The interactive mobile social media advertising: An imminent approach to advertise tourism products and services?

Abstract

Marketing tourism products traditionally were confined to conventional advertising tools. With the enhancement of mobile technologies and the emergence of social networking sites, a new platform of advertising has emerged. Mobile social media advertising refers to the use of social networking sites on mobile devices to advertise tourism products and services. However, many tourism organizations are skeptical, particularly if tourists are ready to accept this new form of advertising. Therefore, this study proposes an integrated framework that consists of Mobile Technology Acceptance Model, personal factors (i.e., mobile self-efficacy and technology self-efficacy), and Interactivity Theory to understand consumers’ intention to adopt mobile social media advertising in receiving tourism-related advertisements. 459 valid data were analyzed by the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling technique. Surprisingly, most structural paths are consistent with past literatures except for the relationship between personal factors and intention. This study has valuable contributions to academicians, practitioners, and society.