Digital Disparity Management and Use of Technology to Improve Rural Areas Through Tourism: Study in Himachal Pradesh, India ; Gestión de la Disparidad Digital y Uso de la Tecnología para Mejorar las Zonas Rurales a Través del Turismo: Estudio en Himachal Pradesh, India ; Gerenciamento da Disparidade Digital e Uso da Tecnologia para Melhorar as Áreas Rurais Através do Turismo: Estudo em Himachal Pradesh, Índia

The measurement of effectiveness from ICT adoption among the rural community is taken as an emerging area of study due to the problem of digital divide and digital disparity. The results provide a deep understanding from the preliminary study measuring the differences arising among the different age and education groups in the study area with data collected from 200 rural individuals’ directly or indirectly engaged with rural tourism. The survey method was adopted to focus on the key objectives of the study. Factor analysis as a statistical technique allowed in reducing the factors to different dimensions. ANOVA showed significant differences of mean scores among the different age categories for the first dimension and the second dimension i.e. importance of ICT and usage of ICT respectively. Similarly, significant differences in the mean scores have been obtained applying ANOVA to earlier mentioned categories. The results clearly indicate the more usage of ICT devices by the young youth of the area with the professional degrees and vocational degrees providing theoretical and managerial implications in creating specific ICT enabled rural tourism enterprise’s to be run and operated by the ICT knowledgeable youth. ; La medición de la eficacia de la adopción de las TIC entre la comunidad rural se considera un área de estudio emergente debido al problema de la brecha digital y la disparidad digital. Los resultados proporcionan una comprensión profunda a partir del estudio preliminar que mide las diferencias que surgen entre los diferentes grupos de edad y educación en el área de estudio con los datos recogidos de 200 individuos rurales que se dedican directa o indirectamente al turismo rural. Se adoptó el método de la encuesta para centrarse en los objetivos clave del estudio. El análisis factorial, como técnica estadística, permitió reducir los factores a diferentes dimensiones. El ANOVA mostró diferencias significativas en las puntuaciones medias entre las distintas categorías de edad para la primera y la segunda ...