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Blockchain technology can revolutionize the tourism sector by providing innovative solutions. One of the most important requirements for adopting any technology is to identify the barriers to its adoption, however, blockchain is a platform that is still not widely understood and accepted. The purpose of this study is to identify and analyze the barriers to blockchain adoption in the tourism industry. For the effective use of blockchain, adoption barriers must be carefully identified and analyzed to minimize their negative effects. The statistical population of this research includes twenty-two blockchain experts in the tourism industry, and the data collection tool is a questionnaire. Eleven barriers were selected from the articles and the Micmac method was used to categorize variables based on driving force and dependence. The results show that "lack of knowledge, expertise and human capital", "lack of standardization" and "lack of government regulations" as driving variables are the most important barriers to the adoption of blockchain in the tourism industry, focusing on them has effective applications in the future of blockchain in tourism. The first basic result of this study is to examine the obstacles through causality, which facilitates the decision-making process for policymakers and policy planners involved in this process. The results of the present study help organizations prioritize their efforts and actions to manage time and resources. In addition, the intensity of the examined relationships between barriers can improve the views and perceptions of the tourism industry and academic experts to analyze the relationships. 1. Introduction One of the fundamental innovations in decentralized information technology is blockchain technology (Abeyratne & monfared, 2016), which, thanks to its unique features, can revolutionize sustainable tourism. Despite these potential benefits, the adoption rate of this technology has not been high (Kouhizadeh et al., 2021). One of the most important requirements for the application of any technology is to identify the barriers and challenges of its adoption. The main goal of this research is to identify, analyze and investigate the relationships between the barriers to blockchain adoption in Iran's tourism industry. To effectively use blockchain as a transformative technology in the tourism sector, its challenges and barriers must be carefully identified and analyzed so that their negative effects are minimized and the adoption rate of blockchain is maximized. Currently, the people of the world are interested in using blockchain applications, especially digital currencies, to pay for travel and book hotels in their travels, which will be a good opportunity to attract international tourists to Iran. Despite the pervasiveness of blockchain in most industries and the prominence of the potential benefits of blockchain cards in tourism, studies have been conducted on the application and benefits of blockchain technology in the management and development of tourism, but there have not been enough empirical studies on its acceptance in the field of tourism. The following questions have been answered in this research: Question 1: What are the barriers to blockchain adoption in Iran's tourism industry? Question 2: What are the most important barriers to the adoption of blockchain in Iran's tourism industry and how are the barriers related? 2. Literature Review Blockchain is a distributed digital ledger that is stored on multiple computers in a private or public network (Carson et al., 2018). The main operating principles of blockchain are decentralization, transparency, equality, traceability and accountability (Al-Saqaf & Seidler, 2017). Blockchain has many specific advantages (Ozdemir et al., 2019): (1) creates reliable digital records, (2) provides increased efficiency in the transaction process, (3) prevents duplicate or fake transactions, (4) It provides strong scalability and interoperability between the smart and physical worlds, (5) it can also enforce business rules, such as transactions that only proceed where less than two parties confirm them or where another transaction is done first. Rana et al. (2022) state the benefits of using blockchain in tourism as "consumer attitude", "data therapy", "tourism activity planning", "smart contracts and digital currencies" and "decentralization and traceability". Tyan et al. (2021) consider the potential of blockchain technology in the development of sustainable tourism through the following benefits: "mediating tourism operations and strengthening the local economy and culture," "food supply chain management and reducing food waste," "customization of services and tourist satisfaction", "Increasing awareness", "Sustainable behavior of tourists", "Trusted rating and review systems". Willie (2019), Treiblmaier (2019), Kizildag et al. (2020), Yadav et al. (2021), Irannejad and Mahadvan (2021), and Nam et al. (2021) argued that blockchain may be used in various operations of the tourism industry. Such as "inventory management", "maintenance and tracking", "content, reservation and ticketing", "payments and tax compliance", "loyalty programs", "tokenization", "identity and credit management", "baggage tracking", " Smart Contract", "Cooperation and Partnership", "Food Authenticity", "Supply Chain Traceability", "Waste Management" and "Mediation" are used. Blockchain can contribute to the development of sustainable tourism by strengthening the local economy, regulating the food supply chain and minimizing food waste, achieving tourist satisfaction, influencing sustainable tourist behavior and addressing it (Tyan et al.,2021). According to Rashideh (2020), the full implementation and expansion of blockchain technology in the tourism sector may require creating a central agency to develop a stable network of stakeholders, maintain it over time and avoid potential illegal activities. A collaborative approach of all players in the tourism industry, including policymakers, service providers, marketers and tourists, is the solution to overcome blockchain adoption issues. Melkić S & Čavlek (2020) believe while there is a lack of full understanding of blockchain technology and a lack of awareness among stakeholders in the tourism industry, it will hardly achieve its potential to transform the sector. Erceg et al. (2020) observed that the barriers to the adoption of blockchain are mainly related to the lack of relevant policies in countries, to the low awareness of actors in the tourism and environmental sectors, who were not ready to adopt a blockchain-based system. Similarly, Rana et al. (2021) argue that without preparing the ecosystem for blockchain adoption, this process is unlikely to be successful in many countries. Similarly, Filimonau and Naumova (2020) highlighted the problem of low awareness and confusion in the hospitality community regarding blockchain technology and its potential for further development. This applies to the business sector as well as to policymakers, and the authors see education as a unique solution to promote forward thinking and achieve growth in the hospitality industry without sacrificing socioeconomic and environmental externalities. Kwok & Koh (2019), in research, concluded that "market maturity", "political issues", "lack of regulations" and "energy consumption" are the most important challenges of blockchain adoption in the tourism industry. 3. Methodology The main goal of this research is to identify and analyze the relationship between the barriers to blockchain adoption in the tourism industry. This research is considered to be in the field of applied research in terms of purpose and descriptive survey in terms of data collection. To carry out this research, a questionnaire tool was used to collect data, a one-sample t-test was used to select the final barriers, and the Micmac method was used to analyze the relationship between the barriers. The statistical population of this research consists of twenty-two university professors and experts in the tourism industry and blockchain technology, as well as managers of hotels and tourism agencies in Tehran. In this research, the purposeful sampling method and data collection were used in two stages. First, the barriers to acceptance were determined by reviewing the research literature and asking for experts' opinions, then to determine the relationship between the barriers, the final barriers were provided to the experts by using a questionnaire to analyze the relationships with the Mi'kmaq method. Micmac is a structured approach to categorize variables based on their driving force and dependence. Dependence on driving force classifies variables into four categories: autonomous, dependent, linked, and independent (Mangla et al., 2013). 4. Results Twenty-two barriers identified from the listed articles were selected with the opinion of experts and were given to the experts in the questionnaire "Importance of barriers to acceptance" to express the importance of each of the barriers to acceptance on a Likert scale (1-5). To select the final barriers, the results of the questionnaires were subjected to the one-sample t-test in the Likert scale in SPSS software. Eleven barriers to blockchain adoption were finalized as follows: Immaturity of technology Challenges of cooperation, communication and coordination Lack of knowledge, expertise and human capital Lack of commitment and management support Security and privacy concerns Lack of standardization Lack of government regulations Lack of employee training and lack of customer awareness Cultural differences between supply chain partners Resistance to change and non-acceptance by companies High cost of implementation In Micmac software, the variables were classified into 4 parts, and the placement of each variable in each of the areas indicates the type of variable: Autonomous variables that have weak driving power and weak dependence. These variables are the least important in a system. "High implementation cost" and "cultural differences among supply chain partners" are identified as independent variables. Dependent variables that have weak driving power but have high dependence. "Technology immaturity", "Challenges of cooperation, communication and coordination", "Cultural differences among supply chain partners", "Lack of management commitment and support", "Security and privacy concerns" and "Resistance to change and non-acceptance by Firms are known as dependent variables. Link variables that have strong driving power as well as strong dependence. They have the most influence or dependence on other variables and have the most influence on other variables. The speed of influence and effectiveness of these variables makes them have a high ability to disturb the instability of the system. "Lack of employee training and lack of customer awareness" is known as the link variable. Independent variables that have strong driving power but weak dependence. "Lack of knowledge, expertise and human capital", "Lack of standardization" and "Lack of government regulations" are known as independent variables. 5. Conclusion The use of blockchain technologies in tourism can potentially reduce the overall cost structure and benefit tourists and various service providers in this sector. Reducing costs will boost this sector and enable price-sensitive people to travel. In addition, reducing manual processing and paper transactions will also be beneficial. Blockchain can enhance the overall user experience in the tourism sector by increasing transparency and access to up-to-date information, reducing costs and minimizing the number of transactions and the need for intermediaries. By providing a list of barriers to blockchain adoption in the tourism industry, this study helps companies and managers to focus on prioritizing the removal of barriers in their organization, because removing these barriers can boost their business. Given the barriers to blockchain adoption in the tourism industry, tourism industry stakeholders may not be eager to invest heavily in blockchain until these barriers are met to some extent. The present study provides an in-depth knowledge and understanding of the barriers influencing blockchain adoption in the tourism industry. This knowledge will be invaluable to companies and managers as it helps them prioritize barriers and focus specifically on impact barriers that can be addressed. The findings of the study showed that the criteria of "lack of knowledge, expertise and human capital", "lack of standardization" and "lack of government regulations" have the least dependence and the most influence and are known as independent or driving variables. Stimulating barriers can easily influence other barriers. Therefore, addressing these barriers should be prioritized. The first major result of this exploratory study is that barriers were examined through causality and salience. In addition, the intensity of the examined relationships between barriers can improve the views and perceptions of industry and academic experts to analyze the relationships. Also, the classification of barriers provides a better understanding of the characteristics of "influence and influence" or "influence and dependence" of the barriers to adoption when developing and implementing blockchain technology. |
