In a Sydney casino, croupiers are being updated on the latest Australian gaming regulations through e-learning. In China, a leading US specialist has linked up with a local company to provide web-based training for the world's most heavily populated country.

Across the Asia-Pacific region, companies and organisations keen to save time and enhance productivity are turning to e-learning as they see how effective it is proving elsewhere.

The same is happening in Europe. In two examples quoted in a report by KPMG Consulting, British Airways has used e-learning to spread knowledge about its replacement booking system, while Nokia has developed a programme to train its global reseller community.

In view of its dominance of the global IT market, it is not surprising that the US leads the way. IDC, the IT market analysis group, expects North America to account for some two-thirds of worldwide revenues in the next few years.

But as others regions catch up, North America's share should ease to around half of the global total, says Cushing Anderson, an IDC analyst based in the US. "Western Europe has a lot going for it. There is a strong focus on strategic planning and they [companies in Europe] could be in the forefront of building systems to apply training and measure its impact."

The European Commission has also put its weight behind the development of e-learning across the educational and training spectrum, as have several governments. The main European converts to e-learning are the UK, Germany and the Nordic countries, but France, Spain and Italy are also showing increased interest.

"The UK is clearly driving the uptake of e-learning in Europe," says Patricia McLister, director of the software, telecom and e-business services division of Enterprise Ireland, the Irish government's trade and technology body.

"The European e-learning sector looks set to become a boom industry over the next few years," she adds. But Europe still has plenty of obstacles to overcome. Sheila McGovern, a UK-based analyst at IDC, says more content needs to be customised for individual companies and development costs remain high.

The economic slowdown and the September 11 attacks in the US have dampened the outlook, so that she now expects European growth rates to be much less than the 80 per cent levels forecast around a year ago.

Even so, she is forecasting that the market in Europe will grow by some 46 per cent this year and 57 per cent next year, with the rate of increase easing towards the middle of the decade. E-learning adoption is still patchy, she says. "There is not a full-scale take-up of e-learning."

This is even more true in Asia-Pacific countries, where levels of IT familiarity, costs of internet access, infrastructure and cultural attitudes vary widely. NETg, a leading US e-learning provider, has teamed up with Cyberwisdom.net of China to supply learning content for the Chinese market, still largely untapped but with tremendous potential.

Nige Howarth, NETg's international marketing vice-president, is excited by the Korean market, where broadband internet access is high. He also sees strong prospects in Japan, though these are currently clouded by its economic woes.

Increasingly employers are switching to e-learning simply to meet compulsory training requirements. PA Consulting says the UK gaming sector could, like the Sydney casino, use e-learning as enforcement of regulatory standards is toughened. Other industries around the world are coming under similar pressures.

As e-learning becomes more widely accepted and easier to implement, differences between regional markets will be eroded swiftly. By 2005, says Gartner, the IT market analysis group, e-learning will be the most used corporate application on the web.

"Further, the web will become the life-long learning platform for much of the world." When that happens, e-learning will really come into its own - spanning corporate, technological and geographical barriers and shrinking the world of education and training.