Navigating the E-commerce journey: How tourism experience drives online shopping via third-party payments

Abstract

This study investigates the impact of tourism experiences on Chinese consumers’ online shopping practices using household-level data from the China Household Finance Survey. Amid rapid technological advancement and the expanding digital economy, understanding how consumption patterns evolve is crucial, particularly in developing economies promoting domestic tourism demand. The results provide the first empirical evidence demonstrating a significant positive effect of tourism experience on subsequent online shopping expenditure. This finding remains robust to potential endogeneity concerns addressed through the instrumental variable method and a series of robustness tests. Employing the Technology Acceptance Model, I further explore the mechanism, identifying third-party payment adoption as a key mediator. Notably, perceived security is a more critical determinant driving third-party payment adoption than perceived convenience. These results underscore the significant influence of tourism on stimulating online consumer activity within the digital ecosystem and highlight the pivotal importance of perceived security in facilitating payment method adoption in developing countries.