iBusiness, 2013, 5, 39-42
doi:10.4236/ib.2013.51b009 Published Online March 2013 (http://www.scirp.org/journal/ib)
39
An Influence Study on Adopting Will of Tourism Mobile
E-commerce b y t h e P ercei ved Risk an d Trust
Jiajing Hu, Xiangyan Liu
Tourism School, Sichuan Agricultural University, Dujiangyan, China; 2International Business School, Sichuan Intern ational Studies
University, China.
Received 2013
ABSTRACT
With the rapid development of China's tourism e-commerce and sophisticating mobile technologies, more and more
Chinese tourists, with online shopping experience and mobile devices usage, have accepted the this newly emerging
mode---tourism mobile e-commerce. However, the perceived risk and lack of trust are still the main factors impeding its
growth. By exploratory factor analysis, the perceived risk in this paper is divided into four dimensions, personal risk
propensity, product risk, technical risk and environmental risk. With them as the antecedents, a hypothesis model is
established a mong perce ived risk, trust a nd adop ting will of tourism mobile e-co mmerce. It turns out t hat tourists' per-
sonal risk propensity has a positive correlation with product risk, technical risk and environmental risk, while the per-
ceived risk has a negative one wit h trust, thro ug h which it indirectly affects the adoptin g will.
Keywords: Adoption; Tourism Mobile E-commerce; Trust; Perceived Risk
1. Introduction
According to the 29th China Internet Development Sta-
tistics Report released by China Internet Network Infor-
mation Center in January, 2012, the number of Chinese
netizens has reached 513 million by the end of 2011. Of
those, mobile phone users, a crucial component of the
overall Internet users, have amounted to 356 million,
accounting for 69.4%. Furthermore, the number of con-
sumers by mobile terminals is also embracing a explo-
sive growth. The major tourism e-commerce sites have
launched their own mobile e-commerce websites or mo-
bile phone clients. Co mpared with the traditional to urism
e-commerce, tourism mobile e-commerce is of a more
pertinency, timeliness, convenience and localizability
(Chaoju Hu, 2009), and these advantages help tourists
enter the network of mobile e-commerce in a more flexi-
ble and convenient way. Generally speaking, services by
the traditional tourism e-commerce can only provide
some help for the tourists' preparations before traveling,
but witho ut concer ns during a nd after the travel. Ho wev-
er, tourism mobile e-commerce, along with the moving
tourists, is able to offer personalized real-time services
around the clock. As a result, it will make up for the
shortcomings of traditional tourism e-commerce out of
the time and geographical constraints. Meanwhile, we
have to str ess it i s the use r ne ed s but t he mature in for ma-
tion and communication technologies that form the core
pusher for development of tourism mobile e-commerce.
Among the rela ted st udies o n tourists' needs and a ttit udes
in tourism mobile e-commerce, models based on the
Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) have been used
frequently, but with less theories or models concerning
Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), and Social Compar-
ison Theory (SCT). On account of the fact that the per-
ceived risk and lack of tru st are still major hindering fac-
tors in the development of tourism mobile e-commerce,
this paper, by the exploratory factor analysis, makes the
perceived risk flow into four dimensions of personal risk
propensity, product risk, technical risk and environmen-
tal risk. Taking them as antecedents of trust, it then es-
tablishes a relationship model among the perceived risk,
trust and adopting will of tourism mobile e -commerce.
2. Literature Review and Hyp otheses
2.1. Tourism Mobile E-commerce
Tourism mobile e-commerce refers to transaction activi-
ties between tourism service consumers and suppliers by
mobile devices v ia wireless an d wired integrate d network,
with certain means of payments (Siqing Liu, 2005). Dur-
ing the early developing period of tourism mobile e-
commerce, the contents of traditional e-commerce web-
sites were simply transferred into mobile sites, which
were actually original websites or their corresponding

An Influence Study on Adopting Will of Tourism Mobile E-commerce by the P er ceived Risk and Trust
40
mobile web pages. This unfiltered contents caused prob-
lems like unnecessary and harder reading, and poor per-
tinence (Xingyang Lv, 2009). With the increase in the
number of mobile Internet users and the developing in-
telligent platforms for mobile phones, tourism sites have
launched their own mobile e-commerce websites or mo-
bile phone clients. Since their column and layout ar-
ranged specific to characteristics of mobile devices, the
mobile sites are more convenient to use with more rea-
sonable contents, and a collection of unique features of
mobile devices. However, Internet users are still far from
at ease with tourism mobile e-commerce, which is sub-
jected to limiting factors, like mobile devices, mobile
communication network, and tourism mobile business
operators, etc. This worry disco ur age s t he ir using wi s h of
this new consu mption mode to a certain extent.
2.2. Dimensions of the Perceived Risk
In 1960, Professor Bauer of Harvard University for the
first time introduced the concept of perceived risk to the
marketing research from psychology. He considered any
purchase behavior is accompanied by unpredictable con-
sequences, which may make consumers dissatisfied. T his
uncertainty is the original concept of risk which is e mb o-
died in specific dimensions later. Researches by Gron-
haung (1993) showed that the perceived risk wa s studied
from the six aspects, time risk, functional risk, physical
risk, financial risk, social risk and psychological risk.
With the rise of the Internet, some researches have been
transferred to the field of electronic commerce. Einwiller
(2003), from the perspective of sources of risk, presented
the perceived risk in B2C e-commerce is attributed to the
transaction subject (online suppliers and consumers) and
the exchange medium (electronic trading system), and
that online transaction risks can be divided into beha-
vioral uncertainty and environmental uncertainty. Chi-
nese scholars, Dahai Dong, Guanghui Li, and Yi
Yang(2005) proposed four dimensions of the perceived
risk i n online shopp ing, risk from core services of online
retailers, accompanied risk of online shopping, privacy
risk a nd fake ri sk. Miao Jing (2006) further exte nded t he
perceived risk in online shopping to eight dimensions.
Xiaoping Wang, and Hongxia Liu (2008), considering
e-commerce features, stressed the consumer's personal
risk propensity and risk from e-commerce trading envi-
ronment. Based on the above literatures, and the fact of
tourism mobile e-commerce 's dependence on mobile
devices, and the communications and information tech-
nology, this paper understands the perceived risk from
four dimensions, personal risk propensity, product risk,
technical risk and environmental risk, and proposes the
following hypotheses:
• H1: Personal risk propensity has a positive correla-
tion with product risk
• H2: Personal risk propensity has a positive correla-
tion with technical risk
• H3: Personal risk propensity has a positive correla-
tion with enviro nmental risk
Among them, the personal risk propensity refers to
tourists' risk attitudes towards the potential risks in tour-
ism mobile e-commerce, and the product risk to the pos-
sibilities of tourism products' limited information, in-
complete or distorted display on the screen of mobile
devices. The technical risk may come from the instability
of the mobile network, mob ile equip ment fail ure, runnin g
problems of tourism mobile clients, etc. and environ-
mental risk from the loss of mobile devices, leakage of
personal information and other such incidents in the use
of tourism mobile e-commerce.
2.3. The perceived Risk, Trust and Consumer
Behavior
As to e-co mmerce environment, scholars have done a lot
of research about trust dimensions. McKnight and Cher-
vany regard trust as a multi-dimensional concept that
encompasses two interrelated dimensions, trust beliefs
and trust intentions. To be more specific, Trust belief
covers the ability, goodwill, integrity and predictability,
while trust intention consists of the willingness and sub-
jective pr ob ability to rel y. A lot of literature suggest s that
the perceived risk and trust are not two independent con-
cepts, for some definitions of the risk are related to trust
and vice versa. In summery, the trust and perceived risk
have a parallel relationship, both of which can influence
the purchase intention. Furthermore, perceived risk is a
regulating factor of the relationship between trust and
purchase intent ion. It is said that trust is the antecedent o f
perceived risk, or perceived risk the antecedent of trust.
Both of them directly or indirectly affect the customers'
purchase intention. Besides, the y also have an adversarial
relationship, and purchase intention depends on the bal-
ance between consumers' perceived risk and trust. Based
on the above analysis, and the Theory of Reasoned Ac-
tion, the following assumptions are proposed:
• H4: Perceived product risk has a negative correla-
tion with the tr ust attitude
• H5: Perceived technical risk has a negative correla-
tion with the tr ust attitude
• H6: Perceived environmental risk has a negative
correla tion with the trust attitude
• H7: Risk propensity has a negative correlation with
the trust attitude
• H8: The tr ust attitude ha s a p ositi ve cor relatio n with
the adopting wi ll of touris m mobile e-commerce
3. Research Design and Methods

An Influence Study on Adopting Will of Tourism Mobile E-commerce by the P er ceived Risk and Trust
opyright © 2013 S ciRes. IB
41
3.1. Questionnaire Design and Data Collection
On the basis of the above literature review and lots of
interviews, 12 questions about the perceived risk, 2 on
the trust attitude and 1 for adopting will are presented in
the questionnaire. As to their scores, 1-5 Specter scale is
adopted, meaning that the higher score indicates the
higher level of perception. All together 330 question-
naires were distributed to middle-aged tourists (in travel
then), corporate staff and college students. Among them
276 were returned valid. According to the sample struc-
ture, 64% of those surveyed are male, so the female ac-
counts for 38%. As to the age, 21.6% of them are aged
from 20 to 25 years old, 48.2% are from 26 to 35, and
30.2% are from 36 to 45. Of all the respondents, only
12% have e ve r use d to ur is m mob il e e -commerce, and the
rest has never.
3.2. Data Analysis
1) Questionnaire Structure Testing. The SPSS statis-
tical software was used for the questionnaire structure
testing. By the KMO and Bartlett Sphericity Test of per-
ceived risk, KMO equals 0.729, greater than 0.5, and the
sig level of 0.000 illustrates the existence of common
factor(s). With the Principal Compone nt Analysis, 4 fac-
tors of perceived risk are extracted, with the cumulative
contribution rates of 33.7%, 44.9%, 57.05% and 71.39%.
The factor loadings and Cronbach's Alpha coefficients
are s hown in Table 1.
2) Hypothesis Testing. The AMOS software was used
and the results are presented in Figure 1. As is shown
below, the 8 hypotheses are justified. According to the
path coefficie nt and significant le vel, the model fit inde x
is acceptable.
Table 1. Cons truc t rel iabili ty and conver gent validit y.
Indicator Item Factor loading Cronbach’s alpha
Product Risk
PR1 .849
.89 PR2 .837
PR3 .852
Technology Risk
TR1 .813
.83
TR2 .811
TR3 .828
TR4 .806
Environmental Risk ER1 .737 .92
ER2 .781
Risk Propensity
RP1 .814
.87
RP2 .822
RP3 .818
χ2/df = 2.0 4, GFI = 0.92, AGFI = 0.83, CFI = 0.96, NFI = 0.94, RFI = 0.91,
RMSEA = 0.05; * P<0.05; ** P<0.01
Figure 1. Results of structural modeling analysis.
4. Study Results and Implications
4.1. Study Results
Firstly, the stud y shows that r isk lovers have a lower lev-
el of risk perception, while risk averters present a higher
level . The pe rsonal r isk pro pensit y has a po sitive signifi-
cant correlation with risk perception of tourism mobile
e-commerce, and the adopting will of which is thus ulti-
mately affected through the intermediate variable, the
trust. Furthermore, Personal risk propensity is a subjec-
tive variable, whose influences on others，however, can
not be ignored. For example, the increasing fear of envi-
ronmental risk and product risk will definitely affect the
level of trust towards travel suppliers, tourism online
trading systems, mobile devices, communications and
information technologies, etc. Besides, risk propensity
has a direct impact on trust. Generally, consumers with
strong risk prop ensity will undo ubtedl y have le ss trust .
Secondly, the perceived risk proves to be the antece-
dent of trust. The personal risk propensity, product risk,
technical risk and environmental risk can respectively
influence trust, and then by this influence, they will
eventually affect the adopting will of tourism mobile e-
commerce. For example, on tourism mobile webs or
clients, if tourists find travel products described more
comprehensivel y, and more cle arl y displayed. I t will then
mean a lower product risk, and will increase their confi-
dence in the products provided by the suppliers, conse-
quently followed by a stronger usage wish. On the con-
trary, if tourists consider the trading environment is at
risk, they will be likel y to distrust the using enviro nment,
and feel reluctant to use tourism mobile e-commerce.
However, if tourists enjoy mobile devices with better

An Influence Study on Adopting Will of Tourism Mobile E-commerce by the P er ceived Risk and Trust
42
performance, and stable mobile communication network,
they will reduce their perception of technical risks, and
thus be more willing to use the tourism mobile
e-commerce.
4.2. Implications
Enlightenment form the above empirical analysis can be
summed up as follows.
1) Considering relevant characteristics of tourists' be-
haviors, Service sup pliers in tourism mobile e-commerce
should set up a convenient information acquisition me-
chanism. Restricted by the current immature mobile
technolog y, suppliers sho uld also red uce those items that
can not be well provided. For example, the location map
should be linked to more professional websites. Mean-
while, non-core contents are recommended to be simpli-
fied. As to mobile phone users, they have higher re-
quirements for information browsing; many non-essential
items can be cut off to enable them a better reading expe-
rience and a higher hit rate on more refined websites.
Such unessential items like price promise, exhibition or
events information in destinations, etc. can be got on
related websites by computer through the broadband In-
ternet.
2) In tourism mobile e-commerce, it is required the
network facilitators provide a more stable network, and
the least operating obstacles on service supplier's webs
and the client s. If so, this will help to r e duce the technical
risk perceived by tourists, increase their trust towards
related mobile tec hnologi es, and thereb y to enha nce the ir
adopting will of tourism mobile e-commerce.
Compared with the traditional tourism e-commerce,
mobile e-commerce has a more flexibility both in time
and space, but still in a high-risk usage environment, so
specific measures form two aspects, the system-building
and technology, will reduce tourists' perception of envi-
ronmental risk, and then promote the adoption of tourism
mobile e-commerce.
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