Online Booking Platforms Research Articles

The spatiotemporal evolution and influencing factors of hotel industry in the metropolitan area: An empirical study based on China.

Through the online booking platform, 10,543 big data of spatial and temporal distribution of Beijing hotel industry has been obtained in this paper. Then, the methods of GIS and the geographical detector are used to study the spatiotemporal evolution process and the influencing factors of Beijing hotel industry during 2003–2018. The results are as follows: a. During the period of 2003–2018, the hotel industry in Beijing maintained a high growth rate and had three growth peaks in 2008, 2010 and 2014. Meanwhile, major historical events, such as the Olympic Games had a significant influence on the development of the hotel industry. b. Between 2003 and 2018, the hotel industry in Beijing gradually developed from the centripetal agglomeration to aggregation + diffusion, and also from the single center to the multi-center. Besides, various hotels presented two characteristics of city orientation and scenic orientation. c. The natural geographical environment had shaped the overall pattern and characteristics of the spatial distribution of the hotel industry in Beijing, and the socio-economic factors such as commercial activities, public facilities, tourism services and traffic conditions significantly influenced the location selection of the hotel industry. Therefore, the urban center is the ideal area for the spatial layout of the hotel industry. d. Geographical detector research showed that the factors, such as administrative organs, road network density, leisure and recreational facilities, and companies have strong explanatory power for hotel location selection, which is an important reference index for hotels to select the micro location. This paper is a beneficial supplement to the existing research and has certain guiding significance for the sustainable development of Beijing hotel industry.

Brand loyalty towards online accommodation booking platforms

This study investigates the brand loyalty of consumers in the online booking platform industry. The Mabalingwe Nature Reserve served as a case study, while the Moolla and Bisschoff brand loyalty model was used to measure brand loyalty across twelve antecedents. This study aimed to, firstly, validate the model for use in online booking platforms, secondly, to measure the reliability of the data, and finally, to measure brand loyalty across twelve antecedents in online booking platforms. Online questionnaires were distributed via an online link by the booking managers of the game reserve, and 131 responses were captured; this represented a statistically adequate sample as per the KMO measure (.741). The descriptive statistics, using a 5-point Likert scale, showed that Brand trust (4.03) and Customer satisfaction (3.96) are the most important brand loyalty antecedents, while Culture (2.34) is the least important brand loyalty antecedent in an online booking platform. Exploratory factor analysis validated the questionnaire for online booking platforms, while Cronbach’s alpha coefficient (.701) indicated that the reliability of the data is acceptable. Regarding latent variable identification, Brand quality and Brand relationship are two most important factors, respectively, explaining variance of 13.1% and 8.7%. The study culminated in a model to measure and manage brand loyalty of online booking platforms. This model can be operationalized for use by managers, researchers, and academia.

Consumer Responses to Scarcity Appeals in Online Booking

Scarcity appeals, highlighting a product or a service is scarce due to “high demand” or “limited supply,” are ubiquitous in the travel industry. However, all scarcity appeals are not equally effective in persuading consumers. The current research investigates the joint effects of scarcity appeal type (demand-framed vs. supply-framed) and consumers’ sense of power on purchase intention in the online booking context. The results show that the demand-framed (vs. supply-framed) scarcity appeal leads to higher purchase intention among consumers with a high sense of power, whereas such a difference is attenuated among consumers with a low sense of power. Furthermore, mediation analysis reveals that perceived risk is the psychological mechanism underlying these effects. Managerial implications for online booking platforms are discussed.

The many faces of anti-competitive practices in digital markets

This article looks at some curious examples of restrictive practices typical for digital markets. Digital markets are a unique phenomenon for the new digital economy that is structurally based on and driven by digital platforms. The largest digital platforms such as Facebook or Amazon and large digital companies such as Google, Microsoft and Apple dominate the digital markets of today and thus have a huge potential to restrict competition in these dynamic markets. This article takes an analytical approach to several restrictive practices that have recently received attention from competition authorities around the world and have largely influenced law enforcement as well as our understanding of how digital markets function. First of all, the authors consider the so-called price parity clauses. Broadly speaking, these are a particular type of arrangements that oblige suppliers to not offer more favorable terms to their business partners than those offered to digital platforms (for example hotel websites as compared to online booking platforms). However, when narrowed down to contractual relations between a platform and a supplier, price parity clauses present a much more complex case. Further, the authors look at the multitude of restrictive practices in the online search market illustrated by a series of cases initiated against Google by the European Commission. By setting its search engine in a particular way, Google prioritized its own services so that they received more consumer traffic. Notably, these series of cases is just a part of the collection of anticompetitive tendencies in this market. Finally, this article looks at a less well-known, but all the more dangerous case of geo-blocking, which occurs when IP-protected content is blocked from distribution outside the framework that is reasonably justified by the protection of exclusive rights. Such cases must be examined through the complex relationship between the individualistic nature of IP rights and public interest. The collection of practices examined in the article highlights both the need to significantly reform competition enforcement and the need to rethink the role of competition law in the new economy.

English Communication Strategies in Tourism

The advance development in tourism industry is established through interrelated systems. One of which is the online booking platform. Not only for booking, but the online website also becomes the platform for giving reviews that portrays guests’ compliments or even complaints. Those compliments are powerful to give the guests positive image about the accommodation; however, the complaints will do in the contrary way. It may lead the accommodation into negative image. Accordingly, it is necessary for the accommodation providers to handle the complaints by giving the responses or reply of the guests’ reviews. That action will become the effort to turn the guests’ disappointment into satisfaction.
 In order to achieve it, several English communication strategies in handling complaints were executed. This research takes the responses of 8 accommodation providers towards the guests’ review as the subject of the research. It is conducted by using content analysis method. The results yields 4 strategies that exists in the responses, namely: attentiveness that correlates with the hospitality in communication appears 100% of the total responses; explanation that presents the clarification and elaboration appears in 79% of the total responses; effort, that is the presentation of the promising action in the future, exists in 46% of the total responses and the least is apology, that is the action of saying sorry, exists in 25% of the total responses.

Platform coopetition in the tourism industry: conflicts and tensions caused by the closure of Booking.com in Turkey

ABSTRACTIn March 2017, as a result of a precautionary interim decision made by the courts based on the case relating to ‘unfair competition practices’, Booking.com closed its platform for inbound tourism in Turkey and ceased operations. This was the first instance of an online booking platform halting access for inbound bookings for the domestic market. This platform-based relationship involves both cooperation and competition, and thus this paper identifies this relationship as platform coopetition. Based on the governance network theory and employing a case-study approach, the Booking.com case is examined from the viewpoint of tourism coopetition from two perspectives: industry-wide and agent-specific. The paper provides an analysis of these perspectives and the past and on-going process of Booking.com’s platform closure. The constitutive dynamics this case endangers the coopetitive environment of the tourism industry and thus creates destructive uncertainties, especially for small hotels. This analysis also reveals the issues in terms of political representation for digital service platform companies.

Platform monopolization by narrow-PPC-BPG combination: Booking et al.

The price parity clauses (PPCs) that online booking platforms impose have come under antitrust scrutiny. Wang and Wright (2017) show how by preventing showrooming, a narrow PPC can reduce search costs and benefit consumers under between-platform competition. In response to having to give up its wide PPC to hotels, Booking.com emphasized its best price guarantee (BPG) to customers. We observe that a narrow PPC combined with a (low hassle costs) BPG leaves only Wang and Wright’s Price Parity and Monopoly Equilibrium (PPME), in which consumers are worse off than with no platform operating at all. A more-efficient (incumbent) platform can deter entry with the BPG, while the narrow PPC eliminates competition from direct sales channels. An equally-efficient platform could enter and compete consumer prices down because of the existence of hassle costs, yet this equilibrium is fragile to network effects. If sellers have incentives not to price differentiate between platform(s) and their direct sales channel, a narrow PPC alone suffices to sustain the PPME in both cases. The detrimental pricing contract combination that we point out calls for different platform competition policy.

CONTENT ANALYSIS OF ON-LINE BOOKING PLATFORM REVIEWS OVER A RESTAURANT: A CASE OF PIZZA LOCALE IN IZMIR

The development of reservation websites such as tripadvisor.com has significantly affected the ways in which companies interact with their business and target groups. Companies from various sectors use such media to communicate with customers, who share their complaints, satisfactions and are asked about their experiences and opinions about products before deciding to buy. One of the widely used sector of on-line booking platforms is the gastronomy sector. In this study, Locale Pizza restaurant was chosen to examine the electronic reviews of consumers by qualitative analysis. The research has investigated over 120 customers and analyzed their gender, rating scale and the objects of their complaints. Empirical results showed that most of the customer satisfaction at the restaurant is positive. The content analysis revealed that the managers of the restaurant are active in revising the complaints, as they show diminishing pattern by the time.

Platform Monopolization by Narrow-PPC-BPG Combination: Booking et al.

The price parity clauses (PPCs) that online booking platforms impose have come under antitrust scrutiny. Wang and Wright (2017) show how by preventing showrooming, a narrow PPC can reduce search costs and benefit consumers under between-platform competition. In response to having to give up its wide PPC to hotels, Booking.com emphasized its best price guarantee (BPG) to customers. We observe that a narrow PPC combined with a (low hassle costs) BPG leaves only Wang and Wright's Price Parity and Monopoly Equilibrium (PPME), in which consumers are worse off than with no platform operating at all. A more-efficient (incumbent) platform can deter entry with the BPG, while the narrow PPC eliminates competition from direct sales channels. An equally efficient platform could enter and compete consumer prices down because of the existence of hassle costs, yet this equilibrium is fragile to network effects. If sellers have incentives not to price differentiate between platform(s) and their direct sales channel, a narrow PPC alone suffices to sustain the PPME in both cases. The detrimental pricing contract combination that we point out calls for different platform competition policy.

Hotel Service Recovery and Service Quality: Influences of Corporate Image and Generational Differences in the Relationship between Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty

ABSTRACTAs the number of tourists continues to grow globally, the hospitality industry players inevitably face more challenges. High competition among the competitors and the emergence of new technologies such as online booking platforms make the competition more intense among players in the hospitality sector. The quality of services provided is undoubtedly crucial to the success of the hotel. Hence, any service failure has to be addressed appropriately in order to maintain a high level of customer satisfaction and to keep the image of the hotel intact. It is therefore vital that service recovery programs are carefully planned to meet various types of service failures which may inevitably occur. In this study, questionnaires were distributed to customers who had experienced service failures. The aim was to investigate the influence of service quality and service recovery on satisfaction and, ultimately, the effect on customer loyalty. The research also tested the mediating effect of corporate image between the relationship of customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. The findings showed that both service recovery and service quality had a significant impact on customer satisfaction. Similarly, it was found that customer satisfaction induced customer loyalty towards the hotel operator. The result also showed that corporate image mediated partially between the relationship of customer satisfaction and customer loyalty.

Online Booking Platforms and EU Competition Law in the Wake of the German Bundeskartellamt's Booking.com Infringement Decision

Online Booking Platforms and EU Competition Law in the Wake of the German Bundeskartellamt's Booking.com Infringement Decision

Antitrust Liability in the Context of Online Platforms. Case Comment to the Preliminary Ruling of the Court of Justice of 21 January 2016 ‘Eturas’ UAB v Lietuvos Respublikos konkurencijos taryba (Case C-74/14)

In its judgment of 21 January 2016 in Case C-74/14 (hereinafter, judgment), the Court of Justice (hereinafter, CJ) responded to a preliminary question submitted by the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania. The latter asked whether the mere dispatch of an email relating to the maximum level of rebates may constitute sufficient evidence to establish that its addressees can be found liable for illegal concerted practices within the meaning of Article 101(1) TFEU. The CJ judgment raises novel issues specific to antitrust enforcement in e-commerce in two areas: (i) can users of a third party online booking platform be found liable for an anti-competitive practice purely on the basis of receiving unprompted email messages, even if they were not aware of their content, and (ii) what steps should they take in order to distance themselves from anti-competitive actions in an e-commerce environment.

Leveraging multi-criteria customer feedback for satisfaction analysis and improved recommendations

Travel websites and online booking platforms represent today’s major sources for customers when gathering information before a trip. In particular, community-provided customer reviews and ratings of various tourism services represent a valuable source of information for trip planning. With respect to customer ratings, many modern travel and tourism platforms—in contrast to several other e-commerce domains—allow customers to rate objects along multiple dimensions and thus to provide more fine-granular post-trip feedback on the booked accommodation or travel package. In this paper, we first show how this multi-criteria rating information can help to obtain a better understanding of factors driving customer satisfaction for different segments. For this purpose, we performed a Penalty-Reward contrast analysis on a data set from a major tourism platform, which reveals that customer segments significantly differ in the way the formation of overall satisfaction can be explained. Beyond the pure identification of segment-specific satisfaction factors, we furthermore show how this fine-granular rating information can be exploited to improve the accuracy of rating-based recommender systems. In particular, we propose to utilize user- and object-specific factor relevance weights which can be learned through linear regression. An empirical evaluation on datasets from different domains finally shows that our method helps us to predict the customer preferences more accurately and thus to develop better online recommendation services.

Rural tourism and the development of Internet-based accommodation booking platforms: a study in the advantages, dangers and implications of innovation

Over the past decade, the use of global Internet-based reservation systems for accommodation has grown massively. This development appears particularly relevant for rural properties, empowering even very small enterprises to reach a large global customer base cheaply and easily. However, a limited number of reservation platforms now dominate the market, with consequences for existing, often locally owned non-profit, national and regional reservation systems. Price comparability listings, ratings and customer reviews (key features of online booking platforms) could impact inter-business competition, quality management, marketing strategies and revenue flows. This paper reviews these issues and researches their impacts on rural accommodation providers in Western Norway, using a series of semi-structured interviews to determine when and why they became involved with Booking.com, the world's largest reservation platform, and how this affected their operations. Results indicate that Booking.com now has a significant role in reservations in rural Norway, with a range of implications for destinations and businesses. While individual businesses seem to benefit overall, Internet-based booking platforms abstract revenues from national and regional booking organisations which also provide advice, training, lobbying and image-enhancing destination marketing. Ideas are presented for new roles for national and regional organisations.

MEDIA DIGITAL DALAM KOMUNIKASI PEMASARAN PARIWISATA: EFEKTIVITAS SISTEM INFORMASI KANAL PEMESANAN DARING

Many hospitality business actors implement the usage of online booking platforms as a part of their marketing communication strategy. However, there has been not any evaluation model developed to examine the effectivity of online booking platforms usage yet. This research attempts to develop ICTRT evaluation that’s based on the information system, and aims to find an evaluation model that’s suitable with the Communication Studies, without leaving the socio-cultural context of Indonesian society. Method conducted in this research is case study to enable researcher to monitor and evaluate the practice of digital tourism marketing communication through online booking platforms comprehensively