1. Mobile devices as a tourism
distribution channel: perceptions of
visitors to national parks in South
Africa
Anneli Douglas & Berendien Lubbe
Division of Tourism Management: Department of
Marketing Management
University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa
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Slide Number 1

2. Agenda
• Introduction
• Tourism distribution and mobile devices
• Methodology
• Results
• Discussion and conclusion
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3. Introduction
• Growth in the use of mobile devices
• Alternative channel of information
• Users can browse the web, monitor emails, read
news, do bookings and make transactions with their
handheld devices.
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4. • A number of research studies have been conducted
on the use of mobile devices in the tourism industry
(Rasinger, Fuchs & Höpken, 2007; Rasinger, Fuchs,
Höpken & Beer, 2009; Lee & Mills, 2010; Wang,
Park & Fesenmaier, 2012; No & Kim, 2013),
• A few have investigated how mobile devices are
used to distribute the tourism product (Wang &
Wang, 2010; Christou & Kassianidis, 2010).
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5. • The purpose of this study is to assess the use
of mobile devices to make reservations at a
nature-based organisation in South Africa
(SANParks)
– To identify the features which visitors
deem important when transacting via
mobile devices with SANParks, and
– To determine the level of satisfaction with
the mobile website as well as propensity to
use a mobile application, should SANParks
provide one, and
– To ascertain whether significant
relationships exist between visitor
characteristics and the level of use of
mobile devices.
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6. Tourism distribution and
mobile devices
• According to Buhalis (2001, p. 8): “The primary
distribution functions for tourism are information,
combination and travel arrangement services. Most
distribution channels therefore provide information
for prospective tourists; bundle tourism products
together; and also establish mechanisms that
enable consumers to make, confirm and pay for
reservations”.
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7. • Distribution channels range from traditional
offline channels to various online channels
and platforms.
• Due to the increasing importance of mobile
devices, their use for tourism distribution and
the extent to which suppliers and customers
interact via this channel must be recognised.
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8. • Mobile communication:
– offers the supplier an opportunity to communicate directly with
consumers anytime and anywhere.
– offers a number of benefits such as high availability, ability to use
e-commerce services irrespective of time or place and movability
and location awareness capabilities (Siau, Lim, & Shen, 2001;
Varshney & Vetter, 2002).
• Furthermore, m-commerce provides the benefits of the
Web, but also permits for distinctive services made
possible by the merging of the Internet with mobile
technology. For the tourism industry, mobile commerce is a
vital ingredient of the travellers’ complete travel
experience (Eriksson, 2002; Schmidt-Belz et al., 2003).
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9. • M-commerce for travel services has, when
compared to in-store travel agency shop-ping, two
core benefits.
– First, it provides travellers with a higher level of
convenience.
– Second, on-line reservations and check-in over a mobile
device save travellers time.
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10. Features deemed important when finding tourist
information are the same, whether using a mobile device or
a tourism website,
and thus the research on factors deemed important when
using a tourism website, can also be used to explain factors
important when using a mobile device.
•Delone and McLean (2003): personalised, complete,
relevant, easy to understand and secure if potential buyers
are to make transactions through the web.
•Wang and Wang (2010): detailed, timely, accurate, reliable
and selective
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11. • Travellers’ satisfaction with websites: E-SAT model
developed by Mills and Morrison (2003) where they
identified characteristics of e-consumer satisfaction
with travel websites based on three main
constructs: travel website interface (TWI), the
perceived quality of a travel website (PQTW) and
the perceived value of a travel website (PVTW).
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12. • Some factors also influence a traveller’s willingness to use a
mobile device for travel activities. These include
demographics for example age, culture, and personality
traits, technological self-efficacy, and the apparent
importance of mobile devices to travellers (Lubbe & Louw,
2010). Lubbe and Louw (2010) further postulate that there
is a significant correlation between a traveller’s “mobile
readiness” and the mobile device’s perceived value across
the travel cycle, and that “mobile readiness” is also
correlated to the purpose of the trip and the frequency of
travel.
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13. Methodology
• Past visitors to SANParks, who had made use of their
distribution channels, were selected.
• A self-administered, web-based questionnaire was
developed and the link to the questionnaire posted on the
SANParks website. In total, 418 usable responses were
gathered from the online survey.
• Paper-based questionnaires were also distributed at the
head office walk-in reservation office, as well as a satellite
walk-in reservation office where 121 paper-based
questionnaires were collected, which resulted in a total
number of 539 responses.
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14. Data analysis and results
Table 2. Respondents’ profile
Demographic profile
Age
18-35
36-50
51-60
Over 60
Gender
Male
Female
Frequency of visits
More than once a year
Once a year
I haven’t stayed at any of the SANParks in the last two years
I haven’t stayed at any of the SANParks in the last five years
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Percentage
17.17
31.11
24.68
27.04
50
50
65.34
30.46
3.57
0.63
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15. • objective 1: measure the extent to which mobile
devices are currently being used as a distribution
channel when making a reservation with SANParks.
– Respondents were asked to indicate whether they are
aware of the fact that SANParks has a mobile website.
Only 139 respondents answered this particular question
and of these thirty two per cent said that they were
aware that SANParks had a mobile website.
– Thirteen per cent of the total number of respondents
said they had used the mobile website to make a
SANParks reservation before.
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16. • Objective 2: related to mobile applications, and
visitors’ general use of it. Although SANParks does
not currently have a mobile application, respondents
were asked whether they would use such a facility
should SANParks decide to provide one.
– Thirty per cent of respondents said they would make use
of the application to facilitate reservations, 28 % said no,
and 42% were unsure.
– Respondents were then asked whether they have ever
made use of an application to book any accommodation
and of the 473 who responded 13% agreed, 79%
disagreed, and 8% were unsure.
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17. The respondents, who had used a mobile application before to make
accommodation bookings, were requested to indicate the features that
they deem important when making an accommodation booking via a
mobile application, with the results indicated in table 4.
Std Dev
Quality of information n=65
Ease of navigation n=65
Ease of use n=66
Interaction and engagement
n=65
Price of application n=65
1.29
1.35
1.36
0.65
0.74
0.85
1.00
1.00
1.00
1.69
0.83
1.00
1.74
0.99
1.00
Mode
Mean
Table 4. Features deemed important when using a mobile application
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18. Finding the SANParks page
1.82
n=55
Reputation (credibility of
2.09
reservation channel) n=56
Ease of finding the
SANParks online booking
2.13
facility n=56
Security of payment process
2.13
n=56
Simplicity of self-help
2.16
process n=56
Recognition of your
2.16
personal details n=56
Ease of payment process
2.18
n=56
Information available on the
2.20
mobile site n=56
Time taken to make the
2.23
reservation n=56
Availability of
2.70
accommodation n=56
Price of accommodation
2.80
charged n=56 ENTER 2014 Research Track
Mode
Std Dev
Objective 3: level of
satisfaction
Mean
Table 3. Level of satisfaction with SANParks mobile we
0.72
2.00
0.75
2.00
0.81
2.00
0.74
2.00
0.78
2.00
0.78
2.00
0.83
2.00
0.77
2.00
0.79
2.00
0.93
3.00
0.94
3.00
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19. • Objective 4: Chi-square tests were then conducted
to ascertain the relationships between certain
identified variables.
– The first test aimed to establish whether a relationship
exists between a customer’s skill in using the internet
and their use of the mobile website to make a
reservation with SANParks. The results shows a
probability greater than 95% (p˂0.0338) thus a
significant relationship exists.
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20. • A further chi-square shows customers’ skill in using
the internet is significantly related (p˂0.0023) to
their willingness to use mobile applications had
SANParks had this facility.
• A correlation was also drawn between a customer’s
level of internet skill and their use of mobile
applications to make accommodation bookings
which shows a significant association (p˂0.0088).
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21. • Subsequently, we checked to see whether a
customer using the SANParks mobile website to
make accommodation bookings, would also be
willing to use a mobile application to make
bookings if SANParks had one. The results showed a
significant correlation at a p value ˂0.0001.
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22. Discussion and conclusion
• Purpose of the study
• In so far as the extent of the use of mobile devices is concerned the
results of this study seems contrary to those of particularly industryrelated sources (Viator and Google)
• Based on Mills and Morrison’s (2003) identified characteristics of econsumer satisfaction our results showed that respondents were
most satisfied with the TWI, in other words how easy it was to find
the SANParks mobile webpage, followed by the reputation of the
booking channel and the ease of finding the online booking facility
on the mobile page, and least satisfied with the PVTW, relating to
time it took them to make the mobile reservation, the availability of
accommodation on the site, and the price of accommodation
charged on the mobile page.
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23. • According to No and Kim (2013), travellers who are content with
the experiences they have had with travel websites, are keen to
look for travel activities information by making use of their mobile
devices for their trips. Results from our research confirm this by
showing significant relationships between a traveller’s skill in using
the internet and their use of mobile websites and mobile
applications respectively.
• Should SANParks decide to implement a mobile application, there
are several technical/commercial aspects to consider: integration
and cooperation, good product design, consider how and when
users will be charged for using the application, understand the
needs of the user and what the application will be used for, security
and privacy.
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24. • Limitations: while a fairly large response was
received for the entire questionnaire, the sections
on the use of the mobile website and mobile
applications received far fewer responses.
• The findings of this study cannot be generalisable to
the global population of visitors who use mobile
devices for accommodation bookings as the sample
was non-random.
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