Tourism

From the improvement of Web 2.0, users become empowered and motivated to share comments about experiences related to products and services. User-Generated Content (UGC) represents a major source of travel information, helping tourist to make a decision. On the other hand, the phenomenon of the popularity of mobile devices has also a significant effect on travel and tourism. Considering this panorama, the paper’s purpose is to understand how travellers use Online Travel Reviews (OTR) on mobile apps for planning trips, based on Uses and Gratifications perspectives. In the survey, a matching quiz was applied to 85 tourists during the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Sao Paulo city were examined. The study results provide empirical support for the proposed research model, suggesting that content gratifications and process gratifications influences attitude to use OTR.
Keywords: Online Travel Reviews; Mobile applications; Uses and Gratifications Theory; Travel plans.