Drivers of Electronic Commerce (e-commerce) among Small and Medium Tourist Enterprises (SMTEs) in Tanzania

The adoption of e-commerce by SME in Tanzania tourism sector remains low. This paper aims at analyzing the drivers of e-commerce among Small and Medium tourist enterprises in Tanzania Southern Highland. The study targeted both the adopter and non adopter of e-commerce where stratified sampling technique was used to ensure fair representation of the sample among SMTEs followed by simple random sampling which was used to draw sample from each strata for data collection. Snow ball sampling technique was also used by asking the SMEs in tourism sector to direct the researcher on where other small tourism enterprises are found. Data was collected using structured questionnaire from 231 respondents in Iringa, Rukwa and Katavi regions. These three regions were selected because of high concentration of tourism activities in Tanzania southern part. Data was analyzed using t-test, Pearson, chi square, One way ANOVA and Binary logistic regression with the help of SPSS version 20 software. Data analysis using One way ANOVA on the drivers of e-commerce reveled that there were significant difference (pless than0.05) with regard to compatibility of e-commerce (p=0.01, F=7.111) for both adopter and non adopter of e-commerce. Findings using logistic regression on the driver of e-commerce revealed that two out of five predictor variables, namely relative advantages and compatibility were found to be significantly associated with e-commerce adoption for both adopter and non adopter of e-commerce. Trialability, observability and complexity were found to be non significantly associated with e-commerce adoption for both adopter and non adopter. This study concluded that compatibility is the main driver of e-commerce for both adopter and non adopter in Tanzania. Further this study concludes that Rogers innovation characteristics are compatible to innovation diffusion research in Tanzania. The study recommend that the government of Tanzania to design strong policies which could assist adoption of e-commerce among SMTEs in Tanzania.