Elsevier

Annals of Tourism Research

Volume 48, September 2014, Pages 11-26
Annals of Tourism Research

Adapting to the mobile world: A model of smartphone use

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2014.04.008Get rights and content

Highlights

  • The factors driving the use of smartphones have different effects.

  • The use of smartphones for travel is associated with tourists’ everyday lives.

  • The use of smartphones for travel transforms the tourist experience.

  • The study enriches the discussion regarding the dichotomy of tourism and daily life.

  • The proposed model can inform future studies on the en-route decision making process.

Abstract

Mobile systems have become important tools enabling tourists to navigate an uncertain world. A critical examination of the literature suggests that work is needed to develop a holistic understanding on the smartphone use for travel. The results of this study confirms that the use of smartphones for travel is shaped by complex interactions between contextual factors, cognitive beliefs, previous experiences and everyday use, and that smartphone use has the potential to substantially transform the tourist experience. A framework is proposed that integrates the mechanisms shaping the adoption, use and impact of smartphones in travel. This framework provides a broad foundation for understanding how mobile systems shape tourist experience while providing directions for future research in the area of mobile computing.

Introduction

Mobile phones have evolved into “smartphones” that are fully functional computers. With powerful and efficient processors, modern operating systems, broadband Internet access, and user-friendly interfaces as well as productivity enhancing apps, the smartphone offers a wide range of possibilities supporting travelers (Gretzel, 2010, Wang et al., 2012). In recent years, the adoption of smartphones has significantly accelerated since the launch of iPhone (and the apps available through iTunes) and an army of mobile phones based on the Android system. Smartphone subscribers in the United States, for example, have increased from around forty percent of the US population in February 2012 to sixty-five percent in December 2013 (comScore, 2012a, comScore, 2013).

Studies of smartphone use for travel have tended to focus narrowly on particular aspects such as the development of mobile phone applications (e.g. Rasinger et al., 2009, Ricci, 2010), the adoption of smartphones as a general information communication tool (e.g. Eriksson and Strandvik, 2009, Kim et al., 2008) or the impact of smartphone usage on certain aspects of the touristic experience (e.g. Kramer et al., 2007, Tussyadiah and Zach, 2012). This research indicates that the smartphone supports tourists’ needs for mobility and information/communication on-the-go and, in turn, transforms the meaning of travel (Jansson, 2007, Wang et al., 2012). More recently, a few studies have taken a broader perspective and found that information technology has become woven into the fabric of our everyday life including travel (MacKay & Vogt, 2012). Following from these studies, it is posited in this paper that our understanding of the use of smartphones in travel lies not only in the adoption by the traveler, but also in a more holistic view whereby the smartphone is naturally embedded in everyday life, and the antecedents of adoption and uses of smartphones are linked to the tourist experience. Thus, the overall goal of this study is to develop a general framework which integrates the mechanisms shaping the adoption, use and impact of smartphones in travel.

Section snippets

The use of smartphones in travel

Early conceptions of the tourist experience identified travel as an activity-based process in which tourists plan, travel, and document (Craig-Smith & French, 1994). This is a structural view of the tourist experience wherein travel is a process including pre-trip, during-trip and post-trip stages. Scholars also defined the tourist experience by identifying the tourist’s activities and behaviors. For example, Cohen (1972) and MacCannell (1973) described the dichotomy of everyday activities and

Methods

This study specifically seeks to explore the mechanisms shaping the adoption, use and impact of smartphones in travel based upon the assumption that the pluralization of tourists and multiplicity of the tourist experience resulting from smartphone use is subjectively constructed and, therefore, multiple realities coexist (Uriely, 2005). Thus, this study was designed using a qualitative research paradigm which enables us to develop rich descriptions of how people actually use their smartphones

Findings

This section presents the results organized around the three research questions. Specifically, the use of smartphones in the context of travel is first described; then, five factors are presented as the forces driving the use of smartphones for travel; finally, various roles of smartphone use in shaping the two dimensions of tourist experience (i.e., activities and sensations) are described.

Discussion

The results of this study provide the basis for a conceptual framework that describes smartphone use in travel. As illustrated in Fig. 2, smartphone use in travel is a complex mix of a variety of functions and information services for communication, entertainment, facilitation, and information search. It is shaped by a set of direct and indirect relationships. Specifically, five factors are identified as driving the use of the smartphone in the context of travel including extrinsic and

Conclusions

The smartphone enriches the culture of communication initiated by mobile phones (Katz & Aakhus, 2002) and enhances the penetration of the Internet within people’s lives (Oulasvirta, Rattenbury, Ma, & Raita, 2012). With recognition of the role of mobile technology in our lives, this study explored the embeddedness of the smartphone in the tourist experience by considering the antecedents, process, and outcomes of smartphone use. The findings of this study suggest that smartphone use in travel is

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