Sustainable Tourism Platform for Developing Countries: Challenges, Enablers and Requirements

Tourism is an information-centric sector; thus, ICT tools are widely used in tourism. There is an immense importance of sustainable tourism and the use of digital platforms for sustainability in developing countries. However, there is a lack of knowledge regarding challenging and enabling factors and requirements for implementing digital tourism platforms to promote sustainability. This research aims to identify and validate the challenges and enablers impacting the use of platforms for tourism sustainability and create actionable requirements for practice in developing countries. The research uses the TOE model and adopts rigorous qualitative thematic analysis, engaging 35 expert tourism stakeholders through interviews and focus groups to formulate the requirements and propose a conceptual model. The findings contribute to ICT for sustainable tourism discourse, provide a blueprint to develop digital tourism platform with sustainability, aid stakeholders in making informed decisions, and create affordable and integrated systems that acknowledge the challenges and enablers.