Doctoral Student Win Best Paper Award

Oklahoma State University’s School of Hotel and Restaurant Administration Professor Murat Hancer and Jin Young Im, doctoral student from Jeju, South Korea, received one of four Best Paper Awards at the 19th Annual Graduate Education & Graduate Student Research Conference in Hospitality and Tourism in Houston. The Technology Best Paper Award was presented by the Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology.

Hancer and Im gathered data from 210 respondents providing useful ideas for hospitality and tourism practitioners in developing and managing travel related mobile applications as communication and marketing channels to their targeted users. The resulting paper, Travelers’ attitude toward travel mobile applications: The role of utilitarian, hedonic motivation and self-identity, examined travelers’ motivations and self-identity in shaping attitudes toward the usage of travel related mobile applications.

“Results of this study indicate that the ease of the use is an important factor in building a favorable attitude both directly and indirectly in using travel mobile applications. It is important for marketing managers and travel-related application developers to devote more attention to making applications easier to use while overcoming the usability limitations of mobile devices.” Im said.

Held yearly, the Graduate Education & Graduate Student Research Conference in Hospitality and Tourism provides a forum for graduate program administrators, graduate faculty members and graduate and undergraduate students. It presents an opportunity to explore contemporary and future educational and research issues in graduate programs and exchange ideas and information on “state-of-the-art” graduate student research in hospitality and tourism.