User Requirements and Technology Acceptance of a Tourism Information System: The Disability Case.

Tourism is an information-intensive industry that has been utilising electronic systems to distribute products and services and to disseminate information in order to accommodate travellers' needs and enable them to enjoy a comprehensive tourism experience. Travellers with disabilities, however, encounter low satisfaction levels with the relevant systems and this in turn affects their overall experience. While incorporating user requirements in system development has been elaborated in the literature and systems' acceptance has been studied systematically, the relationship between disabled user requirements and acceptance has not yet been sufficiently exploited. Hence, this study aims to investigate the success factors for accessible tourism systems, with the particular objectives of identifying requirements for accessible tourism systems and examining the link between disability and technology acceptance. By using a range of qualitative and quantitative methods it was demonstrated that requirements are highly individualised depending on type of impairment, extent of impairment, range of individual abilities and personal preferences. Results indicate that there are particular information and usability requirements that influence intention to use a system, disability moderates technology acceptance, and that since different impairments generate different requirements, the factors that predict behavioural intention to use a system vary according to impairment. This study contributes to the accessible tourism literature by identifying factors (key requirements) that would influence technology adoption and assesses how the presence of these requirements has an effect on the perceptions of technology outcomes. It also contributes to the technology acceptance literature by conceptualising disability as a moderating factor within a technology acceptance framework and produces seven different models for different types of impairment that better predict behavioural intention to use accessible tourism systems. This study also has implications for practitioners as findings can assist system designers to procure systems that are more successful and accepted. By acknowledging and incorporating user requirements in the design process, the technological outcomes will constitute a better system-user fit