Jung, T, Lee, H, Chung, N and tom Dieck, Mandy (2018) Cross-Cultural Dif-
ferences in Adopting Mobile Augmented Reality at Cultural Her itage Tourism
Sites. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 30
(3). pp. 1621-1645. ISSN 0959-6119
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Version: Accepted Version
Publisher: Emerald
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCHM-02-2017-0084
Please cite the published version
https://e-space.mmu.ac.uk
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Please cite as: Jung, T., Lee, H., Chung, N. & tom Dieck, M.C. (2018). Cross-Cultural Differences in
Adopting Mobile Augmented Reality at Cultural Heritage Tourism Sites. International Journal of
Contemporary Hospitality Management. 30(8).
Cross-Cultural Differences in Adopting Mobile Augmented Reality at
Cultural Heritage Tourism Sites
Purpose
Augmented reality (AR) is increasingly used in cultural heritage tourism sites for the enhancement of
the tourist experience. However, behavioral intention to adopt AR is dependent on cultural traits and
close investigation is required on cultural differences. To explore these cultural differences and the
effect on AR acceptance in cultural heritage tourism sites, the current study focused on the aesthetic
and hedonic characteristics of AR applications.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected in two countries with strong contrasts in Hofstede’s cultural dimensions to explore
cultural differences in AR acceptance. In total, 145 questionnaires were collected in Deoksugung
Palace, South Korea, and 119 questionnaires were collected in the An Post Museum, Republic of
Ireland. Data were analyzed using PLS Graph 3.0.
Findings
The findings confirmed that the aesthetics of AR have a strong influence on perceived enjoyment.
Furthermore, this study supported the notion that high-power distance, collectivism and high
uncertainty avoidance culture such as South Korea’s perceives stronger dependence on social influence
and the hedonic characteristics of AR.
Practical Implications
AR innovation and marketing within the hospitality and tourism industry requires an understanding of
cultural differences to ensure successful implementation. In addition, tourism and hospitality managers
need to ensure that the needs and requirements of different target markets are met.
Originality/value
This study applied Hofstede’s cultural dimensions to explore the differences between two very distinct
countries with regard to AR acceptance. The findings provide important implications for the
implementation of tourism AR applications for different countries, especially considering international
target markets.
Keywords: augmented reality, cross-cultural analysis, acceptance, cultural heritage
tourism sites
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Introduction
Applications such as Pokémon Go (http://www.pokemongo.com) have led to an increased awareness,
interest and use of augmented reality (AR) for everyday uses (Rauschnabel et al., 2017). The overlay
of digital information onto users’ direct surroundings provides opportunities for various industries
including the enhancement of the tourism experience (tom Dieck and Jung, 2015). The recent success
and emergence of AR can be directly linked to the penetration of smartphones, which in turn have long
been considered for mediating tourist experiences (Wang et al., 2012). According to numerous
scholars, cultural heritage tourism has grown to become one of the dominant tourism sectors served
by mobile AR applications (Portalés et al., 2009; Tutunea, 2013). Within the cultural heritage tourism
context, AR can be used to digitally restore artifacts or re-create historic events while at the same time
preventing the degradation of cultural heritage sites (Haugstvedt & Krogstie, 2012; Portalés et al.,
2009; Stanco et al., 2012). Overall, AR applications were found to create enjoyable, meaningful and
enhanced tourism experiences (Jung et al., 2015). Over the last five years, a number of cultural heritage
institutions (e.g., Deoksugung and Gyeongbokgung Palaces in Seoul, An Post Museum in Dublin, the
Louvre, the British Museum) all over the world have developed and implemented mobile AR
applications.
Research on AR has expanded over the past years, with scholars’ interests including user acceptance
(Jung et al., 2015), user experience (Han et al., 2017), user requirements (tom Dieck et al., 2016),
perceived value (tom Dieck & Jung, 2017), value co-creation (Jung & tom Dieck, 2017), wearable
augmented reality (Rauschnabel et al., 2015, Tussyadiah et al., 2017) and the tourism learning
experience (Moorhouse et al., 2016). However, there are only a few studies within the hospitality
context, and those that exist have focused on AR’s navigation opportunities and finding points of
interest such as hotels and restaurants (Marimon et al., 2010; Mulloni et al., 2010). Tuominen and
Ascencao (2016) looked at tomorrow’s hotel and explored new technologies and their effect on service
design. However, although they acknowledge that the future hotel room will include augmented
experiences, a specific investigation of AR was not conducted. Augment (2016, p. 1) posted about AR
opportunities for the hotel industry stating, “hoteliers can easily offer prospective guests the experience
of visualizing the property, exploring individual rooms, and searching for nearby attractions in an
immersing and interactive manner.” This insight clearly shows the marketing and customer
relationship management opportunities of AR for the hospitality industry.
Although various AR applications have been widely implemented, cultural differences are recognized
as influencing the acceptance of technology in general and AR in particular (Harris et al., 2005).
Nevertheless, AR-related research on cultural differences is limited. A number of prior studies (Cho
& Cheon, 2005; Harris et al., 2005; Kim et al., 2011) have shown that the process of generating
behavioral intentions to use technologies varies among cultures. These studies have selected several
countries with a similar level of social or technological development but very different cultural profiles.
For example, Korea and Japan, and the United States and the United Kingdom were chosen in a study
by Cho and Cheon (2005) as countries having strong advertising revenues in Eastern and Western
cultures, respectively, yet with completely different cultural profiles.
One study by Han et al. (2009) explored the acceptance of tutoring robots with augmented reality
services and revealed that there are cultural differences among Western and Eastern users. For instance,
they found that Europeans considered robots simply as machines, whereas Asians believed robots to
be their friends. This was confirmed by Harris et al. (2005) who stated that the strength of the
relationship among the beliefs, social influence, and intention to use AR can differ from culture to
culture. Further, Balog and Pribeanu (2010) revealed that generalizability of AR acceptance studies is
always limited due to a lack in focus on cultural differences. Overall, these examples show that AR
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plays an increasingly important role for future society with new technological developments (e.g.,
robots); however, acceptance seems to be clearly linked to cultural traits.
Nevertheless, little is known about how cultural traits influence AR acceptance. Thus, this study aimed
to explore the cultural differences in AR adoption. The first objective of this study was to explore the
effects of aesthetics and perceived attributes, including enjoyment, on behavioral intention to use AR
in cultural heritage tourism sites. Also, this study examined the aesthetics of AR, a construct originally
proposed in the Experience Economy concept by Pine and Gilmore (1998). The second objective of
this study was to investigate the influence of cultural differences between South Korea and Ireland on
these causal sequences. Further, the motivational theory by Deci (1975) and the technology acceptance
model by Davis (1989) were used to investigate the enjoyment of AR. In this regard, the present study
investigated the cultural difference index values of the top 15 countries with the highest smartphone
penetration rate in the first quarter of 2013. Among them, Ireland and South Korea were found to be
farthest from each other from the cultural viewpoint. Therefore, these two countries were selected to
explore how differences in culture may influence beliefs and intention to use AR applications by
drawing upon the cultural difference dimensions proposed by Hofstede (1980). Furthermore, the
current study focuses on the aesthetics and enjoyment of AR application from the perspective of the
hedonic information system.
Theoretical Background
Aesthetic and Hedonic Features of Augmented Reality
AR is the digital overlay of computer-generated content into users’ direct field of vision, thus creating
the illusion of virtual and real objects coexisting in the same space (tom Dieck & Jung, 2015).
Consequently, AR not only enhances the real environment, but also users’ cognitive capability toward
their surroundings in real time, as shown in Figure 1 (Bujak et al., 2013).
Insert Figure 1 about here
The nature of AR allows tourists to immerse themselves in a virtually enhanced real environment (Di
Serio et al., 2013). According to Pine and Gilmore (1998, p. 31), immersion can be defined as
“becoming physically or virtually a part of the experience itself.” Pine and Gilmore (1998) furthermore
proposed the four realms of the experience economy, which are entertainment, education, aesthetics
and escapism. In the present study, we were particularly interested in aesthetic experiences, which
have been defined as being “indulged in environments” (Oh et al., 2007, p. 121) and features
consumers’ passive participation and immersion. Taking these definitions into account, tourists who
use the AR application at cultural heritage tourism sites only passively participate in activities that do
not directly affect or influence the performance while being immersed in the experience. In particular,
aesthetics play an important role in application-based AR applications (Wang et al., 2012) as
smartphones have physical constraints (e.g., smaller displays with lower resolution than traditional
devices) (Sadeh, 2003). Thus, it is important to design mobile applications by taking into account
smartphone capabilities to ensure that information and content is delivered accurately and clearly (Lee
& Chung, 2009).
This study also focused on both the hedonic and utilitarian features of AR using Deci’s (1975)
motivational theory. Motivational theory proposes that user adoption of a service or product should be
effected and explained by extrinsic and intrinsic motivations (Deci, 1975). Within information
technology usage, according to Deci and Ryan (1987), extrinsic motivations are concerned with the
drive of the utilitarian purpose, such as receiving rewards or benefits and rationally analyzing functions.
On the other hand, intrinsic motivations relate to the drive of hedonic purposes, including the
expectation of pleasure, satisfaction and overall delight (Vallerand, 1997; Van der Heijden, 2004).
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Perceived usefulness, ease of use and enjoyment are among the principal constructs of technology
acceptance studies to predict users’ attitudes and behavioral intentions (Davis, 1989; Kim et al., 2009;
Van der Heijden, 2004). While perceived usefulness and ease of use focus on extrinsic motivation,
perceived enjoyment is related to intrinsic motivation (Ayeh et al., 2013; Van der Heijden, 2004).
Numerous studies have investigated the relationship between perceived attributes of AR, attitudes and
behavioral intentions. However, most have considered only the utilitarian components of AR, such as
perceived usefulness and ease of use (e.g., Vlahakis et al., 2001); only a few attempts have been made
to investigate the hedonic components of AR. Therefore, the present study investigated extrinsic and
intrinsic motivations and their influence on the behavioral intention to use AR in cultural heritage
tourism sites.
Cultural Differences
In tourism research, cross-cultural differences have been perceived as significant because tourists’
cultural background is related to the experience they seek. Thus, investigating cultural differences
among tourists is regarded as the basis for any successful marketing strategy (Landauer et al., 2013).
The tourism industry, combined with IT, is becoming more and more international (Li, 2012) and
facing an increasing number of inbound tourists from different cultures (Tsang & Ap, 2007).
According to Lee (2013), cultural differences are often considered a barrier to technology transfer and
Harris et al. (2005) supported the idea that information system acceptance is largely influenced by
culture. In particular, AR is strongly affected by culture-level phenomena because it features
interactions and operates as part of a network and, therefore, a cross-cultural approach on IT
acceptance is required and necessary (Di Serio et al., 2013; Harris et al., 2005). This study drew on
Hofstede’s (1980) cultural dimensions to explore the influence of cultural differences on AR
acceptance in Ireland and South Korea. Hofstede (1980) defined culture as “the collective
programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one human group from another” (p.
260). Furthermore, Hofstede (1980) suggested the four cultural dimensions (long-term orientation was
subsequently added by Hofstede and Bond, 1988) through which countries are comparable:
masculinity/femininity; power distance; individualism/collectivism; and uncertainty avoidance.
Definitions of these dimensions are displayed in Table 1.
As discussed previously and presented in Table 1, South Korean culture has characteristics of
femininity, high power distance, collectivism and high uncertainty avoidance while Ireland culture has
masculinity, low power distance, individualism and low uncertainty avoidance. South Korea and
Ireland have high smartphone penetration rates, ranking second (73.0%) and eleventh (57.0%),
respectively worldwide (Richter, 2013). In addition, both countries have launched AR applications in
cultural heritage tourism sites. In South Korea, AR applications have been developed for cultural
heritage sites by government organizations, such as the Korea Tourism Organization, the Ministry of
Science, ICT and Future Planning, and the Culture Heritage Administration. Deoksugung Palace, one
of the royal palaces in Korea, launched a mobile application called “Deoksugung, in my hands,” which
contains 1,634 items such as pictures, videos and 3D images related to the palace and nearby points of
interest through AR (http://visitkorea.or.kr). In Ireland, the “Dublin AR” application, which contains
text, pictures and video, was developed for the An Post Museum, one of the historic buildings along
Dublin’s independence trail. The project was initiated to create awareness and enhance the tourist
experience in the context of Dublin’s historical heritage (tom Dieck & Jung, 2015).
Insert Table 1 about here
