IT-Led Innovation in Small Tourism Enterprises: Key Components, Trends, and Barriers

This study addresses a timely and relevant concern on the adoption of IT-led innovation in small tourism enterprises. We adopted a qualitative research design and took interviews of 24 small tourism enterprises. Thematic analysis helped us achieve our three research objectives. First, we found that technological infrastructure, devices, platforms, and users are the four pillars of innovation in tourism. Second, we found out the most popular and least popular IT-led innovations as adopted by small business enterprises. The most popular innovative services are online booking systems, Wi-Fi, and connectivity enhancements, digital payment solutions, social media marketing, and digital feedback systems. In the last objective, we found that the main barriers to adopting IT-led innovation are resistance to change, scalability issues, limited financial resources, lack of IT expertise and knowledge, regulatory compliance, and security concerns.