Abstract

This paper uses Technology Organisation Environment framework to investigate the adoption of e-commerce by Zimbabwe's hotel industry. Adoption of e-commerce in the hospitality industry has been found by other studies to vary in different locations and to be influenced by factors that also tend to vary by location. This makes it difficult for findings to be generalised across different domains. To enable informed investment and policymaking decision it is necessary to conduct a country-specific enquiry into the factors that influence e-commerce adoption in a sector. This paper explores e-commerce adoption in the wider context of e-readiness in Zimbabwe's travel and hospitality sector. A qualitative methodology under an interpretivist philosophy was used for this research and findings show that the inhibitors to e-commerce adoption were mainly at organisational level because of the lack of management support, organisational structure, organisational support and organisational readiness. On the other hand, the highest number of enablers were environmental factors that were due to customer and supplier expectation as well as competitive pressure from other hotels.