Use Intentions of Mobile Tour Apps through Expansion of the Technology Acceptance Model

Purpose – Following the speedy development of the smart phone industry, tourism companies started to increase their brand recognition and sales volume by adopting mobile applications. However, applications for tourism industries are still insignificant. This study tries to analyze empirical evidence from Korean and Chinese consumers who have used mobile tour applications. By using an expansion of the technology acceptance model (TAM), this study will find what factors have effects on user intention for mobile tour applications. The findings will be helpful for the development of mobile tour applications and the tourism industries. Research design, data, and methodology – This study uses the TAM, which was presented by Davis in 1989. This study uses consumer acceptance level, consumer choice attitude, and use intention as the basic variables to fit to the TAM, and adopts choice content quality, brand value, and usage motivation as additional variables to analyze. This study has developed several hypotheses and collected data from 620 users who used mobile applications for tourism during April 1 to April 30, 2015. A total of 612 valid questionnaires were collected and used in the data analysis. The data was analyzed with structural equation modeling using SPSS Win/pc and Amos 22.0. Results – The findings can be summarized as follows: First, the content quality affects the consumer acceptance degree and choice attitude. Second, the brand value has a directly positive effect on the consumer acceptance degree and choice attitude. It is clear that the content quality and brand value play im- portant roles in raising consumer acceptance and choice attitude. Third, usage motivation has no effect on the consumer acceptance degree and choice attitude. Fourth, the acceptance degree does not have any effect on the consumer choice attitude. Fifth, the acceptance degree affects the use intention. Last, the consumer choice attitude affects the use intentions. T