Inter-Organisational E-Learning Concepts: Success Factors For Marketing Thomas Bieger a , Christian Laesser a Andreas Liebrich a a Institute for Public Services and Tourism University of St. Gallen, Switzerland {thomas.bieger, christian.laesser, andreas.liebrich}@unisg.ch Abstract In traditional tourism countries, SME (small and medium enterprise) hotel structures still dominate. Previous research has shown the structural problems that this type of company have in terms of a reduced ability to learn and improve competence. E-learning offers new potential to provide knowledge to SMEs. This paper contributes to the understanding of the use of inter- organisational e-learning that has been developed and run by hotel industry associations and the hospitality industry in collaboration. The paper builds on research on the success factors for internal company e-learning concepts and on inter-organisational learning. Empirically, it draws on a case study that covers the marketing and the use of the SMART-up platform, an inter-organisational e-learning platform subsidised by the EU, which was designed to improve the competence of SMEs in the hotel and restaurant industry. Results show that high learner involvement in development and in marketing activities is a major motivational factor that encourages the use of an e-learning platform. Keywords: web-based training; e-learning; hotel industry; industry association; SMART-up. 1 Introduction The hospitality industry in traditional tourism countries like Switzerland and Austria has grown generically. Many SMEs were founded in the last century. As is the case with other SMEs, independent hotels find it difficult to acquire the knowledge and competence necessary for innovation. (For general innovation problems of SMEs, see Boutellier, 1999; see Bernet and Bieger, 1999:31f. for the tourism industry; for the need for knowledge development in tourism SMEs see Keller, 1999:50; Baruchelli et al., 2002). Previous research has shown that this type of company has limited cooperation with consultancies and little utilisation of these learning concepts (Bieger, 1999). The hotel industry is going through a transformation. At the beginning of the 1990s, 90 percent of all hotels were independent. Recent statistics indicate that in Germany this percentage has declined to 60 percent (www.dehoga.de [September 1, 2003]).