ICT DIFFUSION AND THE DIGITAL DIVIDE IN TOURISM: KAZAKHSTAN PERSPECTIVE - Tourism in Central Asia: Cultural Potential and Challenges - page 291

There has been little research on the impact of ICT on the tourism in-
dustry outside European and North American settings. Some research has
been done on the ICT impact on the travel agent sector in Singapore (Tse,
2003) and in New Zealand (Garkavenko, 2008a, 2008b). In our previous
research (Garkavenko et al., 2010; Rybina, and Garkavenko, 2009; Gar-
kavenko et al., 2009a; Garkavenko et al., 2009b; Garkavenko et al., 2010)
a clear digital disparity was established between the global travel industry
and Kazakhstan's tourism industry. The need for countries to measure and
bridge domestic and international digital divides is a general consensus in
academic circles (Minghetti and Buhalis, 2010). However, there is very
little research focusing on the reduction of the digital gap between tour-
ism markets and destinations within and between countries. Studies on the
digital divide in tourism appear particularly relevant in countries where
tourism is considered to be very important for socioeconomic develop-
ment. The Kazakhstan travel industry is emerging. At this stage there is a
lack of academic research into the industry in general and specifically on
any ICT impact or its integration into the global travel industry system.
The study aims to analyze ICT adoption by the Kazakhstan tourism indus-
try and the digital divide in the industry and its implementation for global
tourism industry integration.
Business and academic literature on Kazakhstan Internet and ICT
adoption, literature on Kazakhstan tourism industry as well as official sta-
tistics were used as sources of the secondary data. The researchers also
summarized their primary data on the Kazakhstan's tourism industry (Gar-
kavenko et al., 2009a,b, 2010a,b; Garkavenko and Tiberghien, 2011a,b;
2012; Rybina and Garkavenko, 2009; Tiberghien and Garkavenko, 2011).
A series of research projects supported by KIMEP University (Almaty,
Kazakhstan) have been conducted on different aspects of the Kazakhstan's
tourism industry—its structure, ICT adoption by different tourism indus-
try sectors, consumer adoption of ICT and readiness to go on-line for tick-
eting and bookings.
METHODOLOGY
The presented exploratory study adopts qualitative methods. The goal of
qualitative research is to locate the understanding of a phenomenon within