm in using ICT was evidenced across all cases as one of the
important drivers of IT adoption. This observation is closely linked to their
perception of business benefit. The two larger agencies TA2 and TA3 specifically
identified the need to strengthen their online position as the rationale for their
interest in adopting more complex e-business technologies as well as in using them
more efficiently.

4.2 E-business use in travel agents

The three small or medium-sized travel agents started with e-mail and web site. In the
two small-sized agents (TA1 and TA2), their web site was initially static. While TA1
chose to adopt the hosted web development solution due to its limited IT capability and
resources TA2, which had greater financial resources and IT knowledge than TA1,
developed the web site internally. Later, as industry and customer practices
increasingly moved to an internet basis, they attempted to adopt more interactive
feature such as an online booking form (with the help of the provider in TA1 and
internally developed in TA2). However, they were still reluctant to implement full
e-commerce features such as on-line payments, as they still did not judge the demand
from their customers to warrant investment. This was true, for example, of TA2 which
although understanding the future importance of a full on-line presence held back from
making the commitment. In contrast, the medium-sized agent (TA3) started with an
e-business model; the web site was thus more interactive and provided online booking
features, including electronic payments. Additionally, the ability to issue flight tickets
directly was considered important, and hence the adoption of GDS was vital. All agents
used the GDS to obtain key information (route, flight schedule, availability, etc.), make
instant bookings and issue tickets. For their marketing, the two small-sized agents,
which focused more on local customers, did not utilise online advertising unless the
cost was very low. They preferred using traditional media such as print. The
medium-sized agent (TA3), however, relied considerably on online marketing media to
reach worldwide customers and penetrate into new markets. For all three of the travel
agents it can be seen that to differing degrees the e-business technology adoption was
more for the front-end activities - accessing customers and then engaging with them to
provide and deliver products/services.
For back-end services, only TA3 was using web-based applications. These had been
developed internally, to facilitate and link operational activities together. The
application and its database system is now the backbone of the company and is used
extensively by both staffs and management. One of the smaller sized agents (TA2) is
now beginning to move on this direction. The company is gradually building up its IT
capability and is developing the web-based information system to support its back-end
activities. It is only the smallest agency TA1 which does not have a plan to grow
bigger and to develop integrated IT applications to support the business. Partially this
is because there is only a few staff, including the owner-manager, working on the Relative size and
booking and responding to customers. complexity
Turning to the larger travel agents such as Expedia we expected differences but the
extent of these differences was of interest to us. In particular whether these differences
were scale or functionally driven. In all three of these agents we found a high degree of
front and back-end integration with notable differences at the back-end. For example in
Expedia advanced back-end systems includes a “business intelligence system”. Based 223
on data warehouse technology the system routinely tracks sales trends, manages
financial data and integrates with the ledgers, generate exception reports, and
processes price variation rules for impact on operating costs (Microsoft.com, 2003). For
inter-organisation applications, Expedia, Asia Web Direct, and Ratestogo.com all
provide an administration page on their web site for hotels to login and input hotels’
information as well as room availabilities and rates for specific periods.
At the front end of the larger-sized travel agents’ basic functionality – travel and
hotel bookings – remains the same but the degree of sophistication is much greater.
For example their search engines can explore many combinations of travel,
accommodation and related services quickly and then create dynamic packages from
the huge number of available flights and hotels, which requires powerful data base
systems and advanced search engines, with expert functionality. These systems also
provide real-time confirmation with “instant” e-mail confirmations to customers on
completion of the transaction. To achieve this, their search engines are directly linked
to GDS, which is expensive. For corporate customers, Expedia goes further by
providing them with an online corporate travel management tool, which offers
searching criteria and provides electronic bills and reports customised according to
companies’ needs. Furthermore, Expedia can also help its corporate customers
integrating their SAP or other e-procurement platforms or expense management tools
to its corporate travel system, allowing the seamless purchasing processes
(Expediacorporate.co.uk, 2004).
In comparative terms the technology adoption gap between large and the smaller
SME travel agents is very significant. It is not simply more and better integrated
technology to meet the demands of greater volumes of customers and transactions, but
is manifested in the sophisticated functionality available to all three large agents. In
strategy terms the available technology to the large agents has driven their business
strategy such that the emphasis is on leveraging the internet technology to integrate
with suppliers, including hotels, airlines and local small or medium-sized travel agents.
The more “convenience” the agent can provide for its suppliers, the more likely it can
enlarge its variety of products, meaning more chances to sell. In the main, it can be
argued that the large-sized travel agents examined here focus their technology
investment on relationship management with suppliers and selling products to
travellers. For the small or medium-sized travel agents their focus has become one of
selling to travellers. The B2B solutions emphasised by the larger agents are considered
too complex, expensive, and risky to these small or medium-sized travel agents.

4.3 E-business use in hotels

The two medium-sized hotels (H1 and H2) in this research, although located in different
provinces, had similar customer targets, which were usually European tourists, and
thus had similar strategies to use the internet to acquire more customers. Their main
JEIM strategy is to minimise the risk of non-occupancy through multiple booking channels.
22,1/2 In technology terms this happened for these hotels in two main ways. Firstly, the
ability for travellers to book directly with them from the web page and receive instant
confirmation of their booking. This provided the hotels with the best room rates. The
“Pelican” is a web based proprietary system that both hotels used and is available from
a specialist technology provider. Secondly, the ability to take bookings from specialist
224 booking agents on behalf of customers. In this case the agents were typically the large
agents who not only provided the bookings but also the web-based systems that
underpinned these transactions. These systems allow the hotels to place their
inventory on the agent’s database and to have their hotel information and room
availability appear online on the agents’ web site. Examples of such booking services
used by the hotels are Latestays.com, Ratestogo.com, Hostelbookers.com, etc. These
agents provide the hotels with another alternative for promoting their hotel online with
little effort and realistic costs; while the agents, who usually have IT and online
marketing expertise, generate commission fee from each booking confirmation.
Clearly, it can be seen that the hotels relied on travel agents and technology providers
in terms of internet applications to reach customers.
The larger counterparts of the small and medium-sized hotels are the larger hotels
that are usually part of a big hotel chain, such as BestWestern and Accor. These large
size hotels are in a far better position in terms of IT capability and financial resources
and thus exploit the internet and e-business technologies substantially both front and
back end to manage their inventories and market their products and services.
Intra-organisationally, having many sister hotels and partners, the large hotel chains
need to have a system which links internal data, particularly room availabilities and
rates of each hotel from its property management system, to a central reservation
system and to the main web sites of the brand. Both hotel chains have also
implemented e-learning systems. Through these systems the hotels save on travelling
costs for training trips and also facilitate standardised knowledge formats to allow
easy access all partner hotels. Inter-organisationally, the large hotel chains develop
interfaces which link their central reservation systems to the main GDSs, which are
used mainly for flight booking but can also be used for booking hotels, car rentals and
cruise trips (Hotel-online.com, 2005; Realmedia.com, 2007). Such integration requires
an advanced IT knowledge and can incur high costs in hiring professional IT expertise.
For their customers, the large-sized hotels not only use their web site extensively to
approach customers but attempts have also been made to implement IT tools to
promote their rooms. Customer relationship management is another area where the
large hotels can apply the Internet technology better and more advanced than small
and medium-sized hotels can do. An example is BestWestern’s “’Knock’Knockw”, a
desktop application, which links via the internet and receives alerts about new special
offers of various hotels of the BestWestern chain, direct to customers
(BestWestern.com, 2007). Finally, loyalty programs offered by the large-sized hotels
can be accessed via the internet, whilst the two medium-sized hotels showed little
interest in utilising a customer database.
As with the travel agents the difference in their use and adoption of internet
technologies between the large and the SME hotels was considerable. In contrast to the
SME travel agents neither of the hotels, which were medium-sized, attempted any
development or customisation of the applications. In house IT resources were simply
not a consideration. Typically SME hotels are much more likely to meet their internet Relative size and
needs exclusively from the industry providers and there are many alternatives. Much complexity
of this can be explained by the different industry structures. On the travel side,
particularly air travel, the reservations are mainly controlled through four proprietary
global systems. This has two effects. Firstly, the barriers to entry for other reservation
providers are formidable and the intra-industry relationships are relatively stable.
Secondly, and deriving from this stability, is that incentives to innovate by the main 225
providers is low leading to innovation taking place within the travel agents. On the
hotel side there is no equivalent domination by accommodation system providers.
Barriers to entry are lower, and incentives to innovate are higher as a means to gain
hotel customers. Effectively the responsibility for innovation lies with the providers.

5. Discussion, some conclusions and future research

This research set out to learn more about the adoption and use of e-business
technology within SMEs in the tourism industry and how and why this differs from its
use in large-sized enterprises in the same industry. Of emerging interest to the authors
was the difference within different sized SMEs and the significance of application
complexity. Given the research goal the findings appear helpful and are discussed
below.

5.1 Large-sized firms and SMEs

As expected the research highlights significant differences in technology adoption and
use between the two groups of firms arising largely from their respective sizes and
available resources. In this the authors support the relationship between firm size and the
adoption of more complex and more advanced e-business technologies (Levy et al., 2005;
Brown and Lockett, 2004). In the case of the large travel agents such as Expedia this
resource advantage manifests itself in the sophistication, innovation and integration of
applications, particularly the back-office applications and analytics. For the reasons
stated in section 4.2 this innovation originates within the large travel agent firms rather
than the providers, and explains some of the variations between large firms. Similarly, the
small and medium-sized travel agents tend rely on internal innovation but in contrast are
resource poor, and hence it is more difficult. Indeed, it is not uncommon for the smaller
TAs to reject innovation offered by the large-sized providers because of their complexity
and cost. Overall, technology led innovation is perceived to be risky and caution prevails
– a point emphasised by Levy et al. (2005). In the case of the hotels again the differences
between large and small firms are evidenced in the sophistication of their applications but
the differences are not as exaggerated. The widespread availability of hotel applications
from multiple providers incentivises the providers to differentiate through innovative
features. This mitigates the resource limitations for small hotels. This observation
reinforces the importance of innovation location and the role of providers, frequently
application service providers (ASPs), for SMEs (Brown and Lockett, 2007). This provider
perspective is absent in much of the adoption literature, for example in the influential
technology acceptance model (Davies, 1989; Wixom and Todd, 2005).
Although large-sized enterprises serving the Thai tourism industry are more
advanced in their technologies and more diversified in their products and markets, it
remains the case that through appropriate adoption of internet technologies SMEs can
grow and compete. The five cases demonstrate that the SMEs although restricted by
JEIM their limited resources, have adopted technologies with similar concepts, albeit less
22,1/2 advanced and more restricted in functional capabilities, than their larger counterparts.
Indeed as discussed above technology providers can play an important role in helping
the SMEs to be able to compete with their larger counterparts, particularly in small or
medium-sized hotels where IT development is not a core capability.
Finally, a network of partners and customers is another important factor in this
226 industry in terms of the potential and capability to offer attractive online loyalty
programs and a wider range of products and services, including those made available
by IT. Although it seems that the firm size and the size of partnership network are
beneficial in this industry, the market sensitivity of price and service quality helps
reduce the gap between SMEs and their larger counterparts. In the five SME cases
there was clear evidence of the firms targeting individual customer bookings where
close customer relationships and quality service could be established. This countered
to some extent the technology advantages enjoyed by the large-firms. Nevertheless it
remains the case that the more technologically perceptive larger agents have a better
chance to succeed, whilst leaving behind the small companies which are less
technologically capable – a point made by Elliott and Boshoff (2005).

5.2 Size within SMEs

The findings from all of the SME cases in this research appear to reconfirm strongly
those of Iacovou et al. (1995), Mehrtens et al. (2001), Poon and Swatman (1999) and
Windrum and Berranger (2002) that external factors (e.g. business environment,
customers, competitors) are the main drivers of IT adoption by the SMEs. But the
research adds to previous work in two ways. Firstly, in the above studies relative size
between SMEs was not a variable. In this work relative size was a factor and the
findings suggest that irrespective of size the external environment is highly significant
in ICT adoption. However, the cases also illustrate that in response to the environment
actual ICT implementations by SMEs are highly variable in terms of the complexity of
the applications adopted. This is significant as much previous work conceptualises
ICT adoption as an “event” or “on-off” decision. The second observation on the
importance of externalities relates to industry specificity. All five SMEs in the travel
service sector cited the externalities as the major factor in technology adoption. This is
perhaps not surprising since internet technology has become ubiquitous in the
business practices and strategy of this sector. This behaviour echoes Spender’s (1989)
strategic concept of industry recipes – the idea that industry behaviours are driven by
a collective set of norms. This observation underlines the likely importance of industry
specific externalities. But, it cannot be assumed that this holds in all situations. For
example, Kaynak et al. (2005), who investigated factors affecting e-commerce adoption
decisions in manufacturing SMEs, did not find this link.
The interpretation of the SME cases in terms of the technological and organisational
factors is less clear-cut. One of the frequent simplifications in SME based research is to
treat the sector as homogeneous and this can be highly misleading (Parker and
Castleman, 2007). In this research the differences between SMEs was as significant as
between large-firms and SMEs. For the SME travel agents turnover varied between
£100k and five employees (a micro firm TA1) and £6.8m and 80 employees (a medium
firm TA3). In this situation the relative size of the small firm impacted on their
capability and willingness to invest in the new internet technologies, and the
associated risk. The medium sized travel agent (TA3) started its internet technology Relative size and
strategy with an e-business model in mind similar to its larger counterparts albeit at a complexity
less sophisticated level, i.e. a web-based back office system, online confirmation for
bookings, and e-commerce features on the web site. The situation in the micro firm
(TA1) was very different. Here change was extremely cautious and incremental and
this remains the mindset relating to the firm’s future possible changes. Small travel
agent (TA2) with 25 employees uses similar technology to TA1 but is contemplating 227
strengthening its online presence in the future.
The above case data provides strong support for the concept that relative size
between small firms is very significant in IT adoption. This mirrors Levenburg (2005)
comments on differences between large and small firms generally. Size, however, is not
a complete explanation of the differences between the internet adoption strategies of
the five cases. In small firms the importance of the owner’s enthusiasm is well
understood (Cragg and King, 1993). This was the case here but there were other
influences beyond the owner including family and professional management. Together
with other factors these constituted the receptivity environment within the firms for
major organisation change (Pettigrew and Whipp, 1991; Pettigrew et al., 1992).
A discussion of the implications for theory and practice of the two cases above, and
a potential future research agenda, is introduced below.

5.3 Limitations and future research

There are four factors that affect the generalisation of this research. Firstly, although
the two hotel cases and the three travel agent cases are within the same sector the
number of cases is still modest. Secondly, the comparison was conducted between
SMEs and their larger counterparts using different types of data – the case data was
richer. Thirdly, the research on the SMEs cases was conducted in a Thai developing
country context. Although the internet has blurred the geographical boundaries, and
the tourism industry is global, some contextual differences still remain relevant.
Education and IT skills, for examples, are quite low in Thailand compared with in
European countries. And finally, the tourism industry, particularly airlines, is among
the leaders in technology adoption. Hence, the findings about the internet and
e-business adoption in firms in this industry might yield a relatively more positive
result than findings from other industries
Despite these concerns the twin criteria of “literal replication” and “theoretical
replication” is met to a significant extent in these cases (Yin, 2003). The insights are
helpful and the findings add to our understanding of internet adoption, particularly in
respect of firm size, application complexity and the role of technology providers. The
implications for practice and theory are significant. For practice the research
underlines the problems that small firms have in adopting advanced technologies – an
issue of special concern in developing economies with their economic dependence on
SMEs. It suggests that a policy response by the Thai government aimed at increasing
IT adoption could be appropriate (a wider consideration of the role of IT policies is
given in a recent UN report (UNEDO, 2006)). At the theory level this research
highlights the need for further work into the significance of relative size between SMEs
and IT adoption, and into the role of providers within particular industry settings.
Current research on small firm IT adoption largely ignores institutional arrangements
and in particular the interactions between large and small firms and technology
JEIM providers. Finally, this research agrees with the study of Parker and Castleman (2007)
22,1/2 that more research, which focuses on understanding each SME case within its specific
and perhaps distinct contexts, is needed. The case studies reported here serve as an
attempt to treat SMEs heterogeneously.

228 Note
1. These two providers develop an online hotel booking system and host it on their server.
Hotels can simply link their web site to this online booking system and create and manage
their inventory in the system through an administrative web pages provided by the
providers.

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About the authors

David H. Brown is Professor in Strategy and Information Systems at Lancaster University 231
Management School and Director of the Lancaster China Management Centre. His current
research is in the area of strategy, IS and e-business, including policy, access and implementation
issues for SMEs. He has particular experience of exploring strategy and IS in the context of
transitional economies, especially China.
Laddawan Kaewkitipong is computer science graduate of Thammasat University, Thailand.
Currently she is a doctoral student in the Management Science Department, Lancaster University
Management School. Her research examines e-business adoption and evaluation in SMEs
particularly in tourism industry from a processual viewpoint. Her interests also include a wider
perspective of IT/IS management and strategy. Laddawan Kaewkitipong is the corresponding
author and can be contacted at: l.kaewkitipong1@lancaster.ac.uk

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