Economic Impact of E-commerce
on Small Tourism Enterprises
The objective of this study titled "Economic
Impact of E-commerce on Small Tourism Enterprises"
was to evaluate the economic impact of using the
Internet to promote small- scale budget tourist
accommodation businesses in Fiji, Samoa and Tonga.
The study concludes that just having a website
is not enough if one wants to reap the benefits
economically. Effective website promotion is the
most vital step in conducting ecommerce and leading
new visitors to a website. Successful websites
indicate that they have a certain edge over others
leading towards more influence and impact to their
business. Websites need to be marketed just as
with other forms of advertising, and electronic
marketing is about attracting the right traffic,
creating a user-friendly atmosphere, and developing
content relevant to customers needs. However,
it is equally important for the business owners
to be familiar with Internet and email use and
to promptly response to any guest enquiries.
A series of trainings was conducted to share
the results of the research titled "Economic
Impact of E-commerce on Small Tourism Enterprises";
collect qualitative data from participants' arising
from their reflections, group brainstorming, and
many discussions; and raise awareness of the tourism
sectors stakeholders the usage of ICT as a marketing.
Each of the program comprised of seminar for research
results sharing and technical training on email
and webpage maintenance. A manual on how to carry
out webpage maintenance was also developed by
Mr. Christopher Robbins, a Multimedia Specialist
at USP, Fiji. Netscape was downloaded and utilized
for this training. On 3rd November 2004, Ms. Maki
Kato presented the research findings as a paper
titled "Empirical study on the Internet
marketing for Small and Micro-sized Hotel Operators"
to the USP community and key tourism stakeholders
in Fiji.
