Who Uses Mobile Apps Frequently on Vacation? Evidence from Tourism in Switzerland

Abstract

Mobile applications which are installed and executed on smartphones (so called "mobile apps") are currently an intensively debated topic in tourism. Mobile apps provide various potentials for applications in the industry as they enable tourism organizations to provide better services to their customers. Also, they allow tourists special travel experiences which significantly add value to their travel activities. Using a survey of 1562 tourists in Switzerland we analyse influences of five different person-related factors on tourist's propensity for frequent use of mobile apps on their vacation. Our results show that the general propensity to use internet on holidays corresponds with the propensity to use mobile apps on vacation. In contrast, age and a foreign origin of tourists are negatively related to the propensity to use mobile apps on vacation.

Attitudes, Preferences and Usage Behavior of the Population Regarding Social Media Pages of Hospitals - Results of a Quantitative Survey in the DACH Region (Germany, Austria, Switzerland)

“…Accordingly, only these developments enabled the broad participation of the general population in Internet communication. Moreover, the extent and intensity of this broad participation was again significantly increased when the advent of smartphones increasingly allowed the use of Internet technologies via "mobile apps" (mobile applications running on smartphones) at any place, at any time, and in virtually any situation (Aguenza et al 2012;Beier 2018;Beier and Aebli 2016;Syrek et al 2018). The more smartphones became part of everyday life in the population, the more comprehensive the presence and availability of social media platforms became for many people (Beier and Früh 2019b;Leimeister 2015).…”

Location-based services in tourism: An empirical analysis of factors influencing usage behaviour

“…To reveal the potential of LBS in this context, this contribution aims to answer the following key question: Which factors influence the tourists' usage behaviour of LBS and which possibilities can be derived for tourism providers and destinations? Previous research in this field has already examined LBS usage in the tourism destination Wörthersee (Frey et al 2015) and in Switzerland (Beier & Aebli, 2016). In order to study the LBS usage behaviour, a survey was conducted in the destination Greetsiel, located right at North Sea shore in Germany.…”

“…Further studies in this field have examined LBS usage behaviour of tourists in the destination Wörthersee in Austria (Frey et al 2015) and tourists' usage of mobile applications in Switzerland (Beier & Aebli, 2016). Some essential findings of the study by Beier & Aebly (2016) were as follows: Mobile applications are perceived as a kind of information technology by most tourists, which is why patterns of information technology usage are expected to also apply for mobile apps.…”

“…Gender, however, did not turn out to be Venkatesh et al 2012, 160) significantly influencing usage. They concluded their study by stating, that "future studies should analyse more detailed influences on the use of concrete kinds of mobile apps in tourism" (Beier & Aebli, 2016).…”

The strange case of dating apps at a gay resort: hyper-local and virtual-physical leisure

“…Recent years have witnessed an increase in academic attention given to dating apps and the uncertain intersection of online representations and lived realities; research has concerned variously impression formation, 'self-branding', sexual harassment, the changing organisation of urban space and qualitative interaction of motivations and experiences (Beier and Aebli, 2016;Birnholtz et al, 2014;Duguay, 2017;James, 2015;Newett et al, 2017;Shaw, 2016;Sumter et al, 2017). Dating apps have also been described as supplementary tools 'to access a wide variety of people to digitally match, and meet faceto-face' (Newett et al, 2017, p. 13).…”