Factors Influencing the Use of a Mobile Recommender System in Tourism: A Social Cognitive Theory Perspective

The growth of circulating information in tourism often makes tourists have difficulties in choosing tourist attractions. These difficulties may be due to information overload or inaccurate information. To overcome this, tourists typically use mobile recommender applications such as TripAdvisor and Google Trips to get recommendations for suitable tourist attractions. This study aims to determine what factors influence the use of a mobile recommender system in tourism, from the perspective of Social Cognitive Theory. In the context of this theory, there are three factors that need to be examined, namely the Technical Environment, Social Environment, and Person. Data were collected through an online questionnaire from 213 valid respondents and analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modelling technique (PLS-SEM). The results indicate that critical mass, peer influence, external influence, subjective norm, perceived credibility, subjective norm, outcome expectation, and self-efficacy have a significant effect on the use of mobile recommender systems in tourism, with self-efficacy having the biggest influence.