This document presents a study on factors influencing customers' intention to use instant messaging to communicate with hotels. The study aims to examine how perceived usefulness, ease of use, media richness, social presence, self-efficacy, frequency of use, task complexity, and task urgency impact customers' intention to use instant messaging. A conceptual model is proposed and hypotheses are developed based on the technology acceptance model, computer-mediated communication theories, and task characteristics literature. The study uses a randomized experiment with different task complexity and urgency scenarios to test the hypotheses. Initial results are presented and limitations and future research directions are discussed.

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Factors Influencing Customers’
Intention to Use Instant Messaging to
Communicate with Hotels
Soey Lei, Ksenia Kirillova, Dan Wang
School of Hotel & Tourism Management
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Hong Kong
soey.lei@connect.polyu.hk

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Travelers have different communication needs
Background

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Background
A number of communication channels is available

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Means of communication evolve with information technologies
Background

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Background
Means of communication evolve with information technologies

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Research Question
What are the factors that influence customers’
intention to use instant messaging to communicate
with hotels?
Background

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Literature Review
I. Technology Acceptance Model (TAM)
II. Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) Theories
III. User & Task Characteristics

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• Users’ adoption of a technology is predicted by two major factors
– perceived usefulness and perceived ease-of-use (Davis, 1989).
• PU and PEOU significantly influence users’ acceptance and use
experience of IM (e.g. Lou et al., 2005; Lu et al., 2009; Wang et al., 2012).
H1: Customers’ perceived usefulness of IM positively affects their
intention to use IM to communicate with hotels.
H2: Customers’ perceived ease-of-use of IM positively affects their
intention to use IM to communicate with hotels.
Hypotheses Development
I. Technology Acceptance Model (TAM)

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• CMC – a collective term for network-based communication tools.
• CMC filters the nonverbal and social context cues which can be
transmitted through traditional channels (Carlson & Davis, 1998).
• Media Richness Theory – the degree to which the user
perceives a medium can transmit information sent over it without
loss or distortion on a timely manner (Daft & Lengel, 1986).
• Social Presence Theory – the degree to which the user
perceives a medium can transmit human elements to deliver a
sense of personalness (Short, Williams, & Christie, 1976).
II. Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) Theories
Hypotheses Development

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• IM is considered as “lean” media which is not preferred for “rich”
communication (Culnan & Markus, 1987; Daft & Lengel, 1983; Rice & Love,
1987).
H3: Customers’ perceived media richness of IM positively affects
their intention to use IM to communicate with hotels.
H4: Customers’ perceived social presence of IM positively affects
their intention to use IM to communicate with hotels.
II. Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) Theories
Hypotheses Development

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• Prior research suggests the importance of considering users’ prior
experience of using IM (Carlson & Zmud, 1994).
• External factors may override personal or dispositional factors when
task demands are strong or when the situational press is powerful
(Dennis & Kinney, 1998; Koo, Wati & Jung, 2011; Trevino et al., 1987).
H5: Customers’ perceived self-efficacy of using IM positively affects their
intention to use IM to communicate with hotels.
H6: Customers’ frequency of using IM positively affects their intention
to use IM to communicate with hotels.
H7: Task urgency negatively affects customers’ intention to use IM to
communicate with hotels.
H8: Task complexity negatively affects their intention to use IM to
communicate with hotels.
III. User and Task Characteristics
Hypotheses Development

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Conceptual ModelConceptual Model

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• Randomized between-subject block experiment using cross-sectional
survey and scenario-based approach.
• 2 (low vs. high task urgency)  2 (low vs. high task complexity).
• Respondents were randomly exposed to one of the four scenarios:
1. low urgency-low complexity
2. low urgency-high complexity
3. high urgency-low complexity
4. high urgency-high complexity
• Survey administration: Qualtrics
• Participants: Amazon MTurk
Methodology

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• Screening questions:
- Have you ever used IM?
- Have you stayed in a hotel within the last 12 months?
• Face validity (10 respondents)
• Pilot-test (50 respondents)
• Manipulation checks on experimental conditions and reality of
scenarios were successful (p<0.001).
• Attention check questions applied
• Total valid responses: 311.
• Data Analysis: STATA, nested logistic regression
Methodology

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Results

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• Unexpected findings might be explained by the study context.
• The nature of hotel-customer communication have been understudied.
• Compare with users in organizational settings (supervisor-subordinate),
hotel customers perceived IM as much richer communication medium
(MR Mean = 5.67; SP Mean = 5.46).
• Traditional CMC theories might not be sufficient enough to explain
adoption of innovative communication tools in a hotel-customer
communication context.
• The hotel-customer communication context deserves further
investigation.
Conclusion

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Limitations
•A pilot study that opens the discussion
•Sample size & source
•The number of media choices
Future Research
•Why would hotel customers perceive IM as much richer than users in
other contexts in previous studies (i.e. employees)?
•Do customers perceive communications with hotels as formal or
informal communication?
•What are hotel customers seeking when communicating with
hospitality companies?
•What are the situational factors that override the need of matching IM
capacity and task characteristics?
Limitations & Future Research

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Thank You!

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Media Richness
•IM allows us to give and receive timely feedback
•IM allows us to tailor our messages to our personal requirements
•IM allows us to communicate a variety of different cues (emotional tone, attitude, or formality)
in our messages
•IM allows us to use rich and varied language in our messages
Social Presence
•There was a sense of sociability during the communication through IM.
•There was a sense of human sensitivity during the communication through IM.
•There was a sense of human warmth during the communication through IM.
•There was a sense of personalness during the communication through IM.
Perceived Usefulness
•Using IM improves my communication with others.
•Using IM to communicate with others increases my productivity/efficiency
•Using IM enhances the effectiveness of my communication with others.
•I find IM to be useful in my communication with others.
Perceived Ease-of-use
•My interaction via instant messaging is clear and understandable
•Interacting via IM does not require a lot of my mental effort
•I find IM to be easy to use.
•I find it easy to get IM to do what I want it to do.

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Self-Efficacy
•I believe I have the ability to use the functions of the IM system.
•I believe I have the ability to receive message through IM.
•I believe I have the ability to use IM to communicate information to others.
•I believe I have the ability to send out a message using IM.
Frequency of Use
In general, how often do you use IM to communicate with others in your daily life?
•Never
•Sometimes
•About half of the time
•Most of the time
•Always
Task Complexity (MC)
•The task I want hotel employees to help me with in this scenarios is complex
Task Urgency (MC)
•The task I want hotel employees to help me with in this scenarios is urgent
Intention to Use
•If I were communicating with hotel employees in this situation, the probability of me using the
IM is…
•The likelihood that I would communicate with hotel employees via IM is…
•The probability that I would consider communicating with hotel employees via IM is…

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Reality of Scenarios
•It is hard to imagine being in the situation described in this scenario
•A situation like this could have happened to me
•The scenario is realistic