Determinants of the Use of the Internet as a Tourist Information Source

Abstract

The modelling of usage behaviour of New Information Technologies is of great utility to managers who need to evaluate the probability of success in the introduction of these technologies. The present study empirically contrasts the capacity of Davis's Technology Acceptance Model 1989 to help understand the determinants of the intention to use the Internet to search for holiday information. The findings show that the above theory does explain the intention to use the Internet on the part of the tourist, but it should be expanded to take account of the tourist's satisfaction with previous experiences of searching for holiday information.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Study carried out thanks to financing received from the research project ‘Effectiveness of the Internet as information source in tourism destination selection’ and from research project SEC 2003-09231 by the Ministry of Science and Technology's RDI National Plan and FEDER Funds.