– This study aims to identify user categories of mobile travel services and analyze the differences between the categories based on individual characteristics, the individuals' perceived barriers to use internet-/mobile services during a trip and the individuals' preferred channel strategies.
– An extensive online survey in Finland was conducted to collect the data and a cluster analysis is used to identify the user categories.
– The study indicates that there are four user categories of mobile travel services: “info-seekers”, “checkers”, “bookers” and “all-rounders” and one group of “non-users”.
– Due to the online data collection method and the self-selective process, the sample may be biased towards respondents finding electronic travel services important. It would be of value to conduct similar studies on a representative sample of the total population of different countries.
– The identified categories can be seen as consumer segments for which travel service providers can target mobile services.
– This study contributes with a categorization of mobile travelers and provides insights on the diffusion of mobile travel services.
