How do tourists perceive digitized hotel reservations? Theories of behavioral reasoning and innovation resistance with UTAUT2

Hoteliers and crypto businesses use nonfungible tokens (NFTs) to create digitized hotel reservations to help hotels increase their occupancy rates and reduce their dependence on intermediaries. Although NFTs have considerable potential, research on such assets in the hospitality industry is limited. By integrating behavioral reasoning theory, innovation resistance theory, and UTAUT2, this study examines the factors that can affect tourists’ intention to adopt digitized hotel reservations in a developing country (i.e., Vietnam) and a developed country (i.e., South Korea). This study conducts partial least squares structural equation modeling and multigroup analysis to evaluate the research framework and compare tourists from the two countries (Vietnam and Korea). Findings reveal that the functional benefits of digitized hotel reservations constitute the main factors that can influence the intention of the Vietnamese tourists, whereas psychological benefits mainly drive the intention of the Korean tourists.