RT Journal Article
T1 Customer intentions toward the adoption of WhatsApp chatbots for restaurant recommendations
A1 Romero Charneco, María
A1 Casado-Molina, Ana María
A1 Alarcón-Urbistondo, María del Pilar
A1 Cabrera-Sánchez, Juan Pedro
K1 Restaurantes, cafeterías, etc. - Innovaciones tecnológicas
AB Purpose – Given the importance of chatbots in customer service in tourism, this paper aims to understand thedrivers that predispose regular consumers of restaurant recommendation chatbots to continue using them.Design/methodology/approach – A total of 386 regular consumers of a chatbot via WhatsApp restaurantrecommender responded to an online questionnaire (inspired by scales found in the literature on technologyadoption). Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses.Findings – Significant predictors of intention to continue using these chatbots included “effort expectancy(EE),” “hedonic motivation (HM),” “price value (PV)” and “habit (HT).” Specifically, HT still has a long wayto go in terms of its performance, and it will be possible to work on it. Furthermore, two variables, EE and HM,act as a bottleneck when it comes to explaining this recurrent usage intention. Factors such as “performanceexpectancy (PE),” “facilitating conditions (FC)” and “social influence (SI)” did not influence “behavioralintention (BI).” Likewise, the moderating variables, age and gender, are not significant. Finally, the predictivecapability of the model is demonstrated. The study findings will enable the development of effective strategiesto foster consumer loyalty to this new technology in the restaurant industry.Originality/value – This study contributes, building on the suitability of the unified theory of acceptance anduse of technology 2 model, to explain users’ intention to continue using chatbot tourism services in the contextof an information search for an unplanned and varied purchase decision, namely, restaurant recommendationservices. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first analysis of tourist’s intention to reuse a real andfully functional chatbot via mobile instant messaging.
PB Emerald Publishing
YR 2025
FD 2025-01-01
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10630/37126
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10630/37126
LA eng
NO Romero-Charneco, M., Casado-Molina, A. M., Alarcón-Urbistondo, P., & Cabrera Sánchez, J. P. (2025). Customer intentions toward the adoption of WhatsApp chatbots for restaurant recommendations. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology.
DS RIUMA. Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Málaga
RD 21 ene 2026