Abstract

The potential of ICT to enable micro-entrepreneurship in peripheral and resource-scarce countries has been well documented in contexts, such as agribusiness, fisheries and manufacturing. There has been, however, a paucity of research in ICT’s potential to support tourism micro-entrepreneurship. While tourism has often been proposed as a mechanism for sustainability in developing countries, most host communities remain relegated to the role of passive “tourees” who fail to benefit from the economic capital often dominated by Western economies. Guided by design science theory, this work was informed by fieldwork conducted in South Africa in January and February 2011 which aimed at designing and testing an information technology artifact. Using action design research principles, we included the perspectives of individuals from rural communities and with high-level stakeholders in tourism planning and telecommunications corporations. Early findings suggest that mobile telephones and applications play a significant role in SME and potential entrepreneurship development and sustainability. The findings, herein, also guided the development of an information technology artifact, START-Net, to support community-based tourism entrepreneurship in rural South Africa.

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