The relationship between business characteristics and ICT deployment in the rural tourism sector. The case of Spain

The deployment of information and communication technologies (ICT) is crucial for the competitiveness of rural tourism businesses. It is therefore important to know the relation between a firm's characteristics and ICT deployment. This study makes two hierarchical segmentations to predict the behaviour of these firms when deploying the Web and e‐mail. This work determines which characteristics are related to ICT deployment. Activity and category are the two characteristics that most effectively predict a firm's behaviour, whereas location and size are less effective. These results have implications for entrepreneurial behaviour and for public agents working in rural tourism. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.