Abstract
The study is aimed to explore the status and perception of electronic commerce (e-Commerce) of tourism businesses in southern region. The factors that drive that such perception are also in focus. Tourism businesses cover 3 business areas; hospitalities, tour operators, and souvenir shops. Raw data was collected by mail-questionnaires to businesses where 3,051 were sent and 291 were received (9.54%) and ready for study. Sample size from the largest to smallest was from hospitalities, tour operators, and souvenir shops, respectively.
The results show that 45.02% of studied tourism businesses have their own websites, 62.20% uses e-mail and 48.45% uses some forms of the e-Commerce to run their businesses. The main purposes of the e-Commerce applied in business are to advertise, to do public relations, and to communicate with tourists and other stakeholders, respectively. To the tourism businesses using the e-Commerce, they have positive perception about the advantage of e-Commerce in high level, and have a negative perception about problems of the e-Commerce in moderate level. Those who do not use the e-Commerce, have a negative perception about problems and threats in moderate level. The main reasons why they do not apply the e-Commerce because they do not have sufficient resources, and are not sure about its secured transactions. Therefore, the government and concerning organizations should put more effort to emphasize on the advantage of e-Commerce by developing infrastructure, electronic law and security transaction system to promote the full-ranged e-Commerce.
Keywords : e-commerce, perception, Southern Thailand. Tourism business
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