What Influences Travellers' Adoption of a Location-based Social Media Service for Their Travel Planning?

Advances in location-acquisition and mobile communication technologies have empowered people to use location data with online social networks known as location-based social media. However, the technology is relatively new, and literature on the relevant factors determining location-based social media adoption and usage for the specific purpose of travel planning is sparse. Using the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology 2 (UTAUT2) as a base model, we extended the model by including users’ mobile Internet experience and the Information Adoption Model in the context of location-based social media adoption and use for travel planning. Data was collected from 200 Chinese respondents and partial least square was employed to test the research model. Our results showed that our model was able to explain about 64% of variance in intention and 48% in location-based social media use in travel planning. We found that besides variables from UTAUT2, argument strength, review rating, reviewer trustworthiness, reviewer expertise and review sidedness can influence users’ adoption of online reviews, which in turn will influence their use of location-based social media. The results of this study will be useful for location-based social media providers in formulating appropriate marketing strategies, as well as developing applications that will attract more users.