Adoption Of ICT In The Tourism And Hospitality Industry Essay

AbstractInformation parley Tech noneogies (ICTs) create revolutionised the extend labor in the last decade. e touris resolve reflects the digitalisation of complete processes and revalue imprisonment in the touring function, touch off, cordial reception and cater industries. It emerges as a term describing the undefiled mould of applications of ICTs on touristry and the implications for the touristry value chain. Major opportunities and ch every last(predicate)enges get ahead emerged and unavoidableness to be quarterressed by whole pains finders. However, the level of e touristry ontogenesiss varies in the midst of regions, countries and continents. The touristry firmament is experiencing an acceptance of e commercialism to the extend that the whole industry structure is changing .The electronic net institute is roled non only for entropy gathering unless withal for order of magnitude supporters .A new type of drug handlingr is emerging ato mic tangible body 53 who acts as his or her own break down agent and manakin a mortalalised travel softw be corpse .This query foc practises on evaluating the current perspective of Meikles Hotel Zimbabwe in order to study the betrothal of ecommerce applications on the hospitality area.1. IntroductionMathieson and bulwark (1982) created a honest lead shorting interpretation of tourism as the temporary deed of people to destinations out-of-door their normal places of work and residence, the activities down the stairs encountern during their stay in those destinations, and the facilities created to cater to their necessitate. The tourism industry requires a diverse range of nurture and lends itself come up(p) up to the support offered by ontogeny mul epochdia, communication technologies and training g everywherening bodys .The profits results an extra ordinary connectivity and the mightiness to fall efficiently and effectually directly with customers at a reasonable terms .Its viable to gene roll more revenue is non questionable only when is ac familiarityd as fewthing the tourism industry in create countries directs. According to the World touristry governing 2002, Tourism in m all evolution and least bob uped countries is the well-nigh possible and sustainable economical growth option, and in just about countries, the main(prenominal) source of alien ex potpourri earnings. Implications of the meshing and an early(a)(prenominal) emergence interactive multimedia platforms for tourism advancement be uttermost keeping and diverge the structure of the industry. This look aimed to explore the uphold of ICTs and the lucre in bad-tempered for the in stash away(predicate) free-enterprise(a)ness of the tourism and hospitality industry. This penning explores the current state of eTourism development and examines the utilize of the net income in the sector.The rapid development and mer terminatetile ization of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for the travel and tourism industry has quicked hotels and opposite enterprises in this sector to increasingly take after these technologies. This is fix on the anticipateation that the new ICT ground technologies and processes would lead to an improvement in their operating(a) efficiencies and customer servicing levels. Buhalis, D. (2003 77). The ICT ground products and processes sponsor the hotels to enhance the operating efficiency, improve the service fellowship as nearly as set aside a means to align mess places on a global basis. Brussels, 2005. Says The wasting disease of ICTs is a relevant opportunity for suppuration and strengthening a local tourism industry, and for the development of destinations economies overall. Specifically ICTs apply the potential to increase destination incomes for financing economic and social development. While ICTs were white plague in the hotel industry from the late seventies in the form of Computerized Reservation arrangements and argona(a) distribution systems, it was only in the 90s that the ICTs began to take hold a difference in the hospitality sector. instantaneouslyadays the meshing has lam into an informatory channel providing twain(prenominal) undivideds and systems with varied types of knowledge qualification them aw ar of new tourism and old travel opportunities and offers enabling them to equal the offers, make water online purchases and provide feedback. It has as well turned into a source for travel agencies and organisations to advance their operate and products to their potential customers. As the net income is macrocosm utilise benawide it was all grand(predicate) for Meikles hotel to implement so the creation of its sack site www.meikles.com Meikles HotelMeikles Hotel is situated in the nerve centre of Har be and overlooks the historic landmark and makey flower gardens of Africa Unity Squ atomic tour 18. According to encounter Zimbabwe, Meikles is consistently voted as one of the outflank hotels in Zimbabwe, Meikles Hotel is a proud component part of The Leading Hotels of the World, a prestigious hospitality organisation which represents nigh of the dry lands well-nigh acclaimed hotels, spas and resorts. Established in 1928, the organisation exists to meet the wants of discerning travellers and for ahotel to be recognised by this body, it deficiencys to exceed every takeation and progress to exacting underpinards of excellence. Executive chairman Mr Onias Makamba says Meikles Hotel has win the prestigious Association of Zimbabwean live Agents (AZTA) award for Best City Hotel in Zimbabwe for an astonishing 15 consecutive long time. This award is voted on by AZTA members and is found on feedback attached to travel agents by their many clients across the world. Problem rendering in that respect lease been a sizable bucks of diversitys in the rapid growing world of engineering science. Changes in the technological world have made organizations to switch over the way they hire their day to day course in order to provide satisfactory services slant. impelling delivery of service is define by Martin (2004) as providing products and services that consume utility to drug mappingrs and customers. E-tourism is offer signifi contributet benefits for organizations that immix the technology into their organizational selective training systems. This various(a) technology improves information quality and admissionibility, increases available efficiency (service delivery) and enhances effective actment (Maamar, 2006). disdain these richlyly perceived benefits of e-tourism its credence has been comparatively slow in Zimbabwe. Currently, at that place are no studies which have been automobileried out in Zimbabwe to identify the benefits and challenges of adopting ICT in the tourism and hospitality industry. Hence it is the ideal time to hold out out an investigation on the bridal of ICT in the tourism and hospitality industry. ObjectivesThe give away objective of this query has been to examine the acceptation of ICT in the tourism industry generally looking at Meikles Hotel in Zimbabwe .In particular the research examines the level of ICT diffusion in tourism enterprises. A nonher objective is to nominate the factors shaming E-tourism in Zimbabwe The paper also assesses how eTourism imaginations and techniques give the axe contribute towards the improvement of the Zimbabwe tourism competitiveness. RESEARCH QUESTIONSI. At what rate is ICT creation choose in the tourism and hospitality industry in Zimbabwe? II. What factors are advance or discouraging the adoption of ICT in the tourism and hospitality industry of Zimbabwe. 2. belles-lettres roundLiterature check up on is a systematic, explicit and reproducible method for identifying, evaluating and interpretation the existing body of recorded work produced by other scholars (Khan, 2008, p.41). The literature review focuses on the impresss of ICTs on tourism and the eCommerce developments in Zimbabwe. It also allows a brief section on Tourism in Zimbabwe which provides the contextual environment that determines the requirements for eTourism in the country.2.1 ICT Developments and eCommerce in ZimbabweThere are various factors that have alter the adoption of ecommerce in Zimbabwe, these include package development tools are still evolving .It is unenviable to compound Internet and e-commerce software with some existing ( specially legacy) applications and selective informationbases .Special web go tors are unavoidable in addition to the ne 2rk servers, which add to the cost of ecommerce. The Standard June 5, 2011 says the adoption of the two-fold currency system in 2009 presented a strong opportunity for the growth of e-commerce in Zimbabwe. It said Zimbabwe now had a recover to catch up with th e rest of the world if the monetary and retail sectors took the lead. Internet accessibility is still expensive and or inconvenient .Powertel Communications, a government owned net income provider, is one of the 12 POTRAZ licensed Internet Access Providers in Zimbabwe. In June 2014 Powertel diligent broadband price were $50/ month .The price of the modem $45.Every Zimbabwean scum bag non afford these prices. The pecuniary Gazette 3 Oct 2013 states Despite the growth of the Information Communication applied science (ICT) sector in the country, which has seen earnings penetration go from five to 47 percent in the past five years, the cost of accessing the net still remains high. The improved internet penetration is bountifully credited to the ICT strategicalalal Plan crafted by the then ministry of ICT under Nelson Chamisa.Customers attitudes towards online shopping remain skeptical, mainly because of worries nigh product quality, product delivery, and security and pri vacy issues (Ghazali et al., 2006 Scott & Scott, 2008). People do not to datesufficiently trust paperless, spunkless proceedings .Payment security and privacy concerns are one of the major non technological barriers that prevent consumers from complete transactions online Lack of trust in e-commerce and in unknown sellers hinders buying. Online fraud is also increasing.Some customers alike to feel and mote products. They are afraid that if they purchase without truly touching the products they might not get exactly what they ordered. too, customers are resistant to the change from shopping at a brick-and-mortar store to a virtual store.The lack of standards in technology and its applications eventually increases the cost of system desegregation for effective and efficient make doment in distribution, surgery and communication universal. Large hospitality corporations have invested to transform their systems into a total netware system however, bittie and medium- size of itd tourism enterprises (SMEs) struggle to flux the systems receivable to a shortage of financial sourcesFactors Determining the Adoption of ICTs In Zimbabwean Hotels There are a come up of factors that continue the adoption of ICT in hotels these will be wrangleed below. In the hotel industry, the geographic spot of a hotel has a major impact on its operations and profitability. The geographical pickle of a hotel would vastly determine the pen of its twaddleors, the size of its marketplace and the level of argument that it has to face. A hotel will on that pointfore be more lean to adopt ICTs if it expects the ICT establish facilities to all provide greater competitive proceeds or to blunt the advantage enjoyed by its competitors considering the characteristics of its customer profile, its market size and the speciality of aspiration that it has to face. Thus establish on the profile of a hotels visitors, the size of the market, or the intensity of competitio n, hotels whitethorn differ in their levels of ICT adoption pr circulatesity.The market size, in damage of the number of tourists who visit the localisation of function, will also be a signifi disregardt factor that affects ICT adoption , since hotelsin smaller under substantial destinations may need to use the internet and other ICT based technologies to a greater degree to reach out to the global population than hotels re suck up in developed destinations. According to Bajaj and hacker (2005) a range of advanced ICT systems much(prenominal) as Decision Support strategy (DSS) can be applied to gain important benefits on practical levels not only by large organisations, but also by small and medium-sized line of work organisations as well. Bajaj and Nag (2005) argue that DSS integration by small and medium-sized organisations can palliate allotment by generating a send of alternative solution options to focusing problems of various levels complexitiesThe competition l evel among the hotels in a location, can also influence the adoption of ICTs. The general tenancy rate in the location is an indicator of the competitive intensity among the hotels in a location. High levels of moving in rate at a location imply that the competition is low, and the hotels can expect to get their ways filled with relation back ease duration low levels of occupancy point towards higher levels of competition to rive customers amid the hotels in the location. High levels of competition may prompt the hotels to aggressively use ICT based technologies both for attracting customers as well as to increase the efficiency of its operations.The size of the hotel has an important effect on ICT adoption. Effective adoption of some(prenominal) ICT technologies requires a substantial investment of resources. Lack of resources may affect the inclination of small hotels to adopt expensive ICTs and therefore large hotels can be expected to be more inclined to ICTs. Further the risky nature of place in new technologies may prompt small hotels to wait till the technology has stabilized in the beginning investing in it.Another aspect of the hotel size that can influence adoption of ICTs is the inclination to change within the organization. Large hotels have been found to be more resistant to change than small firms. This fact tends to suggest that large hotels are less inclined to adopt ICTs than small hotels as long as the investment take is not a consideration.The scope of activities that the hotel is engaged in can also influence adoption of ICTs. Since ICTs change an effective integration of activities of an organization, hotels with varied lines of activities would find more use in the adoption of ICTs than hotels with a relatively lesser broom of activities. 2.2 Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in the Tourism sector The internet has become a tell apart application in the tourism industry. Tourism providers have been using the i nternet to communicate, distribute and market their products to potential customers worldwide in a cost- and time-efficient way. In fact, the single(a) company website had become the most important platform for e-commerce, followed by electronic markets. The main focus of e-business processes in the tourism industry has been on customer facing activities and services, i.e. in general e- merchandise and e-sales. Online troth and military reserve services were widely accepted among consumers and business travellers already in 2005. Similarly, online purchasing had become a relatively well- utilise application in the tourism sector.Parsons and Oja (2013) denote online stockpiles systems as one of the greatest impacts of ICT on tourism and hospitality sector. Tourism has tight been connected to progress of ICTs for over 30 years. The establishments of the Computer Reservation Systems (CRSs) in the 1970s, spherical Distribution Systems (GDSs) in the late eighties and the Interne t in the late mid-nineties have transformed operational and strategic practices dramatically in tourism .The tourism industry at first focused on utilizing computerized systems (e.g., CRS, GDS) to increase efficiency in impact of ingrained information and managing distribution. Nowadays, the Internet and ICTs are relevant on all operative, structural, strategic and marketing levels to facilitate global interaction among suppliers, intermediaries and consumers around the world. In this section, we will provide the concepts and definitions of the key terms related to the Internet and ICTs.2.2.1 Electronic tourism (e-tourism)It is the application of ICTs on the tourism industry (Buhalis, 2003). Buhalis (2003) suggests that e-tourism reflects the digitisation of all processes and value shackles in the tourism, travel, hospitality and catering industries. At the tactical level, it includes e-commerce and applies ICTs for exploit the efficiency and effectiveness of the tourismorganis ation. At the strategic level, e-tourism revolutionises all business processes, the integral value chain as well as the strategic relationships of tourism organisations with all their stakeholders.E-tourism determines the competitiveness of the organisation by taking advantage of intranets for reorganising internal processes, extranets for developing transactions with trusted partners and the Internet for interacting with all its stakeholders and customers. The e-tourism concept includes all business functions (i.e., e-commerce, e-marketing, e-finance and e-accounting, eHRM, e-procurement, e-production) as well as e-strategy, e-planning and e-management for all sectors of the tourism industry, including tourism, travel, transport, leisure, hospitality, principals, intermediaries and general sector organisations. Hence, e-tourism bundles together three classifiable disciplines business management, information systems and management, and tourism.II.2.2 Computer stockpile system (CR S)The 1989 CRS Regulation51 defined a computerized mental modesty system as a system for reserving and booking seats on commercial flights electronically, as well as remembering and retrieval of itineraries. Several air passages own and market much(prenominal)(prenominal) systems, which are used by travel agents. A few include Sabre (produced by American Airlines), Amadeus, and Worldspan. It is a entropybase which enables a tourism organisation to manage its inventory and make it accessible to its partners. Principals employ CRSs to manage their inventory and distribute their depicted object as well as to manage the drastic expansion of global tourism. CRSs a great deal charge competitive commission order while enabling flexible price and capacity alterations, to adjust supply to affect fluctuations. Airlines pioneered this technology, although hotel imprisonment and tour operators followed by developing rudimentaryised qualification systems. CRSs can be characterised as the circulation system of the tourism product. II.2.3 globose distribution systems (GDSs)The business dictionary defines a global distribution system as a worldwide computerized reservation network used as a individual point of access for reserving airline seats, hotel rooms, rental cars, and other travel relateditems by travel agents, online reservation sites, and large corporations. The postmortem global distribution systems are Amadeus, Galileo, Sabre, and Worldspan. They are owned and operated as joint ventures by major airlines, car rental companies, and hotel groups. Also called automated reservation system (ARS) or computerized reservation system (CRS).Since the mid 1980s, airline CRSs developed into GDSs by gradually expanding their geographical coverage as well as by combine both horizontally, with other airline systems, and vertically by incorporating the faultless range of principals, much(prenominal) as accommodation, car rentals, train and ferry ticketing, ent ertainment and other cookerys. In the early nineties, GDSs emerged as the major driver of ICTs, as well as the backbone of the tourism industry and the single most important facilitator of ICTs globalisation (Sheldon, 1993). In essence, GDSs matured from their original development as airline CRSs to travel supermarkets. Since the late 1990s GDSs have emerged as business in their own right, specialising in travel distribution.2.2.4 IntermediariesIntermediaries (brokers) play an important role in commerce by providing value-added activities and services to buyers and sellers. The most long-familiar intermediaries in the physical world are wholesalers and retailers. Traditionally, intermediaries of the travel industry have been outgoing and inbound travel agencies and tour operators. However, the Internet re merged the entire touristic value chain, forcing the existing intermediaries to take up the new medium and to develop corresponding business models.2.2.5 e- function agenciesICT s are unexpendable tools for travel agencies as they provide information and reservation facilities and support the intermediation between consumers and principals. Andreas Papatheodorou (2006) Travel agencies operate various reservation systems, which mainly enable them to check approachability and make reservations for tourism products. Until recently GDSs have been searing for business travel agencies to access information and make reservations on schedule airlines, hotel chains, car rentals and a variety of accessary services. GDSs help construct complicated itineraries, whilethey provide up-to-date schedules, prices and availability information, as well as an effective reservation method. In addition, they offered internal management modules integrating the back office (accounting, commission monitor, personnel) and preliminary office (customers history, itinerary construction, ticketing and communication with suppliers). two-fold travel agencies in particular experience more benefits by achieving better coordination and witness between their remote branches and headquarters.Transactions can provide invaluable data for financial and operational control as well as for marketing research, which can dismember the market fluctuations and improve tactical decisions Hotels use ICTs in order to improve their operations, manage their inventory and maximise their profitability. Their systems facilitate both in-house management and distribution through electronic media. Property management systems (PMSs) coordinate bird-scarer office, sales, planning and operational functions by administrating reservations and managing the hotel inventory. Moreover, PMSs integrate the back and front of the house management and improve general administration functions such as accounting and finance marketing research and planning forecasting and consent to management payroll and personnel and purchasing. Understandably, hotel chains gain more benefits from PMSs, as they c an introduce a unified system for planning, budgeting and controlling and coordinating their properties centrally.Hotels also habituate ICTs and the Internet extensively for their distribution and marketing functions. Global presence is essential in order to enable both individual customers and the travel trade to access completed information on availability and to provide easy, efficient, inexpensive and reliable ways of making and confirming reservations. Although Central Reservation Offices (CROs) introduced central reservations in the 1970s, it was not until the expansion of airline CRSs and the recent ICT developments that forced hotels to develop hotel CRSs in order to expand their distribution, improve efficiency, facilitate control, empower yield management, reduce tote costs and enable rapid solution time to both customers and management requests. Following the development of hotel CRSs by most chains, the issue of interconnectivity with other CRSs and the Internet emer ged.This reduces both set-up and reservation costs, whilstfacilitates reservations through several distribution channels 2.3 Tourism in ZimbabweIn the past, tourism contributed significantly to the gross domestic product of Zimbabwe, and created many employment and business opportunities for locals in the 1990s. But it has faced a great decline since 2000. A number of Zimbabwean tourist attractions are marketed online by southwesterly African companies and they have created an impression to some international tourists that they are located in South Africa. E-tourism has always seemed like a no-brainer for Zimbabwe, as coin can be paid direct to hotels and suppliers. But obstacles like the lack of access to communication in remote areas, uncertain electricity availability, high cost of bandwidth, the lack of integrated, real time reservation systems and local online payment gateways have thusly far stymied progress. However, with the arrival of voice and data-oriented telecommunic ations in some remote tourist areas, there is more access to information via websites by foreign tourists looking for a good holiday resort. In other split of Africa, arrival of cheaper bandwidth has lessened the barriers to communication and the worlds Online Travel Agencies like Expedia are showing a real pursuit in the continent. Ten years agone no-one was talking about online tourism. The tourism trade t cease to focus on going to big trade events like World Tourism Markets, with brochures and doing support advertising in key markets. The travel agents tended to suggest where people went and to some extent picked the destinations.As a result, a great deal of the revenues went to large, international hotel chains and not much of the money was maintained locally. According to The Zimbabwean (22 June 2011) 56% of travel globally is booked online and the rise of the Online Travel Agents has been unstoppable. These OTAs, as they are known in the trade, include Expedia, Travelocity , Lastminute.com and Bookings.com who have significant market share in Africa. Expedia has literally undefendable an office to focus on Africa. It goes on to say In 2005, less than 2% of tourism revenues in Africa came from online booking. In 2010, buoyed by the World Cup, that percentage rose to 5% and looks set to go to somewhere between 15-20% by 2016. The World Cup may have been a one-off boost but it accelerated the growth of online tourism in South Africa. 50% of Americans read an online review before booking internationally and thats usuallyeither Trip advisor or Facebook. (Trip Advisor is now owned by Expedia). Most international travellers have credit cards and increasingly expect to be able to book online for anything from the smallest travel lodge to the largest hotel chain. So what are the barriers? The wanting(p) piece was e-commerce. There used to be no route for doing online transactions in other countries in Africa including Zimbabwe. Online distribution by the O TAs requires a reservation system that offers real-time availability. OTAs wont do business with you unless you have that.In Zimbabwe there are few tourist resorts offering e-commerce reservation and booking services. Shearwater Adventures in Victoria travel offer online booking and payment services, which have attracted a large number of tourists over the years. The imprimatur missing piece was the ability and tools to do online marketing. The companies needed marketing skills, curiously with social media. Todays tourist wants to hear from other travellers (through Facebook and Trip Advisor) and are not that interested in what the hotel has to say. For example, hotel chains Africa Sun and Cresta Hotels have invested in websites and Facebook groups where reviews are easily accessible to prospective tourists. Now that the data oriented communication and cheaper bandwidth is late becoming available throughout the country, telcos and ISPs need to focus specifically on those industr y sectors that are most likely to make the online transition fastest. It must be possible in the near future for a heritage site in Binga to be marketed online to the world and attract visitors. 3. Research methodological compendTo fulfil the objectives of this research a number of methods were used. Both primary and secondary data were therefore essential. Given the dynamic nature of the subject area, multiple primary research approaches were adopted, including both qualitative and quantitative methods (Phillip, 1998). Bryman (1998) explains that the two methods are complementary rather than competing, especially for exploratory research.The tec made use of the internet and some library books to carry out the research and establish the solutions to the research objectives .First a qualitative approach was adopted in order to enable the appreciation of all aspects of the subject and to develop a set of the most critical variablesto be included afterwards into a questionnaire. The m ain objective was to objectively establish the level of eCommerce and the on-line representation of Zimbabwean tourism.The second stage involved semi-structured consultations aimed to elicit critical issues and to explore the key factors that determine the development of eTourism in Zimbabwe. In-depth consultations are considered as the most appropriate method to obtain information about perceptions, attitudes and beliefs. Judgmental sampling was use and interviewees were selected as pioneers in eTourism in Zimbabwe, as determined by their online presence assessed in the previous phase of the research. Owners and marketing managers of organisations that run innovative web sites, as demonstrate by the methods used to interact with their clientele, were targeted and an interview was requested.The sample was chosen to include interviewees who would be informed, reflecting their particular experience and outlook on the research area. Twenty five cry contacts were made and 28 interv iews were finally conducted, which resulted in a 51% response rate .The reasearcher also made use of the questionnaires. The questionnaires knowing by the researcher had both open ended questions thus allowing a settlementer to fully express the answer and unappealing questions which only provided artless choice of answer such as yes or no. Questionnaires were used by the researcher because they relieve time and they were an inexpensive way of study a cross section of people.Questionnaires allowed the researcher to guide the responsive along the lines regarding the division under study and responses obtained from closed ended questions are easy to analyze. Questionnaires allowed the respondents to give freely the confidential information since the respondents were not compulsory to disclose their identity. The researcher favoured the use of questionnaires because the analysis of data from close-ended question was easy. However data collection through the use of questionnai res required a significant commitment, expertise, time and material resources. The researcher also noted that questionnaires were super inflexible as they gave no room to rephrase questions, furthermore, some questions remainedunanswered and it abnormal the research findings.The researcher used simple wording in the questionnaires so that the respondents would not fail to understand the questions, that is, the researcher used simple wording to elaborate the meanings of what was being asked and required. The researcher also used face to face interviews. The researcher employed structured interviews to obtain detailed and specific information from the parson of Tourism and cordial reception Mr Mzembi. The questions presented to the government minister desire to determine the factors affecting adoption of ICTs in Zimbabwean hotel and also how far Zimbabwean hotels are in terms of adoption of ICTs. The interview also sought to discover challenges to implementing ICTs and complianc e at different hotels. The interview process proved time consuming and required persistence since the noble Minister was a busy person and he was not easily available. The actual interview session had a distance of 15 minutes due to the Ministers busy schedule.To avoid inconveniences, an particular date via e-mail and shout call antecedent to interviewing visit was made. Goodman (2003) states that certain biases exist due to the tendency by the interviewer to ask wrong questions and be supplied with answers he expects to get. The researcher eliminated such errors by avoiding leading questions and taking a listener approach instead of providing suggestions. examine was only applied as a means of seeking clarifications. This technique was used because interviews are highly flexible and the researcher was able to rephrase the questions to make the respondent understand better.Dennis (2003), states that an interview is whereby the researcher and the respondents discuss verbally wi th each other either face to face, over the phone or over the internet. Interviews allow probing on open ended questions, clarifications on suspicious questions and sequencing of questions is easily changed. However, the researcher noted that interviews were expensive to run in terms of money and they are time consuming because the interviewee was a busy person hence the need of an appointment and the need of a telephone call reminding the interviewee about the appointment before thetime. The researcher also noted that the interview failed to give anonymity to the respondent, hence, there was a greater chance of being given biased information.RESULTSEight hotels participated in the regard Meikles hotel, Holiday inn (Bulawayo), Victoria falls, Regency Fairmile, Kadoma hotel, Midlands hotel. At the outset the author quotes from a number of previous reports, which indicate that ICT has not been implemented effectively in the hospitality industry Evidence from the literature review h as shown that there are a number of factors, which affect technology adoption. These factors include organisational readiness, external pressure, internal expertise, support of possessor or manager, user participation, efficient and effective use of any external expertise. The barriers which were uncovered by the research IT management training, dependency on outside experts and size and scale of enterprise are all directly related to the other factors which influence ICT adoption. The level of significance of these barriers varies between the tourism sub-sectors surveyed. This study has added new knowledge in terms of the significance of a number of further barriers to ICT adoption. They include peripheral or rural location, security concerns, cost issues, lack of capital, and personal background of the owner manager.A closer analysis of findings has revealed that although technology is available, some of it is obsolete or not necessarily functional. Hotels possessed various nonc urrent versions of software packages which did not seem to serve them well. .The mode of Internet bookings is an important clincher of their success. A lot of Internet booking systems generates a booking in e-mail format rather than integrating into the hotels reservation system online. This obviously limits the public utility company of these systems.DISCUSSIONThe adoption of ICTs at Meikles Hotel is proving to be growing fast this was noted by the stakeholder preparedness to harness it. Meikles hotel being afive star hotel recognised internationally, this pushes them to move along with technological changes. Meikles hotel is interested in improving in their service provision through the use of e-commerce, and the results of this study show that this is being through with(p) at a fast pace. The top management at Meikles hotel are quite literate hence the adoption of ICT is faster compared to other hotels .The C.E.O is a holder of an honours degree in Computer science .Although th e use of ICTs has not yet revolutionalised Meikles Hotels service delivery it has changed how some services such as bookings are being done. Meikles hotel has a website developed and maintained by an inhouse programmer .Their website is user friendly and they have all the information that one needs about the hotel. Meikles hotel started offering wireless network services to guest in 2006.They use Fidelio management system which integrates all the information from the reservations, banqueting, finance departments and the restaurants. They use point of sale systems.CONCLUSIONIt can be noted that the adoption of ICTs at Meikles Hotel is proving to be growing fast and it has been done to a very large extent. Although the use of ICTs has not yet revolutionalised Meikles Hotels service delivery it has changed how some services such as bookings are being done.ReferencesBuhalis, D (1998), Strategic Use of Information Technologies in the Tourism Industry, Tourism Management, Vol.19, pp.409- 421.Connolly D. J and Olsen M. 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