A research to measure undergraduate students' intention to use smart restaurant applications

Technology continue to affect and change the tourism industry along with other industries. Digital technology is an important component in the tourism system and plays a key role in spreading information in the tourism industry. The digitalization process brought by technology offers many new opportunities that can be used by tourism businesses. In addition, this process changes the way we do our daily activities, as well as our tourism and travel behavior. With "smart cities", "smart classrooms", "smart homes" and "smart phones", people are rapidly turning towards a smarter world. This change also affects the food and beverage sector, which is under the umbrella of the tourism industry, and it is increasingly taking place in practice with the concept of "smart restaurant". Smart restaurant applications continue to evolve due to new technologies worldwide. For this reason, determining the opinions of customers about restaurants using smart applications is an important need for restaurants in the process of transformation into smart restaurants. The main purpose of the study is to evaluate and reveal customer views on smart restaurant applications. This study also aims to identify customer attitudes towards smart restaurant applications and their future use, and their intention to use them in the future, by combining Rogers's Diffusion of innovations Theory and Davis's Technology Acceptance Model. The questionnaire was applied to 286 gastronomy and culinary arts students. The data were analyzed using the SmartPLS 3.0 statistics program. According to the results of the research, while compatibility and observability have an effect on perceived and perceived ease of use, relative advantage is only effective on perceived usefulness. Perceived usefuless and perceived ease of use is affect on attitude towards use, attitude towards use also affects the intention to use in the future. Recommendations for smart restaurants are presented based on the research findings. Keywords: Smart restaurant applications, Diffusion of innovations Theory, Technology Acceptance Model, Intention to use