Development and Validation of Ecotourism Smartphone Application Scale (ESAS) and General Experience Scale (GES)

Abstract

The proliferation of mobile technology has significantly changed non-traditional tourism types such as the ecotourism sector and thus significantly impacted visitors’ experience at tourism sites. However, there is a lack of instrumentation to assess the visitors’ experience with mobile technology and the general experience of the visitors at ecotourism sites. This research aims at establishing and validating the instruments to measure the visitors’ experience with and without mobile technology. A standard psychometric scale development methodology was utilised to develop and validate the scales. Three hundred participants responded to the online advertisement and participated in this research. Data were analysed using IBM SPSS. Findings from Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) revealed the multi-factor attributes of visitors’ experience with the smartphone app and general experience for the ecotourism site. The Ecotourism Smartphone Application (ESAS) yielded five factors: App Ease of Use, Mobile App Usability, App Utilitarian Value, App loyalty, and App Meaningful Experience; whilst General Experience Scale (GES) yielded two factors: Learning and Satisfaction. These two scales can measure the overall visitor experience at ecotourism sites that use and do not use mobile technology.