From Mobility to Exploration: A Qualitative Study of Tourism Spillover Mechanisms Mediated by the Transjakarta Application

Abstract

This study qualitatively examines the mechanisms through which the Transjakarta mobile application mediates tourism spillover effects among university students visiting the Blok M district of South Jakarta. Grounded in the third component of the Digital Transport-Tourism Nexus (DTTN) framework Spatial Tourism Spillover  and informed by spillover effect theory (Nunkoo et al., 2023; Thompson & Schofield, 2023) and urban heritage revitalization scholarship (Li & Wang, 2023; Ashworth & Page, 2023), the study employs semi-structured in-depth interviews with three purposively selected respondents, analyzed through Braun & Clarke’s (2006) six-phase thematic analysis framework. Six themes were identified: ease of use, technical constraints, schedule reliability, tourism-oriented use, multimodal routing gaps, and exploration spillover. The findings reveal that the application generates tourism spillover through two organic mechanisms: (1) a Behavioral Trigger pathway whereby reduced informational barriers directly increase visit frequency; and (2) a Geographic Diffusion pathway whereby proximity-based destination discovery extends spatial exploration radius around transit nodes. Critically, the absence of integrated multimodal routing (TJ-MRT-KRL) is identified as the primary structural inhibitor of spillover amplification. These qualitative findings complement and deepen the quantitative evidence presented in the companion study, collectively validating the DTTN framework’s explanatory architecture.