Impacts of Company Factors on Digital Business Model Maturity for Yachting Tourism Agencies

Abstract

Digital business models are reshaping tourism landscape, causing disruptive shifts within its entire ecosystem – including in the provision of services, employment modalities, value networks and more. In the light of such developments, there is a growing body of scholarly literature studying various aspects of digital business models in tourism. Yet, papers dealing with tourism’s digital business models maturity and factors influencing it are still scarce. The objective of this study is to address the identified research gap and contribute to the growing literature base by empirically testing the relationship between digital business models maturity and factors such as company location, size, age and business model history. Methodologically, the paper is based on an extensive empirical research constructed upon a valid framework and administered internationally through a structured online questionnaire. The final sample included 162 companies active in yachting tourism sector, headquartered in 42 countries and 5 continents, thus reflecting the study’s global scope. The findings imply that there is a statistically significant impact of company’s size on its digital business model maturity, while there is no significant impact when it comes to company’s age and business model history. Finally, the effects of the company location are specific – although there is no general statistical correlation between location and digital business model maturity, other layers of analysis do indicate the companies with highly mature digital business models do tend to originate from highly developed countries.