Article Preview
TopIntroduction
Smartphones and their applications have invaded people’s life. Mobile banking, gaming, booking, shopping, are available through mobile applications (MAs), installed directly on users’ devices. Mobile food/restaurant guides, including the function of table booking, are part of tourist city guides, such as TripAdvisor or independent services, such as Just eat or Tablein. Nevertheless, independent services are often better known and used by local users rather than by tourists. Several studies have attempted to investigate technology acceptance in developed countries (Al-Otaibi, Aljohani, Hoque, & Alotaibi, 2018; Bansal, Zahedi, & Gefen, 2016; Belanche, Casaló, & Guinalíu, 2012; Davis, 1993; Venkatesh, Morris, Davis, & Davis, 2003). At the same time, the growth regarding the use of technology has aroused interest toward developing and emerging countries (Al-Otaibi et al., 2018; Li & Yeh, 2010).
The digitalization of people’s life brought issues to practitioners of all industries, including restaurant managers. The relationship between a restaurant and a client has been personal for long time. Word-of-mouth is one of the most powerful marketing tools to acquire new clients, to make and to keep them loyal (Balasubramanian & Mahajan, 2001; Trusov, Bucklin, & Pauwels, 2009). Today, the restaurant should use new technologies. One of the ways is to participate in the digital mobile restaurants’ guides, where the user can find information (menus and contacts details). In addition, restaurants can use social media tools to provide users with the capability to review, comment, rate, and book a table without personal contacts. MAs propose useful functionalities that can drastically influence the consumer’s choice, as they are considered as independent. The aim of this research is mainly (1) to identify the reasons why users could decide to use MAs and (2) to measure the cultural impact on users’ behavior. The study focusses on two popular MAs in France and Russia with similar functionalities and developed to cover the local users’ needs or expectations. Both countries were impacted by the recession in the restaurant industry. Affected by the decline linked to the terrorist attacks, the French restaurant industry showed a loss in turnover between 3% and 4.5% in 2015. Paris and the Côte d'Azur are the most affected areas. In quarterly economic reports, the “Groupement National des Indépendants de l’Hôtellerie” reported a decrease of around 4.5% in restaurateurs’ turnover in 2016, as well, with a stabilization beginning of 2017. By the end of 2014, the total Russian foodservice decreased by 8%. One of the main reasons was the weak consumer purchasing power of the population. With a falling economy and depreciation ruble, consumers rather preferred to save money. Moscow restaurateurs noticed a drop of average check by 20-25%. Midrange restaurants with average price at 2,000 rubles (€27) are the ones having the biggest drop in clientele, while lower cost restaurants (i.e., fast food) were reporting good sales (Rosstat, 2017). The number of restaurants in Paris and Moscow areas is quite similar, with 16,683 in Paris (Key figures, 2018) and 11,087 in Moscow (Rosstat, 2018).
The paper is organized as follows. The first section introduces a literature review on all the constructs of the research model. The second section illustrates the methodology the authors selected. Then, the third section presents and discusses the results. Finally, the last section includes the conclusion and future research.