Factors Influencing Intentions in Hotel Booking Through Online Travel Intermediaries Applications

Abstract

The tremendous development of technology and mobile devices at present is making a significant influence on the hotels sector, especially in online hotel reservations via new online travel intermediaries applications like (Booking and Trivago applications). These applications have a prominent role in the hotel sector. Little researches has been done about customers’ perceptions of the use of booking broker applications. This study examined how some factors related to online travel intermediaries tend to influence the intentions of booking hotels. Therefore, customer questionnaires were distributed electronically due to the Coronavirus pandemic. The survey has six variables, i.e. “trust, ease of use, price and promotion, perceived privacy/security, online reviews, hotel booking intention.” Kruskal-Wallis Tests, Mann-Whitney U test and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were used to analyze 204 customers who used online travel intermediaries before booking in five-star hotels in Cairo. The results indicate that the ease of use, price, promotion, perceived privacy/security, and online reviews of online travel intermediaries are directly related to the intentions of booking hotels online. Price, promotion and reviews are considered the key factors related to the use of travel intermediaries and because of the customers' passion for special prices as well as to explore the rating of their hotels before booking through this application. Thus, hotels can achieve a higher level of service quality to increase their rating through that application to attract more customers.