The Mobile Destination - The use of mobile services in tourism destination development

Abstract

Mobile services are a relatively new phenomenon and provide a great opportunity to the tourism industry. The information technology within the tourism industry is under constant development and self-service technologies (SST) such as the Internet are widely used. Recently, new forms of information technology based services, such as mobile services, have become more commonly used in tourism. Many tourist destinations seek to find new ways of developing their destinations and mobile services are to a greater extent seen as a new means of improving the destination development. The main purpose of the thesis is to address the issue of if and how a destination may use mobile services as a tool for destination development. The study shows how tourism organizations currently are working with destination development and how decisions are made in regards to projects concerning destination development. The study is mainly based on open-ended expert interviews, studies regarding mobile services, customer surveys conducted by the technology providing companies, and information technology literature. Results of the study indicate that there is an obvious interest among destinations to use mobile services as a new means of destination development, and clearly the traditional ways of using information technologies are diminishing in favour of mobile services.