Influencing factors in adopting mobile electronic tourist guides

Mobile devices stand the first place of market growth. Mobile phones have revolutionized the access to the Internet and our communication rapidly. Given the increasing growth of the mobile phone usage in the world and growth of tourism industry, mobile devices can be a decent replacement or at least tag along of old tourist tools such as maps, compass, brochures and guide books and instead pack them all in one. In addition, the growing numbers of tablet users who use tourism application is remarkable. Mobile devices, especially the location based services are one of the popular applications for the tourism industry. The industry can easily use the technology to create innovative, interesting and useful applications. When people are travelling mobile devices are useful companions to support, keep connected, inform and entertain. The purpose of this research is to explore tourists’ acceptance of innovative information technologies by examining the factors influencing the intention to use mobile electronic tourist guides (METG). In order to do so this paper developed and tested a model for examining tourists ‘acceptance of METG based upon Davis’ technology acceptance model (TAM).The findings of this paper can be used to inform local and national strategies aimed at developing Malaysia’s (and other countries’) credentials as 21st century tourist destination. The result of this study contribute to enhance our understanding of how tourists perceive using mobile technologies in the context of the travelling experience