How Are Travel E-Commerce Platforms Becoming Sustainable? A Discrete Choice Experiment Based on the Technology Acceptance Preferences of Elderly Tourists

Liwen Xia and Mengyuan Qiu ()
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Liwen Xia: College of Economics and Management, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing 210018, China
Mengyuan Qiu: College of Economics and Management, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing 210018, China

Sustainability, 2025, vol. 17, issue 4, 1-22

Abstract: The technology acceptance preferences of elderly tourists is one of the important factors influencing their continuous use of tourism e-commerce platforms and promoting the sustainable development of tourism e-commerce platforms. The current tourism market continues to expand within the elderly population. Further, the internet has become the primary channel for tourists’ online consumption in the digital age. This study aims to explore the technology acceptance preferences of elderly tourists for tourism e-commerce platforms, considering active aging and its influence by constructing two adaptation to aging scenarios for tourism e-commerce platforms composed of technology acceptance attributes. Using experimental data from 94 elderly tourists in Nanjing, a mixed logit regression analysis was conducted to explore the characteristics and personalized differences in the respondents’ technology acceptance preferences while using tourism e-commerce platforms. The study found that information access, information understanding, information protection policy and privacy protection technology have a significant positive impact on the consumption preference of elderly tourists. Among them, in the scenario without adaptation to aging, the order of the variables which influence the consumption preferences of elderly tourists online is information access, privacy protection policy, information understanding and privacy protection technology, which reflects the current demand of elderly tourists for easy access to effective information and strong privacy protection. In the context of adaptation to aging, the order is privacy protection policy, information understanding, information access and privacy protection technology, which shows that in the context of improved information access and understanding, elderly people pay more attention to the privacy protection provided by the platform. Moreover, there is individual heterogeneity in elderly tourists’ preferences for the technology acceptance of tourism e-commerce platforms. With the aging population and the digital processes, exploring the influencing factors of elderly tourists’ internet technology acceptance preferences is helpful in promoting the sustainable development of tourism e-commerce platforms in the era of active aging, bridging the digital divide and providing decision support for the practice of an active aging strategy.

Keywords: tourism e-commerce platform; technology acceptance preference; discrete choice experiments; sustainable development; elderly tourists (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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