Tourists' Mobile Information Seeking Behavior

Abstract

The Internet is considered to be one of the most effective search channels for people to get a variety of information. This is especially true, for young tourists within the 18-30 year range, who prefer free independent travel tours. Many tend to have strong information needs about their travel destinations and the use of mobile technology for information search is rapidly becoming a popular trend, especially with this demographic. This study aims to investigate the associations between the mobile device usage preference and information search behavior of young travelers, between the ages of 18 and 30, in the People's Republic of China (PRC). For this purpose, a sample of 133 respondents is used. Results of the survey are provided and followed by a discussion of the overall context. Study limitations and directions for future development are suggested.

Information search behavior among Chinese self-drive tourists in the smartphone era

“…In total 60.53% of respondents regarded routes and maps as crucial information, which is consistent with the research of Clift and Forrest (1999), Kim et al (2003); Kozak (2002); and Zhang and Lam (1999). Selfdrive tourists also expressed concerns about weather and road conditions, similar to other types of tourists (Luo et al, 2004;Gong et al, 2017). Some studies have investigated tourist information sources preferences, especially the selection of offline versus online sources (Buhalis, 1998;Fodness and Murray, 1999;Bieger and Laesser, 2004;Luo et al, 2004;Meng et al, 2015;Choe et al, 2017).…”

“…In total 60.53% of respondents regarded routes and maps as crucial information, which is consistent with the research of Clift and Forrest (1999), Kim et al (2003); Kozak (2002); and Zhang and Lam (1999). Self-drive tourists also expressed concerns about weather and road conditions, similar to other types of tourists (Luo et al , 2004; Gong et al , 2017).…”

“…For the quantitative method, we designed an online survey (Appendix) to explore participants’ information search behavior, potential external environmental influences and individual differences. The survey questions were adapted from prior studies (Gong et al , 2017; Eby et al , 1999; Prideaux and Carson, 2010) and required approximately 10 min to complete. The survey was divided into the following three parts: demographic information; behaviors on searching information for self-drive tours; and attitudes towards information sources. …”

“…Although many studies have investigated tourism-related information behavior, the majority was based on tourists in general, which included group tourists and tourists taking public transport (Bonn et al , 1999; Luo et al , 2004). Scant studies focused on specific self-drive tourists having ubiquitous mobile internet connections for information access (Gong et al , 2017; Fan et al , 2020).…”

The impact of the uses and gratifications of tourist attraction fan page

“…One important feature of SNS is the “Fan Page,” i.e., a SNS webpage developed by a firm for interacting with its consumers and promoting the brands (Dholakia et al , 2004), recruiting “fans,” and feeding information related to their brand to “fans” (Jahn and Kunz, 2012). Recently, researchers are interested in gaining a better understanding of how tourists use the social media to share their travel experience (Bilgihan et al , 2016; Gong et al , 2017) through user-generated reviews (Baka, 2016), and how the social media provides a platform for tourists to search trip planning information (Xiang and Gretzel, 2010), as well as the ease of searching for and dissemination of information to the tourists (Chung and Koo, 2015), and incorporating Big Data analytics in smart tourism (Sun et al , 2016).…”