Vijayan Subramaniam & Nafis Nirman
Abstract:
Tourism in Malaysia is a significant revenue-contributing component for the country, but the slow adaptation rate towards mobile commerce (m-commerce) in the tourism segment amongst Malaysians due to complexity and security issues may slow the growth of the industry. Following years of financial exploitation in Malaysia, fraud prevention and deterrence measures are now formalised under the Malaysian Financial Services Act 2013. This Act provides regulation and supervision of financial institutions, payment systems and other relevant entities that also affect various industries, especially the tourism industry in Malaysia. Although common interest in e-commerce is being revived in domestic and international online trading systems, with a focus on m-commerce and activities facilitated by new technologies such as “smartphone”, the related consumer safety and security issues are less pronounced. M-commerce is intended to serve a somewhat different requirement of protection but both are necessary in establishing and maintaining electronic transactions in enhancing the tourism industry of a country. The influence of knowledge and ideology on the basic theoretical framework of m-commerce is becoming more prominent, especially within the current m-commerce and Malaysian tourism-oriented society paradigm which users adapt to the m-commerce theory. This study takes a closer look at major issues that represent Malaysian user-related operating hindrances that might affect today’s utilisation of m-commerce. This study is supported by recent reports, surveys and scholarly papers retrieved from various genuine online databases.
Keywords: M-commerce, smartphones, security, issues, complexity, tourism.