Tourists’ Attitudes toward Proactive Smartphone Systems

Abstract

In order to ensure the effectiveness of context-based proactive recommendations in influencing tourist behavior, it is important to understand the factors that drive tourists’ inclination to adopt push recommendations from mobile devices. A projective method was applied to tap into tourists’ opinions and feelings about their smartphones as intelligent agents, and how these influence their attitudes toward push recommendations they receive while experiencing tourist destinations. While smartphones have a mediating role in the tourism experience, a paradox exists in which tourists recognize an enhancement in certain aspects of a travel experience and a reduction in others. Confidence toward proactive recommendations is largely rooted in perceived proactiveness, autonomy, social ability and intelligence of smartphones, while perceived reactivity and control lead tourists to fear that they will lose control over their tourism experiences. Several managerial implications are provided.