Promoting built-for-disaster-purpose mobile applications: An interdisciplinary literature review to increase their penetration rate among tourists

Abstract

This study focuses on the promotion and use of tourist-oriented built-for-disasterpurpose mobile applications. The investigation relies on two trends that are characterizing modern societies. The first trend refers to the fact that recently, rapidly, and worldwide, the number of mobile applications users increased. The second trend refers to the fact that, worldwide, international tourism demand highly increased from the beginning of the 1960s to the mid-years of 2010s. These travelers are also users of mobile applications, and they use apps for several reasons, including those related to security/emergency issues. International travelers may need information such as risks at the destination, warnings, shelter locator services, emergency routes information, and traveler telephone hotline to be used in the case of earthquakes, tsunamis, infectious diseases, or other disasters. We considered the role of built-for-disasterpurpose mobile applications as a tool to provide information to tourists, increase their risk-awareness, and improve their disaster-preparedness. Previous studies suggest that these tools may have a high impact in that sense. However, the number of users informed about these applications tends to be very low. We systematically reviewed interdisciplinary academic contributions to analyze research on apps-users’ intention to adopt mobile applications. Findings suggest opportunities for future tourism-oriented studies aiming at increasing the number of users of built-for-disasters mobile applications. In particular, we provide a research agenda taking into consideration the geographical spread of the studies, the used research techniques, and the adopted theories.