A Conceptual Framework for Intention to Use Travel Apps: A Study From Emerging Markets

A Conceptual Framework for Intention to Use Travel Apps: A Study From Emerging Markets

Malik Khlaif Gharaibeh, Natheer Khlaif Gharaibeh
DOI: 10.4018/IJSSMET.290333
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Abstract

This exploratory study aims to investigate the intention to use mobile travel applications in Jordan. 7 predictors in this study have been carefully selected from previous studies conducted to date in the tourism context, and more specifically in the context of mobile travel applications. The SmartPLS version 3.0 was used to assess 14 hypotheses using 500 surveys. Results show a positive relationship of intention to use mobile travel applications from 6 constructs including aesthetics, trust, facilitating conditions, financial benefits, perceived usefulness, and perceived enjoyment. In contrast, word of mouth has no effect on the intention to use. This research provides some valuable implications for both apps developers and travel-related companies. Besides, Government agencies can benefit from the results of this study when providing mobile application services and distributing information to customers. The results also contribute to understanding the emerging market of mobile travel applications, further the proposed framework can be utilized in future studies as a baseline model
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Introduction

Due to advances in the development of communications technology, the rate of individuals that are using smartphones and mobile, as well as using such applications for shopping have been accelerated (Galli, 2018; Smith, 2018; Young, 2018). The smartphone is considered a disruptive innovation that changed the way of communication and makes it easier. As a technological innovation, smartphones are considered as a tipping point in e-commerce (Katta, Patro, & Prasad, 2018; Kenneth, 2019). In general, it provides new and improved ways of sending and receiving text messages, taking photographs, and internet access. Several advantages make them popular rather than other information and communication technologies, such as their affordable prices, powerful computing capabilities, and portability (Bringula, Moraga, Catacutan, Jamis, & Mangao, 2018). The request on smartphones consistently expanded as revealed that around 5.1 billion users already had smartphones by 2018 end and is predictable that the number of users by 2025 will be 5.9 billion (GSMA, 2019). For example, the vast majority of people in the USA own such devices (Pew Research Center, 2018).

Based on the last statistics, 90 percent of Jordanian families own a smartphone, statistics also showed that 89 percent have an Internet subscription (The Jordan Times, 2018). In fact, Jordan has enhanced its 4G coverage and its improvement is directed towards mobile terminals. It also has got high in both mobile broadband and smartphone penetration rate (GCI, 2018). These previous statistics confirm the availability of the environment and resources in Jordan for shopping via smartphones. It means that the growing acceptance of smartphones is an opportunity for more possibilities for online shopping (N. K. Gharaibeh, Gharaibeh, Gharaibeh, & Bdour, 2020; Musa et al., 2016). This research is concerned with this new way of how consumers can shop and buy through mobile devices, in other words, Smartphones are the most popular device for mobile shopping (Halaweh, 2018).

It is observed that the emergence of mobile shopping applications in electronic commerce as a good option for customers, retailers can boost their experiences in shopping by supporting omnichannel integration besides more targeted offerings (Chopdar & Sivakumar, 2019; Gunawardana, 2020). This leads to mobile commerce as “an extension of e-commerce where business activities are performed in a wireless environment using mobile devices” (Zhang, Zhu, & Liu, 2012). Noticeably using smartphones among youth is vastly affected by their desire to interact and the effect of the modern community (Arif, Aslam, & Ali, 2016).

This paper is organized as follows, the next section describes the problem statement, after that theory and research model development is shown, which is the largest part of this study, it introduces the five characteristics of Innovation Diffusion Theory, the incorporated two new factors proposed by the authors, which is appeared in the research model, after that data collection and results from the discussion is explained, and finally come to the contribution, conclusion, limitations and future research.

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