Mobile applications in tourism: the future of the tourism industry?

The purpose of this paper is to extend the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology with psychological constructs, namely, perceived playfulness, mobile innovativeness in information technology and perceived expressiveness (PEX) to examine on the consumers’ intention to adopt mobile applications (m-apps) as another mean in purchasing tourism-related product and services via their mobile devices. The study also included gender as moderating variable.

Partial least square-structural equation modeling approach was adopted to test the research framework using 474 valid respondents.

The results demonstrated that only performance expectancy and PEX are non-significant with the intention to adopt. In addition, gender was found to have a moderating effect between social influence and intention.

The study has several useful implications for researchers, m-apps developers, travel-related organizations and even government agencies when rendering m-apps services and disseminating information to their potential consumers.

The study contributes to the growing literature on m-apps in tourism from a developing country’s perspectives.