M-TOURISM IN INDIA: SYMBOLIC VERSUS INTENDED ADOPTION

This study was undertaken to complement the paradigm shift of the Indian financial system from cash to cashless economy. Digital India initiatives, in the context of tourism, signal radical changes both from the supply and the demand perspectives. However, the campaign towards digitalisation in tourism will remain a myth unless it is accepted and embraced by the end users, that is, tourists. The perception of tourists about factors influencing their symbolic adoption of mobile tourism or m-tourism (tourism activities using mobile devices or m-devices such as smartphones, tablet computers, smartwatches, smart bands, GPS localisadors/beepers, and associated software) applications was collected using a structured questionnaire. However, mere symbolic adoption of m-tourism may not suffice as there could be a gap between symbolic and intended adoption even in the context of m-tourism, as is found in other technology innovations.  The perception of intended adoption was collected from the same sample of respondents. The proposed model, statistically validated, identified factors influencing symbolic adoption of m-tourism (performance expectation, perceived effort, technology specific, facilitation, country specific, and person centric) and intended adoption factor. Perceived effort, technology specific and country specific factors were found to have significantly affected intended adoption of m-tourism. The study concluded that there is a gap between symbolic adoption and intended adoption of m-tourism, and it is necessary to make efforts to bridge this gap for wider acceptance of m-tourism in this era of digitalisation.