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Due to the advances in smartphones, many companies in the tourism industry have launched mobile applications intended to reach their target audience. Design of these smartphone strategies requires identification of the profiles of individuals that use tourism services. The purpose of this paper is to explore the predictors of smartphone use for travel planning.

To achieve this goal, the authors carried out a hierarchical segmentation analysis selecting a group of different socio-demographic (gender, age, education level, marital status, occupation, and income) and behavioral (length of smartphone use and number of yearly leisure trips) variables to explain the use of these devices to search and book tourism products. The study is based on an online survey of 618 Spanish travelers.

Smartphone use for tourism can be primarily explained according to the users’ degree of daily experience of mobile phone internet use. That is, a spillover effect can be identified from the context of everyday mobile phone use to travel planning. Age, gender and the number of yearly vacations can also be distinguished, to a certain degree, through the use of smartphones. Specifically, there is an inverted U-shape quadratic relationship between the variable of age and the behavior of a potential tourist.

The authors conducted a segmentation study selecting a series of different socio-demographic and behavioral variables with the greatest discriminant power to explain the use of these mobile devices for travel planning. The paper concludes with compelling implications for management.

While Australian snowsport participation may represent a small part of the overall international snowsport market, the fact that Australians are renowned for their willingness to travel makes the travel motives and behaviours of Australian skiers and snowboarders a worthwhile area of research. This paper aims to address this issue.

This exploratory research was conducted via online survey using both convenience and snowball sampling to investigate overseas snowsport travel intentions, in the next seven months, of Australian skiers and snowboarders, many of whom were advanced participants.

People who indicated that they intended to travel overseas for snowsport were mostly males, experienced snowsport participants, under 35 years of age, well‐educated, and in higher income levels. The results indicate that the key motivations of those intending to travel overseas relate to the core of on‐snow experience: reliability of snow, quality of snow, variety of terrain and off‐piste areas. Of less importance were the off‐snow and alternative on‐snow activities.

With the major sources of information for planning an overseas snowsport trip being the internet and families and friends, the availability of current information such as resort maps and current snow conditions via web cams, and the quality of experience of every customer visiting the resort, are key marketing strategies for this niche market.

This paper concentrates on those Australian holiday‐makers whose prime interest is snowsports to the exclusion of off‐piste activities/pleasures. It also highlights the significant role of both the internet and word‐of‐mouth recommendation in holiday planning, and consequently the need to ensure that every visitor experiences a high quality vacation.

More people share their tourism experiences on social media today than in the past, and as a result, more people follow these posts in their trip planning. However, studies into tourists' intention to follow such posts are scarce. Therefore, this study investigates the antecedents influencing social media users' intentions to follow tourism-related posts (TRPs) when planning their trips.

Questionnaires were collected from 402 social media users who had followed TRPs for their trip planning. Data were then analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and artificial neural networks.

The authors found that blogger–user fit and users' involvement with TRPs influenced behavior components (attitudes toward TRPs and intention to follow TRPs) via assessment components (bloggers' credibility and content quality), and the authors developed a framework to explain this relationship.

The findings advance prior studies by investigating (1) the antecedents of intention to follow TRPs when trip planning, (2) the two main social media elements – bloggers and posts – to understanding the role of social media on travel behavior and (3) involvement with TRPs and their impacts on travel behavior. This study contributes to the research on social media and tourism marketing and proposes practical indications for bloggers, social media platforms and destination marketing organizations.

The tourism industry is seeing unprecedented growth due to the convergence of the internet and growing travel trends. E-tourism digitises the tourism business, including processes, value chains, infrastructure, services and auxiliary industries, to maximise efficiency and effectiveness. It is in response to the globalisation of the tourism sector, which has spurred the introduction of information and communications technologies (ICTs) during the past four decades. ICT can boost travellers' satisfaction by providing pre-trip information about tourism attractions and allowing them to contact vendors directly, obtain accurate information and get the lowest price.

ICT has made the global tourism sector more competitive by providing pre-trip information about tourism attractions, allowing tourists to contact vendors directly, obtain accurate information and get the lowest price. Search engines, transport capacity and network speeds have increased the number of international travellers who use technology to organise and document their trips. E-tourism reduces seasonality, improves consumer communication and boosts reservations and sales. ICT also affects customer behaviour management and future marketing models and supports tourism industry globalisation by providing practical tools to tourism agents to develop and disseminate their offers globally. Strategic behaviours significantly impact tourism, as eliminating intermediaries shortens the distance between client and provider. ICT is a new way to boost tourism demand, which attracts more tourists and generates more revenue while improving the sector.

This article examines ways in which graduates of an online teacher certification program integrate technology into social studies instruction. With dramatic growth in the number of online teacher certification programs, educators are faced with how to ensure their graduates incorporate effective teaching strategies, including technology, into classrooms. Research over the past decade indicates that teachers do not integrate technology within social studies instruction in meaningful ways, beyond traditional approaches to teaching (Ravitz & Wong, 1999; Van Fossen & Shively, 2003, 2009). Results from this study indicate that online teacher education graduates, who have access to technology within their schools, find meaningful ways to integrate such technology into social studies instruction. Teacher educators must conduct more research, and receive more funding, to follow online teacher education graduates. Today’s new generation of tech-savvy students deserve teachers who can competently integrate technology into all content areas.

Internet technology has changed the way information is distributed and the way people do business in the industry. Its impacts have been well studied, but the time element seems to be ignored for the investigation of risks taken and trustworthiness held by online shoppers. The time element should be included because pre-travel plans are usually made and a time lapse does exist between “the time a reservation is made” and “the time the reservation is confirmed.” This study proposes an online purchasing model to investigate the relationships among trustworthiness, time lapse, and online reservation activities. A significant correlation was found between trustworthiness and online reservations but despite such significance, time lapse neither sways the trustworthiness nor leads to low reservation retention.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the city break travel decision, and in particular, to develop a decision making model that reflects the characteristics of this type of trip taking.

The research follows a sequential mixed methods approach consisting of two phases. Phase One involves a quantitative survey of 1,000 visitors to Dublin. The research distinguishes and compares city break and non‐city break visitor cohorts. Phase Two entails a qualitative analysis (involving 40 in‐depth interviews) that specifically examines the decision making behavior of city break visitors.

The research shows city break trips to be relatively inexpensive, uncomplicated, and discretionary in nature. The city break travel decision emerges from quite distinct motives where situational factors proved particularly influential. The decision process mostly entailed low involvement / limited problem solving behavior with strong internet usage evident throughout.

The findings show that many traditional decision making models have problems incorporating contemporary travel decisions such as city breaks. This is because such models generally fail to recognize a non‐systematic approach to decision making, where travelers do not necessarily undertake the process in distinctive stages, and where emotional elements are as relevant as functional ones. This study supports the need for a range of models that are reflective of the differences that exist in travel decision making – models that can distinguish the specific nuances and characteristics of particular decision situations.

Chris Barnett, director of global business solutions for Rand McNally, was deliberating how Rand McNally should respond to the emergence of wireless technologies for its traditional business of providing static maps and route-planning services. As maps became electronic, interactive, mobile, and enhanced with value-added features, Rand McNally's mapping business was gravely threatened. The opportunities for Rand McNally weren't obvious, and the pace at which wireless technology would disrupt its traditional business was also unclear. Barnett was considering three opportunities: syndicate Rand McNally's brand and mapping content to popular Web sites, become a provider of value-added services to businesses, or focus on automobile manufacturers and try to forge relationships for providing in-car mapping services.

To discuss organizational design, potential responses to disruptive technologies, and market opportunity analysis in order to identify the kind of technology, organizational, and sales force restructuring required to align Rand McNally's organization with the new environment.

This paper aims to investigate antecedents of using non-travel-specific social media (specifically Facebook) for travel decision-making before a leisure trip.

Based on an online survey of 426 young travel consumers from Italy and Sweden, this work applies structural equation modeling and multi-group analysis.

The study finds support for most of the conventional TAM-related constructs: perceived usefulness, perceived enjoyment and intention, while ease of use is not found relevant in this context.

Results shed light on the antecedents of using non-travel specific social media in two countries. Future research might focus on validating the factors identified and add others that might shape usage in the selected countries. Future studies could further investigate possible differences arising from culture, country of origin and age. The analysis can also be extended to other countries.

The analysis might help managers in the hospitality and tourism sector by providing an understanding of the cognitive factors which determine travelers’ decision to use Facebook for trip planning. Thus, managers should get to know these factors in their effort to influence social media in hospitality and tourism settings.

The findings offer interesting perspectives on the applicability of conventional models to the context of non-travel-specific social media platforms. The exploration of cross-cultural differences also adds to the extant body of knowledge.