Mobile Tourism Consumer Profile: An approach to experienced users

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyze socio demographic and behavioral variables that affect the use of mobile commerce for travel planning. From the review of the theoretical framework and the empirical analysis, the influence of some of the variables traditionally used as segmentation variables is shown. Based on an online survey of 616 tourism consumers services who use a smartphone, we discovered that these consumers present different characteristics related to the following variables: a) experience of using Internet via mobile phone, b) age, c) family life cycle, d) employment status, e) hours of Internet access, f) trips done per year, g) number of people living in the household and h) household income. Practical implications for tourism companies are reached which allow companies to adapt better segmentation strategies to each target market.

Keywords

• consumer behaviour
• tourism
• technology
• segmentation
• mobile commerce
• experience