Perceptions of museum podcast tours: Effects of consumer innovativeness, Internet familiarity and podcasting affinity on performance expectancies

Information technologies provide important opportunities for museums to create more engaging visitor experiences. Many museums have decided to adopt podcasting technologies to provide more interesting and cost efficient audio tour offerings. The study presented in this paper investigates whether museum visitors also perceive podcast tours as being able to enhance museum experiences. Using a technology adoption framework, influences on museum visitors' performance expectations regarding podcast tours were investigated. The results show that podcast affinity mediates the influences of innovativeness and Internet familiarity and is significantly positively related with perceptions of podcast tours as means to enhance museum visits. Thus, the research stresses the importance of conceptualizing performance expectations relevant to tourism settings and understanding the personal characteristics of tourists that influence them. It also shows that general Internet familiarity drives attitudes toward newly emerging Internet-based technologies. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.