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Role of location-based mobile apps in city

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Suzan Girginkaya Akdağ & Ahu Ergen

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JOURNAL OF LOCATION BASED SERVICES
https://doi.org/10.1080/17489725.2020.1788184

Role of location-based mobile apps in city marketing:

Beşiktaş as a student-friendly district
a b
Suzan Girginkaya Akdağ and Ahu Ergen
a
Faculty of Architecture and Design, Bahcesehir Universitesi, İstanbul, Turkey; bVocational School,
Bahcesehir Universitesi, İstanbul, Turkey

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

In the age of globalisation and high competition among Received 19 December 2019
destinations, cities are empowered with new marketing Accepted 12 June 2020
tools to attract new residents and visitors while keeping KEYWORDS
their existing communities satisfied. Therefore, the main City marketing; location-
objective of the paper is to understand the role of location- based services; location-
based mobile applications among university students, who based mobile apps; student-
as members of the wired generation tend to use technology friendly districts
more than older generations. The secondary objective is to
explore the most preferred location-based apps with their
benefits and how they are used by the students to link
themselves to the city and its services. Two focus groups
are conducted with university students in Besiktas, which is
claimed to be one of the most student-friendly environments
in Istanbul. The findings reveal students’ preferences and
reasoning for the use of location-based mobile apps. Apart
from their satisfaction with the diversity of shopping, way­
finding, and geosocial networking apps, their concerns for
digital privacy and personal data protection have become
apparent. Further research is recommended for understand­
ing the satisfaction and expectations of different user seg­
ments in the city since their evaluations might contribute to
further develop and improve location-based services, and
promote the city in the local and global markets.

1. Introduction
For centuries, cities have enabled a mix of public and private services, such as
transportation, healthcare, public safety, and social services, designed to
enhance the quality of life for their residents and visitors. In the competitive
and global economy of the 21st century, similar to countries, cities also compete
with each other to attract tourists, business people, investors, students, artists,
organisations and investments (Altınbaşak and Yalçın 2010, 242). As
a communication strategy, national, regional, and local agencies have adopted
ICT, e-governance, web-media, and social media to meet the increasing demand
for services in the cities. Such next-generation technologies have become

CONTACT Suzan Girginkaya Akdağ suzan.girginkayaakdag@arc.bau.edu.tr

© 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 S. GIRGINKAYA AKDAĞ AND A. ERGEN

essential tools for disseminating information rapidly, broadening transparency,

engaging the community, improving public perceptions, expanding outreach to
new audiences, and enhancing public safety, etc. The combination of mobile
devices and new media applications thus has enabled their users’ instant access
to integrated data and location-based services from any place at any time. As
the two-way communication between the city and its residents have shifted to
the digital medium, cities have been turned to service platforms. With this
approach, determining the identity of a city, branding it by creating value and
promoting it to the target market, has become a primary objective for the cities
in competition. The concept of marketing has gained increasing importance in
city planning and development strategies led by local authorities and national
governments.
Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating,
communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for cus­
tomers, clients, partners, and society at large (AMA 2017). Today, the concept of
marketing is broadened to cover products, services, people, events, information,
experiences, and also destinations like regions, countries, villages, and cities.
City marketing involves all activities for finding out the potentials of a city and
revealing a hyper-real image of it to attract the citizens’ and foreigners’ (Deffner
and Liouris 2005, 3). One of the milestones of modern marketing is its consumer-
oriented approach, which focuses on the customers’ interests, needs, and
satisfaction as the key to attaining long-run profitable volumes (Kotler 1972,
54). Similarly, in city marketing, target groups’ experiences, emotions, and the
physical, symbolic, or other elements that they evaluate to make their assess­
ment of the city should be considered (Kavaratzis 2004, 507–508). With the help
of marketing tools, city managers can create a competitive advantage and
position the city better than its competitors. Among these marketing tools are
mobile applications, which can be tailored to any city and/or destination.
In Turkey, the number of mobile phone subscriptions increased significantly
in 2019, reaching 82.9 million. In 2025, 13% of mobile internet users in Turkey
are expected to use a 5 G connection (STATISTA 2020). The global mobile
application market growth is predicted to exceed 189 billion USD in 2020,
while consumers are expected to download 352 billion mobile applications by
2021 (Marketing Turkiye 2018). All statistics reveal the indispensability of mobile
devices, which enable users to communicate from any place at any time, as
extensions for daily use. With the rise of new digital technologies, people’s
interaction with cities has also altered. Physical presence is being transformed
into the virtual world, and the relationship between people and the place has
started to change due to mobility, interactivity, and temporality (Masso et al.
2019). Therefore, the new mobile media, the new type of interactions between
oneself and a place, and the city services provided via location-based technol­
ogy have become current topics for city marketing. While mobile apps are
receiving more extensive attention, understanding customer preferences has
 JOURNAL OF LOCATION BASED SERVICES 3

become a necessity. Besides technical issues, non-technical issues that make

these services more acceptable by the users, need to be explored (Huang et al.
2018). To introduce new services successfully, city managers should learn from
how different user types communicate, the platforms that they use and the
manner of use, and accordingly adapt their services to achieve a match between
different users and their preferences. Hence, a user-typology approach, which
can learn from customer segmentation studies (Bunn 1993) is recommended for
the general identification of media-user profiles (Brandtzaeg 2010).
This qualitative research aims to explore the role of location-based mobile
applications among university students in a student-friendly city. The paper is
structured as follows. After the introduction, the literature review provides
various definitions of city marketing and location-based mobile apps based on
academic publications and elaborates on its different dimensions. The metho­
dology describes the data collection process and the participants. Then the
findings are presented, followed by the conclusion that provides a summary of
the relevant findings, limitations of the research, and future research directions.

2. Literature review
2.1. City marketing

Traditionally, the cities evolved as places of commerce and trade, and as centres
of religious, military, cultural and political power. However, today they need to
build their own images unless they possess their historical heritage (Hallin 2009,
296). To build this image, the city needs to be professionally promoted.
According to Moreira and Silva (2012, 150), city marketing has initially been
used by Kotler, Haider, and Rein (1993a) in ‘Marketing Places – Attracting
Investment, Industry and Tourism Cities, States and Nations’. Ashworth and
Voogd (1990) define city marketing as the activities conducted parallel to the
needs and demands of the target groups, to reach specific goals and maximise
social and economic benefits of the city. Megri and Bencherif (2014, 146) state
that city marketing requires the definition of the needs and demands of the
target groups in the city, the creation of the city’s strategy as a product, and the
implementation of the marketing programme by creating value and the final
measurement of the results.
A city may compete with others in several areas, such as visibility, invest­
ability, liveability, and sustainability. To compete successfully, cities must think
more like companies and use the management tools that companies use. Cities
with characteristics of strong brands such as New York, Paris, Amsterdam, and
San Francisco have marketed their history, places, lifestyles, cultures, and diver­
sity together with all stakeholders following marketing principles. Zhang and
Zhao (2009) indicate that in the success of the city marketing lays the consensus
of city managers and citizens about city identity and core values of the city. City
4 S. GIRGINKAYA AKDAĞ AND A. ERGEN

marketing evaluates the city as a product and involves marketing activities that
create the planned image in the minds of the target groups. Thus, city market­
ing plays a vital role in building a bridge between a city’s potential and using
this potential on behalf of the citizens of the city (Deffner and Liouris 2005).
Kotler, Haider, and Rein (1993b) state that the city managers who want to
control the future of the cities must answer these questions: ‘Why shall people
prefer to live in this city? Why shall they visit or invest in this city?’. From
a broader perspective, ‘What are the benefits of this city that create competitive
advantage and can not be found in other cities.’ These questions that seem
simple but hard to answer, play a critical role in preparing plans for city market­
ing. Kavaratzis (2004) asserts that city marketing is realised by the touchpoints,
perceptions, and images between the cities and the people, mostly relying on
building the image of the city, managing, and communicating it. He describes
three types of city communication that form the expressions of a place: (1) The
primary communication, which promotes the architecture and real place offer­
ings, (2) The secondary communication, which addresses the formal commu­
nication through official channels (3) The tertiary communication, which refers
to the word-of-mouth details. Enabling each form of communication, today
mobile apps are among the most popular marketing tools for city marketers,
especially targeting young generations.

2.2. Use of location-based mobile apps in city marketing

Today technology is highly employed by many destinations to engage and
encourage tourists to visit their attractions since travelling is increasingly
more about experiences, fulfilment, and rejuvenation than about places and
things (King 2002; Cavia and Lopez 2013, 101). Internet, virtual reality, and social
media influence users’ behavioural intentions to visit a destination and their
emotional involvement with it. Therefore, city marketers, seek to develop effec­
tive technology-based marketing strategies that address the pre-visit, on-site,
and post-visit phases of the visitors’ journey. (Marasco et al. 2018). The increase
in the use of smartphones has also made mobile applications market one of the
fastest-growing media outlets in the history of consumer technology (Newark-
French 2011). This growth has shown its effects on city marketing. According to
Chudalla and Pousttchi (2009), mobile city marketing is ‘any marketing activity in
a city which involves the transmission of data via mobile communication techni­
ques in conjunction with mobile devices to increase the allurement of the city for
different target groups’. City marketing requires a sophisticated approach and
thinking in the categories of diverse target groups, which consist of prospective
and current consumers of the city and other stakeholders. The expected effect
of marketing communication is to make people choose the city as a place
appropriate for living, work, investment, tourism, and recreation (Moilanen
and Rainisto 2009, 19). In this sense, mobile applications that can be adapted
 JOURNAL OF LOCATION BASED SERVICES 5

for serving anytime, anywhere, for anyone and anything, has become one of the
most influential tools for city marketing communications. City management
agencies seek out alternative mobile apps to deliver services and communicate
with citizens more effectively. Weiss (2013, 436) states that the popularity of
news and location-based apps is growing, especially among young adults. The
combination of location and news services might enable a more contextual user
experience and make searching for local news much easier for this younger
demography. The same may be valid for locative applications in cities.
Therefore, displaying the available city services and providing immediate
information with different target groups’ interests, mobile apps carry a high
potential for city marketers. According to TripAdvisor reports, 60% of smart­
phone users have downloaded travel apps, and of those individuals, 45% plan to
use the apps for travel planning and research. Furthermore, 55% of travel apps
are purchased within three days of travel or while travellers are at the destina­
tion. This demonstrates the importance of mobile apps in influencing en route
decision-making (Mickaiel 2011). Hence, they advance the travel experience in
each of the five stages of the travel described by Google (2011) as dreaming,
planning, booking, experiencing, and sharing.
Among mobile technology trends, the most important achievement is con­
sidered to be the ability to identify the exact geographical location of a mobile
user at any time (Giaglis, Kourouthanassis, and Tsamakos 2003, 64). This ability
opens the door to a new world of innovative services, which are commonly
referred to as mobile location services. They employ various technologies,
including GPS, cell phone infrastructure, or wireless access points, to identify
where electronic devices such as mobile phones or laptops are, and users can
choose to share that information with location-aware applications. Location-
aware applications deliver online content to users based on their physical
location (Raper et al. 2007). He also points out the most common use of
location-based service applications as ‘mobile guides which can be defined as
portable, location-sensitive, and information-rich digital guides to the user’s
surroundings. de Lange (2010, 145) adds to this definition by referring to various
uses of current location-based technologies for (i) navigation and orientation in
wayfinding; (ii) measuring and visualising what is otherwise not visible; (iii)
annotating physical locations with digital information; (iv) organising social
interactions and (v) pervasive games.
Previous research (Rakkolainen and Vainio 2001) has shown that search and
visualisation of location-based information of a city become more intuitive with
life-like 3D. The users recognise landmarks and find the route in cities easier with
the 3D model than with a symbolic 2D map. The integration of location-aware
features to current mobile services has enabled context-aware services in var­
ious fields such as travel and tourist information, shopping, entertainment,
event information, and different mobile professions (Kaasinen 2003). The main
categories of mobile location service applications are; emergency services,
6 S. GIRGINKAYA AKDAĞ AND A. ERGEN

navigation services, information services, advertising services, tracking services,

and billing services (Giaglis, Kourouthanassis, and Tsamakos 2003). In the future,
location-based services are expected to bring smartness to cities via new hybrid
location tracking technologies that can accurately track individuals both in
indoor and outdoor environments (W-Locate 2015).
Similar scenarios for future use of location-based mobile apps offer chal­
lenges and opportunities to city marketers. For efficient marketing strategies,
market research requires the selection of the target group and understanding
how to communicate with them. Thus, this article targets the young and
sophisticated population of university students living in Besiktas. The district is
particularly selected as it one of the most sophisticated urban settlements in
Turkey, in terms of education and cultural awareness levels among its residents.
University graduates comprise 34% of the population, which is the highest rate
of Turkey (REIDIN-SED 2017). With several high-ranking primary and high
schools, nine governmental universities, and five private universities Besiktas
is also among the most leading educational centres in Istanbul. Owing to this
young and multicultural community, Beşiktaş has a dense environment with
several types of stores, restaurants, and coffee shops. These are social gathering
points for young as well as those who wish to sense this lively atmosphere.
Beşiktaş’s current registered population is approximately 190.000. Owing to
daily user groups, including visitors, tourists, students, business people, and ex-
pats, it reaches nearly 2 million people in a day (Beşiktaş Municipality 2019).
Beşiktaş has been selected as the best district in terms of the economic situation
and education categories according to the ‘Human Development Index –
Districts’ research (INGEV-Human Development Foundation 2017). Besiktas is
well-known for its active social life and characteristic architecture, which makes
it a cultural and urban tourist destination at the local and global scale (Figure 1).

3. Methodology
Today, the use of location-based mobile apps among students, especially social
media, is known to become an addiction with increasing amounts of time and

Figure 1. Beşiktaş and its student-friendly atmosphere.

 JOURNAL OF LOCATION BASED SERVICES 7

limitless possibilities of reaching and sharing content (Baz, 2018, 279; Kuss and
Griffiths 2011, 3528). Understanding their expectations and satisfaction with
location-based mobile apps might support the city managers and the applica­
tion developers in offering user-friendly apps and promote the city to students
more efficiently.
This article aims to understand the role of location-based mobile applications
among university students. Two focus groups were conducted in July 2018 of
architecture and design students of a private university in Beşiktaş. The main
reason for choosing these students as focus group participants was their inter­
est in environmental-behaviour research and their capability to increase group
interaction, which was observed by one of the researchers. Throughout focus
groups, the following research questions were mainly sought to be answered:

● What kind of location-based mobile apps do university students use on

their phones? What are their reasons to prefer them? Why?
● What are their attitudes towards location-based mobile apps?
● Which activities are carried out using location-based mobile apps?

Focus groups were held with both groups between 8–12 am in a comfortable
atmosphere to generate new ideas, get their insights, and try to understand
their attitudes (Islamoglu and Alniacik 2016, 226). A focus group is a valuable
technique for deriving unexpected findings from a free-flowing group discus­
sion (Malhotra 2010, 173). Wilkinson (1998) states that focus group methodol­
ogy is flexible, user-friendly, and fun to work with; however, it is demanding.
Participants are usually asked to participate in focus groups to discuss common
topics, such as a lifestyle circumstance or condition (Parker and Tritter 2006,
24–25). The voluntary collaboration of students was solicited to conduct the
focus groups. The participants were invited by their lecturer from architecture
and design faculty, in compliance with their class schedules and divided into
two groups. They were invited as active users of mobile applications to the focus
groups. The first group consisted of 8 students and the second group of 7. The
main reason for choosing these students as focus group participants was their
educational background and personal interest in environmental-behaviour
research. Due to the exploratory nature of this research, convenience sampling
was used to ensure the collation of a wide diversity of values, attitudes, and
preferences. Convenience sampling also enabled the participation of students,
who were often readily and easily available (Taherdoost 2016).
During both focus groups, a discussion guide was used by the moderator. It
was a pre-prepared list of topics or actual questions used by a moderator to
guide the group discussion (Hennink 2013, 48). The focus groups were con­
ducted by two researchers from marketing and architecture disciplines. One
researcher was the moderator, while the other one took notes as recommended
to conduct focus groups with two researchers (Guler, Halicioglu, and Tasgin
8 S. GIRGINKAYA AKDAĞ AND A. ERGEN

2013, 127). In focus group interviews, the researcher adopted an ‘investigative’

role: asking questions, controlling the dynamics of group discussion, often
engaging in dialogue with specific participants (Parker and Tritter 2006, 24–25).
Compared to quantitative research, where numbers and what they stand for
are the units of analysis, qualitative research uses words as the units of analysis.
It is guided by fewer universal rules and standard procedures. The reason for
qualitative research is to examine and interpret meaningful patterns that
emerge out of the data. The relevance of patterns and themes is to be deter­
mined by the research question at hand (Malhotra 2010, 196). Hennink (2013,
140–141) states that focus group results can be structured by research questions
or topics that frame data collection and can become a useful structure for
presenting results. Thus, the findings were analysed and structured according
to the research questions by both researchers. Instead of coding the data, the
researchers focused on the content of what participants had indicated and
categorised them under topics relevant to the research objectives.

4. Findings and discussion

The demographics of focus group participants are shown in Table 1. To protect
their privacy, the names of the students are not revealed. Instead, each student
is coded, starting with P as the capital letter of ‘participant.’ The majority of the
participants study in Beşiktaş and live in its districts. Among them, only one
student, P11, states that she has been living in Beşiktaş since she was born. Nine

Table 1. Focus group participants’ demographics and preference for opening location-aware
services.
Accommodation
Participant District in Are location services open on your mobile
Code Gender Grade Hometown Istanbul phone?
P1 Male 2 Tuzla Şişli YES
Find My iPhone app is active.
P2 Male 2 Bursa Etiler YES
P3 Male 2 Marmaris Nişantaşı YES
P4 Female 2 İstanbul Beylerbeyi NEVER. Disturbing
P5 Female 2 Antalya Mecidiyeköy YES
P6 Female 2 Antakya Beşiktaş YES
P7 Female 3 İstanbul Cihangir NO
I find reliability important. I do not use
a microphone or camera. The user
agreement is vital
P8 Female 4 Antep Ataşehir GPS location tracking is open
P9 Female 2 Bakü Kağıthane YES
P10 Female 2 Adana Ortaköy WHEN ESSENTIAL
I open GPS tracking to feel secure during taxi
drives. Hence someone can keep track of me
for a while.
P11 Female 2 İstanbul Etiler YES
P12 Female 3 İstanbul Ataşehir YES
P13 Male 2 İstanbul Beykoz YES
P14 Male 2 Malatya Teşvikiye NEVER
P15 Male 3 Antalya Şişli-Bomonti YES
 JOURNAL OF LOCATION BASED SERVICES 9

of the students’ hometowns are cities other than Istanbul. Thus, it can be said
that the majority of participants are new in the Beşiktaş region.
While the primary application domains of mobile applications are expanding,
previous research by Huang et al. (2018) grouped them as location-based social
networks, location-based gaming, location-based monitoring and healthcare,
transport, education and entertainment (music and arts) apps with an emphasis
on specific fields such as disaster and emergency, citizens’ involvement, insur­
ance and, billing. Farrelly (2017), utilised another categorisation including art,
commerce and marketing, coordination, communication and safety, fitness,
geosocial networking, health and disability, hyperlocal information, location-
based games, personal efficiency and organisation, place discovery, social
recommendation and navigation, wayfinding and transportation. Based on
both approaches, given in Table 2, are the descriptions of the most preferred
location-based apps by focus group participants in Istanbul, Beşiktaş.
According to focus group interviews, wayfinding and transportation apps
turn out to be the most popular location-based services in Beşiktaş, Istanbul.
They are portable, location-aware, and information-rich digital guides to the
users’ surroundings, such as; mobile search for ‘you are here’ maps, tour guides
for tourism and recreational purpose, navigation systems for car drivers and
pedestrians (Huang et al. 2018). Among a variety of options for Beşiktaş, İBB
YolGösteren app is found to be the leading transport app owing to live occu­
pancy information of parking lots and navigation routes to these parking lots.
Following that are Google Maps, Yandex.Maps, and Moovit for driver assistance.
According to P8, ‘For unfamiliar places, Google and Google maps offer more
trustworthy and fast-track solutions. Although the Yandex.Maps app is much easier
to use; it has locationing problems’. They are followed by Bitaksi, which fits in the
shopping category, as a mobile app for taxi booking. This finding reveals the
influence of heavy traffic on the daily lives of participants, even though most are
residing in close districts to the university. The importance of live traffic infor­
mation for vehicle and passenger management has become even more appar­
ent. Therefore, marketing strategies of major cities and metropolitan areas need
to place great emphasis on smart transportation systems, such as local İBB
Traffic and Ferry lines apps, which provide instant traffic and vehicle information
in Istanbul, and their communication to different user groups. Most wayfinding
and transportation apps own high publicity and popularity due to frequent
advertising on media and high visibility on Apple Store. However, despite
residing in Beşiktaş, most participants do not have an idea about the official
Besiktas Municipality Application. According to P14, ‘Their popularity among my
friends and their commercials outdoors, such as the visual media on buses, attract
my attention.’ Indeed, some participants acknowledge that they prefer asking
other people about a location before using a related app. A participant says,
‘When I run out of my internet quota, offline Yandex maps help me. Otherwise,
I prefer asking taxi drivers’. Another participant also highlights the expectancy of
 10

Table 2. Location-based mobile applications used by the participants.

Number of Participants
Application Category, Description and Web Address Using the App
İBB YolGosteren (Istanbul Metropolitan GPS, Navigation & Traffic 14
Municipality Route Guide) A route guide that aids users to reach their destinations as soon as possible by following the routes created by using live
traffic information in all cities in the Marmara Region, especially in Istanbul.
https://uym.ibb.gov.tr/ibbyolgosteren/
Google Maps GPS, City Navigation & Traffic 14
A mapping service with satellite imagery, aerial photography, street maps, 360° panoramic views of streets. Users can
seek places, their locations, and trails, live traffic, and specific lanes such as bicycle-friendly roads.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/google-maps-transit-food/id585027354
Yandex.Maps GPS, City Navigation & Traffic 10
Users can search for addresses or the best places nearby even when offline. They can get detailed information on
organisations and routes there on foot, by car, by bicycle or on public transport along with current traffic jam
information.
S. GIRGINKAYA AKDAĞ AND A. ERGEN

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/yandex-maps/id313877526
Sehir Hatlari (Ferry Lines) GPS, Navigation & Traffic 7
Users are notified about ferry lines in terms of timetables, route information as well as cancellation services. by sharing
instant information.
https://apps.apple.com/tr/app/%C5%9Fehir-hatlar%C4%B1/id783673371
Moovit GPS, Navigation & Traffic 4
Users get directions and find how to get to any place with public transit. They can check bus arrival times, maps, service
alerts, and train schedules for cities
https://moovitapp.com/
BiTaksi (Call A Cap) Commerce & Marketing 13
Users can hail and view locations of cars for hire based on their location. After ordering a car, users can track their location,
pay for their service, and rate the driver.
http://www.bitaksi.com/en/
Yemek Sepeti (Food Basket) Commerce & Marketing 12
Users can order food online from more than 20 thousand restaurants in 69 cities in Turkey.
https://apps.apple.com/tr/app/yemeksepeti/id373034841
Getir (Deliver) Instant Delivery 12
A mobile retailer that delivers more than a thousand everyday items and hot meals instantly.
https://apps.apple.com/tr/app/getir/id995280265
(Continued)
Table 2. (Continued).
Number of Participants
Application Category, Description and Web Address Using the App
Retail Shopping (Morhipo, Trendyol, etc.) Commerce & Marketing 10
Users can view high discount campaigns of various products and brands ranging from clothing to decoration, from
electronics to cosmetics, from children’s products to sports equipment, and buy them with secure methods.
https://apps.apple.com/tr/app/morhipo/id518659790
Retail shopping Specific brands Commerce & Marketing 10
(Zara, H&M, etc.) Displays the latest trends in clothing for women, men & kids online. Users may find new arrivals, fashion catalogues,
collections, look books every week.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/zara/id547951480
Zingat Commerce & Marketing 3
Real estate information and marketing platform for investors, homeowners, buyers, and renters.
https://www.zingat.com/
Instagram Geosocial Networking, Photo & Video Sharing 15
Users can upload, perform image altering, and view georeferenced photos.
https://www.instagram.com
Zomato Geosocial Networking 15
Users can search for and discover restaurants to eat out or order in from.
https://apps.apple.com/in/app/zomato-food-restaurants/id434613896
Facebook Geosocial Networking, Photo & Video Sharing 10
A social networking service where users can check into a location, post a status update or photograph of a location with
geotags, click on location information links, provide commentary on location description pages, and comment on
friends’ check-ins or place-related content.
https://www.facebook.com
Snapchat Geosocial Networking, Photo & Video Sharing 10
A fun way to share the moment with friends via a photo with a caption or fun effects.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/snapchat/id447188370
Twitter Hyperlocal Information (News & Magazines) 9
Users can view or write short news or commentary about a location or event or search for items within a specified
proximal distance or by location-related hashtags.
https://twitter.com/
Find My iPhone Coordination, Communication, & Safety 13
JOURNAL OF LOCATION BASED SERVICES

Users can track their iOS device to find it and protect their data.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/find-my-iphone/id376101648
(Continued)
11
 12

Table 2. (Continued).
Number of Participants
Application Category, Description and Web Address Using the App
Kafa Topu Real-time Gaming 4
(Head Ball) An online soccer game where users create their avatars and teams by inviting their Facebook friends.
https://apps.apple.com/tr/app/kafa-topu-2/id1193933380?l=tr
S. GIRGINKAYA AKDAĞ AND A. ERGEN

TripAdvisor Travel & Place Discovery 5

A travel planning tool, which enables users to discover hotels, restaurants, tours, and attractions and view them on a map,
compare their selections, get recommendations and reviews from travellers and local experts.
https://www.tripadvisor.com/
Spotify Entertainment 9
Users can search for any track, artist or album and listen for free. They can make and share playlists.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/spotify-get-music-and-podcasts/id324684580
BAU app Education 3
BAU students can easily access their personal information and university services.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bau-app/id1465708446
None Art 0
None Fitness 0
 JOURNAL OF LOCATION BASED SERVICES 13

young people for more fun, friendly, and social apps. ‘The more formal a mobile
app appears, the less likely it is to be used by young people.’ Yandex, Google, and
İBB (Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality) apps are perceived to be ‘serious’ when
compared to other applications that enable ‘adding friends.’ Social networking
and word-of-mouth marketing (WOMM), which have become new vehicles for
city marketing (Zhou and Wang 2014), also appear as drivers for adopting
location-based mobile apps to improve city experience.
However, there seem to exist some paradoxes in critiques of young partici­
pants who are intimate with the Internet and digital technologies. One com­
ments: “I like being a flaneur in the city. Apps are my last choice for experiencing
the city. I have realised Art Noveau balconies, facades, and ornaments in Taksim
and even Kamondo stairs by getting lost in the streets. He says, ‘If Yandex did not
exist, I could find new ways for orienting myself in the city.’ Another participant
remarks, ‘I use apps for recording my experiences.’ It is quite contradictory when
this statement comes from a male participant, but not from the female group
who are likely to be much cautious for downloading apps and allowing access
to their locations (Table 1). However, access to mobile phone signals via
Coordination, Communication and Safety apps such as ‘Find my iPhone’,
enables sharing location data with others when the user is in danger or he/
she is following the track of a lost device. Such diversity in findings reveals the
need for a more in-depth analysis of user preferences and reasoning for mobile
app use, which may then become essential guides for further city marketing
research on mobile technologies and location-based services.
The second major category for favourite apps appears to be shopping,
including shopping and instant delivery services such as BiTaksi (Call A Cab),
Yemeksepeti (Food Basket), Getir (Deliver) together with retail shopping such as
Morhipo, Zara, Beymen and H&M, etc. Students can order whatever they need to
the campus or their accommodations at any time of the day. They can also
follow the availability of products in nearby shops. The real estate platform,
Zingat, has also become quite handy for students who are searching for rental
houses in Beşiktaş district. Although participants blame such shopping apps for
increasing their laziness and isolation, all perceive them as indispensable tools
for the supply of required products at reasonable prices and management of
their limited time outside the campus.
The third category appears to be the geosocial networking apps, which allow
their users to share information and connect with friends, explore places and
events in the real world, and receive location-based advertisements. Instagram
appears as the leading, and it is followed by Zomato, Facebook, Snapchat, and
Twitter. P3, like most other participants, outlined: ‘Instagram is the most favourite
since it is aesthetic. Besides photo and video sharing, special queries on tags and
places or themes, including travel, food, architecture, Tv&movies etc.are appealing to
me. Instagram directs its users towards the city. I search culture and arts in Beşiktaş on
Instagram. What is happening in Istanbul? The open hours of facilities, the music style,
14 S. GIRGINKAYA AKDAĞ AND A. ERGEN

etc. Instagram has a wider reach; it is difficult to find people on Snapchat. Instagram
allows for direct links and hashtag integration. Instagram stories are of higher quality
than those on Snap, and lastly, Instagram can provide more in-depth information to
advertisers and marketers. Snapchat is limited when compared to Instagram’. P10
states that: ‘I search for Cihangir pub experiences via stories on Snapchat. Zomato is
for café/bar experiences’. P7 says, ‘When I want to go to a new cafe in my break time,
I read comments of 5–6 people from Zomato’. However, P15 states that for such
a recommendation, he prefers asking his friends. He says, ‘I do not like applications.
There is always advertising inside. Therefore, I quit using Facebook and Swarm’.
A real-time gaming app for soccer is also recalled to be very fun by a few male
students, while gaming is not available among female participants.
The least favoured apps among participants belong to the education cate­
gory. The official mobile app of the university has been downloaded by the
most; however, it is rarely used. The app does not feature location-awareness
and is less developed when compared to other official applications which range
from on-campus find-a-friend services to locating resources in the library
(EDUCAUSE 2009). Therefore, the participants, prefer to follow the news and
ongoing events in the university by following the official Instagram accounts of
the university, faculty, and department. No participant has declared using an
app from art and culture category or travel and place discovery category, which
would indeed be expected from young design students with an interest in
museums and exhibitions, cultural heritage buildings, distinctive neighbour­
hoods, routes, and themes in the city and around the world. Google Art, Istanbul
Modern Museum guide, İBB Culture Art, and One İstanbul Guide are some of
those location-based apps which, due to their architecture and design-related
content, carry potentials to attract students in intellectual activities around the
city. A similar lack of interest is found out to be valid for fitness/health cate­
gories, revealing the lack of physical activity and the sedentary lifestyle of the
majority of design students.
Table 3 lists the activities performed by the participants while using location-
based mobile apps. Wayfinding, information seeking, exploring and discovering,
checking in, personal history, reviewing, rating, and creative expression are
found out to be the most common behaviour types. At the same time, social
coordination and fitness activities are rare. Only three participants use Facebook
events to organise and attend soccer games and parties. Mobile gaming is
present among males but not females. Fitness, listening, drawing, or learning
activities are not mentioned at all by university students, who are expected to
use a much more extensive range of apps.
While focus group interviews have revealed students’ preferences and reason­
ing for the use of location-based mobile apps, they are found to be satisfied with
the diversity of apps. Their reviews display their expectations for improvement in
the quality of information they obtain via location-based mobile apps. Therefore,
their statements are interpreted below according to the four major dimensions of
 JOURNAL OF LOCATION BASED SERVICES 15

Table 3. Activities performed while using location-based mobile apps.

Number of
Activies Participants Location-based Mobile Apps
Wayfinding 15 İBB YolGösteren (Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Route
Guide), YandexMaps, GoogleMaps
Checking In 12 Instagram, Zomato, Facebook
Social Coordination 3 Facebook
Play 4 Kafa Topu (Head Ball)
Information Seeking 15 Instagram, Youtube, İBB YolGösteren (Istanbul Metropolitan
Municipality Route Guide), YandexMaps, GoogleMaps, Moovit
Personal History 12 Instagram, Facebook
Creative Expression 14 Instagram, Facebook
Reviewing and Rating 14 Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, GoogleMaps, YandexMaps,
Social Recommendation 15 Zomato, Instagram, GoogleMaps, Yandex Maps
and Navigation
Exploring and 15 TripAdvisor, Google Maps, Yandex Maps
Discovering

information quality in mobile internet services, which are connection quality,

content quality, interaction quality, and contextual quality (Chae et al. 2002, 39).

4.1. Connection quality

The feeling of being dependant on technology is entirely unacceptable for some

participants. ‘When internet connection has expired, I feel insecure,’ says P14.
Therefore, mobile users, especially those with low income such as students, expect
the city to donate them with the fastest internet connections and free WiFi in
public places. Hence, for cities, planning, and implementation of advanced wireless
infrastructures, systems are substantial in the race towards 5 G technology.

4.2. Content quality

Some applications are criticised for being useful only in some regions of the city,
not in all parts. For example, Yemek Sepeti (Food Basket) app via which users
can order food online, do not cover some of the districts. P15 points out the
need for personalised information and tailored services. ‘For different user seg­
ments, different offerings must be available. For example, the availability of
stationery products is important for students in Beşiktaş. Knowing how and
where to find or directly shop from a mobile application would make our lives
much easier’. All participants agreed on the significance of objective and cred­
ible information, as an essential criterion of choice, such as the opening hours of
their favourite cafes nearby and even the music type inside.

4.3. Interaction quality

When it comes to usability, the participants prefer the applications due to their
speed most. User-friendly apps with easy-to-use interfaces are more popular
16 S. GIRGINKAYA AKDAĞ AND A. ERGEN

than the rest. For example, Twitter and Snapchat screening can create this
feeling of simplicity. According to P15 and P2, colour blue creates a sense of
honesty, which is indeed more preferred by both genders for any application
(Silvennoinen, Vogel, and Kujala 2014). Hence, in focus groups, interaction
quality, which depends upon the structure, navigation, and presentation of an
app, has come out to be sensorial and behavioural facilitators for a more
engaging and intuitive digital experience.

4.4. Contextual quality

Effective content and functions in apps appear to be essential for understanding

and meeting the needs of mobile users. For example, the promptness of traffic
information and its visibility of the traffic density as red or green on the city map
is considered to be very useful on İBB YolGösteren (Istanbul Metropolitan
Municipality Route Guide). Live occupancy information of services, parking
lots, and navigation routes to these parking lots are the main reason for its
popularity. Another example is the comparison of Google Maps and Yandex.
Maps by their users in terms of simplicity of use and accuracy in location
awareness.
The participants also highlighted the digital privacy and ethical use of perso­
nal data as a significant criterion of mobile app preference. All participants think
that user agreement for downloading an app is very vital. A considerable
number of participants, mainly female students, do not like the idea of them­
selves being tracked or their data being collected. P7 says, ‘I find security
important. I do not allow apps to access my microphone or camera’. Similar
prejudice for sharing personal information has been supported by previous
marketing research. If service providers cannot ensure that users’ personal
information is properly collected and used, users may lower their trust in service
providers and increase their perceived risk (Zhou and Wang 2014). On the other
hand, P9, a female participant, asserts that ‘I open GPS tracking to feel secure
during taxi drives. In this way, others can keep track of me for a while.’ Location
sharing has, become a dilemma between a desire for privacy and a desire to
share and be sociable (Brandtzaeg 2010). Context-aware services enabled by
location-based information bring convenience and improve our lives, however,
they also lead to privacy and ethical issues, unknown and unimagined before. It
is, therefore, essential to investigate how these mobile technologies influence
the way their users interact, socialise, and learn (Huang et al. 2018).

5. Conclusion
For understanding and measuring the use of city marketing tools, their impacts or
implications, the change in their usage and user skills over time, and the digital
divide, identification of user groups is essential (Brandtzaeg 2010). This research
 JOURNAL OF LOCATION BASED SERVICES 17

targets university students, who as members of the wired generation tend to use
technology more than older generations. It explores the most preferred location-
based apps with their benefits and how they are used by the students to link
themselves to the city and its services.
The findings have shown that among university students wayfinding and
transportation are the most popular location-based services. This is not surpris­
ing because Istanbul is one of the most preferred and also crowded destinations
of the world with a population of 15.067.724 in 2018 (Governorship of Istanbul
2020). 1.017.034 foreign tourists visited the city only in January 2020 (Daily
Sabah 2020). In such metropolitan cities, simple wayfinding and quick transpor­
tation options should be considered for reaching different target groups.
University students require fun and friendly applications. They don’t prefer
official applications of universities and municipalities. Therefore, while targeting
young people, city marketers shall create high-quality content relevant to their
needs and expectations and integrate it with the most preferred geosocial
networking apps such as Instagram. The findings also show that word-of-
mouth marketing (WOMM) and the presence of friends are the most compelling
motivations for preferring an app. This supports two of three city communica­
tion methods defined by Kavaratzis (2004) which are architecture and real place
offerings and word-of-mouth, however, it disproves with the influence of official
channels.
University students in Besiktas are found to be using location-based mobile
apps mainly for shopping, wayfinding, and geosocial networking, with particu­
lar concern for digital privacy and personal data protection. Their familiarity with
location-based mobile applications and variation in preference highlight the
importance of big data that they generate for the city. Decision-makers employ
big data technologies and analytics to enhance services in smart cities.
However, the Deloitte Customer review (2015) has shown that only one in five
consumers is pleased with the use of their personal information to offer them
more personalised products or services by some businesses. Therefore, ensuring
privacy and ethical use of the stored and generated personal information during
the use of location-based mobile apps is critical for further adoption by target
groups. Only then, the use of big data analytics might introduce many benefits
to city marketers.
Based on focus groups it can be remarked that the need for improving
information quality and privacy has surpassed the need for diversity of location-
based mobile apps. With a similar understanding of the social, behavioural, and
psychological implications of location-based mobile apps on users, decision-
makers in the city might serve their target groups more efficiently. For example,
location tracking is often embraced as a safety tool among female students, who
indeed care for their privacy more than males. Chang and Chen (2014) on the
other side, point out that students are more likely to disclose their locations on
Facebook if their friends do so, due to a concept called subjective norm. The
18 S. GIRGINKAYA AKDAĞ AND A. ERGEN

effects of Individual choices and in-group influences on media behaviours and

manners of use shall be taken into consideration while creating city messages
and delivering them among young people.
The findings point out the need for efficient mobile application strategies,
which will increase engagement and willingness to share feedback on their city
experience. Students sharing their experience mostly as customers might be
encouraged to share their intellectual and emotional feedback on architecture
and design, culture and art, sports, and lifestyle-themed events, which would
enhance the image of the city. The other considerable aspect discovered about
geosocial networking and gaming categories is ‘the students’ motivation for
adoption’. For categories including wayfinding, transportation, shopping, enter­
tainment, and education, the main factor for adoption is personal satisfaction
with service standards. On the other hand, for geosocial networking and gaming
apps, word-of-mouth marketing (WOMM), and the presence of friends are the
most compelling motivations. Therefore, geosocial networking could be inter­
preted as the most economical and promising tool for city marketing, which
does not need any other substantial capital than humans.
The findings also show that the interaction quality of apps, which is their
usability, shall be assessed for discrete mobile apps and user groups. Although
music app Spotify is quite popular among students, none of them benefit from
its location awareness technology. On the Spotify community web page, loca­
tion-based music feature offers users a playlist fitting the location (e.g. every
evening when in the gym), publishing music, and tagging it with geolocation
that others can use when at that location (Spotify community 2015). Students in
focus groups are not either using fitness/health apps, which might be reasoned
with their youth and/or good health. Such findings may reveal the fact that even
among young design students, who are believed to engage with and explore
the city in different ways than others, the motivation for using location-based
mobile apps are still limited to daily-life activities such as navigation and
wayfinding, shopping, and networking. Hence, the integration of location-
based apps for city marketing still awaits for new business models and strategies
to attract different customer groups. A recent example could be the new rental
models for electric bikes and scooters with location-based technology serving
supporters of sustainable transport for green cities.
Different target groups in a city may have varying needs and expectations.
Future research can explore these groups by segmenting them into visitors,
tourists, students, business people, and ex-pats. Thus, their distinctive needs
and wishes, attitudes, and behaviours towards location-based mobile apps can
be considered. Marketing research with different user groups (Bunn 1993),
might help the development and enhancement of city services provided via
location-based technology as well as enhancing the competitiveness of cities in
the local and global markets. Additional future directions may include integrat­
ing the location-based mobile applications with the curriculum of education.
 JOURNAL OF LOCATION BASED SERVICES 19

This may enhance the city experience of international students and citizen
students who will be depending on location-based mobile apps to bring con­
venience and improve their lives.
This research has some limitations. First, the research is conducted in Istanbul,
where mobile internet use and infrastructure is above the country average. Second,
the focus group limits the generalisation ot the findings. The participants are
students with high experience in using location-based mobile apps. This might
exclude potential adopters. Further research is recommended for exploring and
understanding different user segments’ insights regarding the use of location-
based mobile apps. Their expectations and satisfaction with existing apps and
feedback on city experience might contribute to the further development of mobile
apps and help city marketers promote the city in the local and global markets.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

ORCID
Suzan Girginkaya Akdağ http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2035-0369
Ahu Ergen http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2575-9262

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