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IADIS International Conference WWW/Internet 2010THE INTENDED USE OF MOBILE TOURISM SERVICESNiklas Eriksson* and Peter Strandvik***Arcada University of Applied Sciences, Jan-Magnus Janssonin aukio 1, 00550 Helsinki Finland**Åbo Akademi University, Institute for Advanced Management Systems Research, Jouhkahainenkatu 3-5A Turku,FinlandABSTRACTThis paper presents results from a study of the intended use of mobile tourism services. The theoretical foundation wasdrawn from the unified theory for the acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) and from relevant research theories foradoption of electronic and mobile services. The data was collected through a self-administered questionnaire which washanded out to 103 university students. The findings suggest that value expectancy has the most significant direct impacton the intended use of mobile tourism services. Moreover, attitudes towards mobile technology and social influence havea significant direct impact on the intended use of mobile tourism services.KEYWORDSMobile services, tourism, technology adoption.1. INTRODUCTIONThe use of the Internet for doing commerce or interacting with customers has been growing rapidly in theworld wide tourism industry. Mobile commerce, or e-commerce over mobile devices, on the other hand hashad many conflicting predictions on its future popularity. Most predictions have been overly optimistic.However, the benefits that arise from mobile technology have not yet been fully delivered, which to someextent is explained by the fact that mobile applications, due to complexity or lack of relevance, fail to meetcustomers’ expectations (Carlsson et al. 2006). Travel and tourism is an industry in which several differentprojects have been conducted where mobile applications have been developed, tested and implemented, someeven with moderate success (e.g. Schmidt-Belz et al 2003, Repo et al 2006, Riebeck et al. 2009). Moreover,there are a few different studies (e.g. Höpken et al 2007, Riebeck et al 2009, Katsura & Sheldon 2009) madeon consumer adoption of mobile tourism services. Nevertheless, more is needed in order to fully understandthe adoption issues of mobile services in different contexts.The New Interactive Media (NIM) project, with funding from the European Union and the regionalgovernment of the Åland islands, was a development programme of increasing knowledge, production anduse of new interactive media on the Åland Islands 1 in Finland during the years 2006 – 2008. Within theproject several mobile applications were developed for the travel and tourism sector on the islands. Two ofthem, MobiPortal and MobiTour, will in this study be used as example services to investigate determinantswith direct effect the intended use of mobile tourism services.2. MOBILE TOURISM SERVICESThe services in the NIM project were planned with a common logic namely the Braudel rule: freedombecomes value by expanding the limits of the possible in the structures of everyday life (as presented byKeen & Mackintosh 2001). The rule was then translated into a tourism setting which means that tourists’ real1 Åland is an autonomous and unilingual Swedish region in Finland with its own flag and approximately 26.700 inhabitants. Åland issituated between Finland and Sweden and consists of 6 500 islands. (www.visitaland.com)11