Jadwiga Berbeka
International Journal of Contemporary Management, Numer 17(3), 2018, s. 7 - 28
https://doi.org/10.4467/24498939IJCM.18.023.9619Background: Information and communication technologies significantly influence tourists’ behaviour. They create the independence of consumers through facilitation of dynamic access to information and saving it, as well as sharing it via social media and other on-line channels. More and more new ICT tools including mobile technologies are being used by tourists. The problem has not been empirically investigated in Poland yet, and this was a reason to conduct research to fill this gap.
Research aims: The aim of this paper is to evaluate the role of selected mobile technologies in tourism in Poland.
Methodology: The questionnaire survey was conducted in the summer of 2016 among Polish tourists in the city of Krakow. The selection of the sample was of a purposive-quota character. The adopted control variables were respondents’ gender and age (the general population was defined as the number of tourists reported during the previous year). The size of the sample was N=1,175 of correctly completed questionnaires.
Key findings: The results of research confirm that IT solutions are growing in popularity and slowly becoming considered as standard tools. Three main aspects were considered: the use of QR code, virtual trips and geotagging by tourists. The most popular were virtual trips to venues and/or places (78% of respondents in Krakow), then using QR code readers in smartphones (45%) and the least popular – geotagging during the journey (36%).