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Tourism and mobile apps. Tourists and service providers’ preferences in Tena, Napo, Ecuador

Abstract:

Smarthphones and mobile apps have changed not only human communication, but also travelling habits. For this reason, mobile apps influences in the tourism in Tena, Ecuador were analysed. First, exploratory research was carried ou to identify the mobile apps available on Google Play. Later, a survey of the apps preferred by tourists was applied. Finally, 140 service providers were interviewed about their mobile app use. As result, 150 tourism apps were identified for Ecuador, mainly for Pichincha (36) and only 4 for Tena. Tourists prefer web sites (67%) as a source of tourism information, use social media frequently (73%), and 39% used mobile apps during their visit, with Google Maps the most used. service. Providers use social media for promotion (57%), mainly Facebook, but 69% of them do not know how to or do not use mobile tourism apps.