Development and validation of a formative scale of technological advancement in hotels from the guest perspective

Purpose The purpose of this paper is, first, to review the main conceptual proposals for the study of information and communication technologies (ICT) in tourism companies, and second, to develop and validate a formative scale for measuring the degree of technological advancement in hotels, based on the perceptions of a sample of Spanish hotel guests. Design/methodology/approach After a literature review on the measurement of technology advancement in tourism, a formative scale for ICT advancement in hotels from the guest perspective is developed and validated through a multiple-indicator, multiple-cause model estimated through partial least squares regression with data from 197 Spanish hotel guests. Findings Results of the empirical research allow validating the proposed formative scale for measuring technological advancement in hotels, identifying solutions that hotel guests mainly associate with highly technified establishments. Research limitations/implications The proposed and validated formative scale for measuring the degree of technological advancement of hotels is expected to enable the proposal of models where the relations between central variables in consumer behaviour research (e.g. value) and their dependent variables (e.g. satisfaction) may be influenced by guests’ perception of hotel technology. Originality/value This paper presents an initial attempt to develop a scale for measuring the degree of technological advancement of tourism companies, a topic that has received scant attention in acad`emic research in spite of the importance of technology in this industry.