Impact of Smartphones on Tourist Experience of Singaporean Young Adults

Abstract
Tourism is one of the largest industries in the world, which is contributing to global economic
development. In the current world, innovative technologies are becoming an integral part of the
tourism business and are rapidly getting incorporated into the tourism industry. Innovative
technological advancements and smartphone technologies have excellent potential in terms of
optimising the time and variety of choice of the necessary tourist product for travellers. The
objective of this paper is to study the impact of smartphones on the tourist experience of
Singaporean young adults. This study explores the relationship between smartphones and travel
experiences of tourists in modern time, new technologies in the tourism industry, which affect
destination and its impact on the overall trip satisfaction. The research focuses on Singaporean
young adults since that is where the most use of smartphone and tourism experiences exist and
adopts a quantitative method to study the role of a smartphone is in conjunction with tourism.
The findings reveal that Singaporeans young adults like to travel in a group of three to five with
friends and family. Also, evidence was found that smartphones enhance tourist experience, and
travellers install and share private data with companies even when they don't approve of it.
Keywords:
(Tourism, Technology, Smartphone, Tourist Experience, Singaporean Young Adults)
1.0 Introduction

2.0 Literature Review
2.1 Uses of smartphones
The smartphone users use their mobile phones both private and social lives. Users view their
smartphone as an image of their personality and a device to connect with their friends and
family. The potential of smartphone as a tool for communication and sharing of information has
led to the broad adoption of smartphones in the tourism industry (Kim, & Law, 2015).
Smartphones are perhaps the most crucial external factor in the tourism industry that influences
customer behaviour, and users have quickly adapted to the mobile phone evolution. They are
deconstructing a user’s sense of tourism and reconstructing the concept of travel with the use of
technology, specifically mobile technology. The daily use of smartphones is influencing the
behaviour of tourists and transformations taking place in the tourism industry are linked to
smartphones (Vallespín, Molinillo, & Muñoz-Leiva, 2017).
The rapid integration of smartphones into the tourism industry provides a whole new market for
destination marketing and mobile marketing. Smartphones and smartphone apps have affected
the everyday life of users and have imposed a significant influence on the tourism industry and
tourists. Modern day tourists magnify their travel experience by using smartphones (Gupta,
Dogra, & George, 2018). Some of the smartphone features that help enhance the tourist
experience are fast data connections, coloured screens, cameras, and local connectivity that
enable web browsing, messaging, e-mailing photography, entertainment, locator applications,
executing travel-based transactions and communicating with others with the touch of a button.
Smartphones also allow travellers to visualise the location and facilities within the said
destination (Dickinson, Ghali, Cherrett, Speed, Davies, & Norgate, 2014; Kim, & Law, 2015).
Smartphones provide the tourist with reliable and unlimited internet access, location awareness
functions and support many apps. Smartphones apps are specialised in information search,
information processing, social networking on the go which enables users to share anytime and
anywhere and navigation (Wang, Park, & Fesenmaier, 2012) and these apps are available across
the spectrum of travel services, including transport planning, travel planning, accommodation
planning, tour guide and directional services (Gupta, Dogra, & George, 2018). The most
common travel activity is travellers looking for offers and discounts. Many apps provide users
with comparative information, which helps them get the best deals. Smartphone apps also help

users integrate into foreign societies. The language differences are nullified with the help of
translation apps (Gupta, Dogra, & George, 2018).
Smartphones enable user to tap untapped opportunities and enhance their ‘on-the-go’ travel
experience as the smartphone adds an element of flexibility. The tourist use of Smartphone apps
was significantly affected by the price-saving orientation, performance expectancy, social
influence, perceived risk, perceived trust and habit (Gupta, Dogra, & George, 2018). The impact
of smartphone on tourist experiences, choosing of smartphone apps while travelling and
intentions to adopt smartphone apps for making a travel booking (Gupta, Dogra, & George,
2018) have led to a substantial increase in the use of smartphones by tourism marketers and
travellers. However, the value proposition on the adoption of smartphones has not clearly
defined (Kim, & Law, 2015).
2.2 Smartphone and tourist experience
The usage of smartphones has brought about both positive and negative experiences to the
tourists. Tan discusses how smartphones affect individual tourist’s experience. It appears that
the usage of smartphones has brought about both positive and negative experiences. Tan
examined the relationship between travel goals and smartphone tourism destination, as well as
the experience of tourists and the overall satisfaction of the trip. Tans study considers such goals
in categories such as communication, entertainment, simplification of formalities and
information retrieval (Tan, 2017). Smartphones allow people to be closer to one another,
although they are physically located far from each other, that is, in two “places” at the same time.
It is posited that mobile technologies lead to changes in interpretations and subjective
perceptions and thereby transform tourism experience (Wang, Park, & Fesenmaier, 2012).
Concerns were also expressed about the potential negative impact of mobile interaction on real
meetings during travel. Tourists react differently to this shared physical-virtual space.
The usage of smartphones while travelling can provide a permanent state of absence to tourists.
Using smartphones at the destination can be a response to boredom and an attempt to kill time,
affecting the immersive quality of that travel experience and hence reducing the overall
satisfaction of the trip. However, to a greater extent, this study shows that tourists appreciate the
functionality of smartphones. Social presence, boosting one’s self-esteem with the use of social
networking sites like Facebook to share travel experiences with others, making phone calls to

keep in touch with others during a trip, obtaining information about transport, obtaining general
information about the destination. However, the impact of having different context is negligible
While Tan’s article focuses on the usage of smartphones on the individual’s touristic experience,
an article written Yu, Anaya, Miao, Lehto, and Wong addresses the impact of smartphones on
the family vacation experience. The effects of smartphone usage on some aspects of the family
vacation like internal family interactions, family interaction with the destination, and the family’s
recollection of experiences were studied. Yu, Anaya, Miao, Lehto, and Wong addressed these
different categories and brought forward light comprehensive patterns regarding the impact of
smartphones on family vacations, which are helpful in reinforcing the paradoxical effects
smartphones bring to the individual’s touristic experience. While smartphones can help to
facilitate “consensus-building among family members during a vacation”, it can also be seen as
an “interaction inhibitor” as family members are more taken with using their smartphones than
engaging in real-time interaction ( Yu, Anaya, Miao, Lehto, & Wong, 2018 ). Moreover, the
categories highlighted in the paper of Yu, Anaya, Miao, Lehto, and Wong offer a framework
for comparing the differences between an individual and family touristic experience, which can
help shed light on the gaps in the usage of smartphones in mediating “both behavioural and
psychological dimensions of the touristic experience” (Wang, Park, & Fesenmaier, 2012).
2.3 Smartphone and tourism
The smartphone is an emerging technology which helps tourists for tracking locations and
places. However, securing the hardware tracking system is a widespread challenge faced by
consumers while using smartphone technology. Also, the researchers identified that security and
privacy are very negative impacts of smartphones on tourists (Hardy, Hyslop, Booth, Robards,
Aryal, Gretzel, & Eccleston, 2017). Smartphone technology can determine the current and
future pattern of behaviours that allows users to organise travel opportunities. Dickinson
conducted research and identified the importance of the smartphone in the field of the tourism
industry and provided in-depth analysis of smartphone technology. According to Dickinson data
privacy is a significant concern with the smartphone due to which consumers may lose their
personal information (Dickinson, Hibbert, Filimonau, Cherrett, Davies, Norgate, Winstanley,
2017). Obtaining data or information using a smartphone is one of the practical approaches
which can help tourists for findings location quickly. GPS technology plays an essential role in