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Roles of Smartphone Mediating the Tourist Experience

CHAPTER 1:
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of Study
The growth of internet has created strong impacts in various areas of life. These
days, people rely on the web for their everyday life, as it have universal
information to be available anywhere, anytime and accessible from all the devices
(ui and Roto, !""#$. %lmost every person has a mobile device and this give and
opportunities to the developers to provide tourism based web services.
Modern technology helped advanced in changing the way of interaction and
communication in varieties of human life. &n term of tourism, technology can
helped humans in travelling and protecting the environment. &n Malaysian, the
usage mobile phones are increasingly rather than fixed line. Malaysian people
start mainly used mobile phone professionally in '((# and the basic features built
in mobile phones such as voice call.
)owadays, the capabilities of mobile phone is not limited for voice call and
messaging, it become e*uipped with other features that encourage the
communication and entertainment such as games, internet, videos, portable media
players and multimedia messaging service. The varieties of mobile features
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Roles of Smartphone Mediating the Tourist Experience
attracted younger generation and as a result it contributes to the boom up in the
number of mobile phone users in Malaysia.
+ue to the mobile phone technology developments, mobiles phone have upgrade
to be smart computers which is called smart phones. The smart phone advantages
are can be accessed anytime and anywhere that supporting broad range of
information services. The numbers of people use smart phones are increasing
rapidly as a result of many phones brand li,e Samsung, & -hone, .T and )o,ia
provide varieties of smart phones. Smart phones demand was rises and fastest
growing handheld device (%/& Research, !""#$. 0rom the greater number of
smart phones being used as tools by researchers, it will encourage people to use
smart phones as mediating to the touristic experience such as find any
information regarding tourism, ma,e a boo,ing of flight tic,et, accommodation,
transportation and navigation.
Malaysian ommunication and Multimedia ommission (MM$ conducted
survey in !""# and find out that Malaysia was second highest mobile phone users
in %SE%). 1endors and manufactures of smart phones can manufacture and sell
more than three hundred millions and have 2!3 increasing from !""( to !"'"
according to !"'" statistics, furthermore, smart phones occupied '(3 of total
mobile communications device sales in !"'" ( -ettey45oasduff, !"''$.
)owadays, the applications of smart phones are being developed for education,
entertainment, useful utilities, business assistant and so forth. &n the future
prediction, most people will have at least one smart phone. Travelers6 activities
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Roles of Smartphone Mediating the Tourist Experience
can be easily changed by the use of smartphones (7ramer et al, !""2$.
Smartphone can mediate both the behavioral and psychological dimensions of the
touristic experience Saari, 8oo , and Tussyadiah (!""#$, Tussyadiah and
0esenmaier (!""($, and 9ang -ar,, and 0esenmaier (!"'"$. &t can influence by
facilitating information sharing, information processing, and information search.
Traveler also can ,now about the destination better in term of new travel
opportunities and sharing photos during the trip.
/ased on %bdullah finding in !"":, Malaysian youths claimed that using a
mobile phone is an important part in their life. urrently, the young generations
are digital natives and more attracted to technological gadgets as a result they
born in technological era. 0urthermore, they applied mobile phone not only for
communication but also as a tool to express their feeling (&to 4 ;,abe, !"":$ and
more significant is wanted to loo, hip and cool (<ing, !""'$.
Smartphone have greater functionality and become one of the important tourism
tools. The smartphones application has been identified as one of critical trends for
changing the tourism experience of the future (7im 4 Schliesser, !""2$. The
internet has played a critical role with providing information on people6s travel
and destination information see,ing, (/eritelli, /ieger 4 <aesser, !""2$.
%ccording to forest interactive.com (!"'!$, total of smartphones user in Malaysia
are about #,'(=,>"" in year !"''. 0rom this statistic, it shows that many people in
malaysia are use smartphones in their life. Moreover, on a daily basis? :@3 of
@
Roles of Smartphone Mediating the Tourist Experience
Malaysian smartphone users go onto the mobile &nternet (Mobile &nternet &nsights
Report Malaysia, !"''$.
%s the developing of web tourism services, many travellers use mobile web
applications and web services for planning and experiencing their travels.
)owadays, many country starts to use mobile tourism application in order to stay
ahead from their competitors. 0or example 7orea has come out with & Tour Seoul,
Singapore with their 5uide application for i-hone and %ndroid smartphones,
.ong 7ong with their My .ong 7ong 5uide, anada with their Auebec ity and
area travel application and many more.
The impact of this application to the recent years has changing the scenarios of
travel and hospitality industry. B9orld without boundaries6 had given people
opportunities to go beyond the world. Technologies ma,e our life easier. +ue to
that, there has a wide range of new mobile tourism application is emerging
nowadays.
1.2 Pro!"# Stat"#"nt$
:
Roles of Smartphone Mediating the Tourist Experience
)owadays, smart phone has become trends in the globaliCation world and has
rapidly been adopted as a tourism travel tool. %s smartphones have a greater
effect in people6s life and the growing number of users, it has the potential to
influence the touristic experience (9ang, -ar,, and 0esenmaier, !"''$. <atest
studies shown that by using smartphones and their apps, it helps travellers by
providing easy access to information anytime and (almost$ anywhere (/rown
and halmers !""@D ;6/rien and /urmeister !""@D Rasinger, 0uchs, and
.op,en !""2$. .owever, there is limited study on its application by Malaysian
people especially for travel purpose. To the best ,nowledge of the researchers,
this is the first research of its ,ind in Malaysia that addresses the particular
topic about the usage, challenges and opportunity, and the level of awareness
towards the usage of smartphones for tourism purposes.
-revious studies have loo, into The Role of Smartphones in Mediating
Touristic Experience (9ang, -ar,, and 0esenmaier, !"''%& onceptual
Model of Mobile Services in Travel and Tourism &ndustry (-ortolan,
Eubrinic, and Milicevic, !"''$ and. <imited study exists focusing the role of
smartphones in mediating tourist experience in Malaysia. Thus, this study will
loo, into the mediation mechanism of smartphones to the use of smartphones
for travelling purposes and aim to suggest some recommendation.
1.' Pur(o$" of Study
=
Roles of Smartphone Mediating the Tourist Experience
The focus of our study is to determine the roles of smartphones in mediating
the tourist experience. )owadays, the numbers of Malaysian people use smart
phones are increasing rapidly so we would li,e to identify the function of
smartphones in helping tourist experience. This study also discovers the
opportunities and level of satisfaction by using smartphones on travelling
purposes. Thus, it will lead us to examine level of awareness and level agreed
of Malaysia smartphone users towards smart phone effectiveness on travelling
purposes.
1.) O*"ct+," of Study
'. To identify the usage of smart phone for tourism activities.
!. To examine the level of satisfaction by using smartphones on travelling
purposesF
@. To discover the level of awareness and level agreed of Malaysia
smartphone users towards smart phone effectiveness on travelling
purposeF
1.- R"$"arc. /u"$t+on$
'. +oes smart phone use for tourism purposesF
!. 9hat is the level of satisfaction by using smartphones on travelling
purposesF
@. 9hat is the level of awareness and level agreed of Malaysia smartphone
users towards smart phone effectiveness on travelling purposeF
1.0 S+gn+f+cant of Study
%s a tourism student, the researchers are interested in a new topic in the area of
tourism and also would li,e to investigate on the usage of smartphones among
>
Roles of Smartphone Mediating the Tourist Experience
Malaysian people for tourism purpose. 0ew information and data was found
about the usage of the mobile applications in tourism in Malaysia. +ue to the
limitation of study about this topic in Malaysia, it seems an interesting area for
research. There is an international research investigate the role of smartphones
in mediating the touristic experience. The researchers are +an 9ang, Sangwon
-ar, and +aniel R. 0esenmaier. This study discovers the mediation device of
smartphones by examining stories provided by travellers related to their use of
smartphones (and associated applications$ for travelling purposes (9ang, -ar,
and 0esenmaie, !"'!$. This research can benefit also tourism companies who
are focusing in this field, giving those relevant data and recommendations.
1.1 2+#+tat+on of Study
%lthough the research has reached its aims, there were some limitations that
cannot be avoided. There are two limitations that we face during completing
this study and need to be ac,nowledged and addressed regarding the present
study. The first limitation concerns the respondents who are do not read the
instruction in the *uestionnaire clearly. This will lead to problem of damaged
*uestionnaire. +ue to this it will affect the data and this damaged *uestionnaire
should be removing.
Second limitation is based on the data collection method of the studyD the data
was collected through cross sectional (collected at one point in time$ and not
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Roles of Smartphone Mediating the Tourist Experience
through a longitudinal study (collected at different points in time$. 0or our
research data, our samples only gather data from online survey only and did not
have variety collection of data li,e interview, personally administered
*uestionnaire. So in the future, the method in gathering information should be
diversifying in order to have generaliCed result.
1.3 T."or"t+ca! 4ra#"5ork
#
Roles of Smartphone Mediating the Tourist Experience
0igure '? Theoretical 0ramewor,
(
S#art(.on"$ Ro!"$
Ma,e reservation and
payment process
&nformation sharing Searching &nformation )avigation +evice
S#art(.on" 4unct+on
Ease of Gse
Tour+$t E6("r+"nc"

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