ICTS AND MOBILE APPLICATIONS FOR PROMOTING TOURISM DESTINATIONS: THE CASE OF SMART MARCA APP

Purpose – In last decades, digital technologies have progressively transformed tourism becoming an opportunity to satisfy the demand for cultural tourism, increasingly asking for immersive and interactive experiences. This paper investigates the connections among tourism, cultural heritage, and ICT, by providing an assessment of how these applications can influence customers’ intentions to visit a destination. To this aim, the case of Smart Marca - a mobile tourism app aimed at promoting cultural tourism in Fermo area (Marche Region, Italy)- is presented. Methodology – The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) has been adopted as a framework to explore customer intentions to adopt tourism apps and visit a destination. A survey on a sample of 128 university students has been conducted. Starting from the TAM framework elaborated by Kuo and colleagues (2019), a grid of 8 influencing factors has been built, in order to investigate young users’ attitudes towards continuing using the app, adopting other similar mobile apps and visiting one or more of the attractions presented within the app. Findings – The survey found that perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use play major roles on attitudes towards continuing to use Smart Marca and adopting other similar applications. Results also show that specific features of a mobile app can positively affect the intention to visit a destination. Contribution – The research highlights that new technologies, and mobile apps, could play a crucial role for the promotion of a destination. Results may be also useful in terms of marketing, to increase the ability of the mobile app to attract tourists. Keywords: ICT, e-tourism, mobile tourism app, Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), cultural tourism, experiential tourism