Online Travel Agencies Research Articles

The Role of Customer Satisfaction in Mediating the Influence of Service Quality on Repurchase Intention

Tourism activities in Indonesia are activities that can make a big contribution to the country. One form of contribution to increasing tourism is the activity of Online Travel Agents. Bali Panca Hanasta Tours is one of the Online Travel Agents in Bali that prioritizes the quality of service to encourage consumer repurchase intentions. The quality of service presented is expected to be able to provide a sense of satisfaction to customers by paying attention to customer needs and desires in order to be able to increase consumer repurchase intentions for the services provided. This study aims to understand the effect of service quality on repurchase intentions and the role of customer satisfaction as a mediating variable on online travel agent customers of Bali Panca Hanasta Tours in Bali. This study involved 100 respondents of Bali Panca Hanasta Tours customers. The data collection method was carried out through an online questionnaire, and data analysis using path analysis. The results of this study indicate that service quality has a positive and significant effect on repurchase intentions, and customer satisfaction successfully partially mediates the effect of service quality on repurchase intentions. The implications of the results of this study theoretically can be a reference for other researchers who want to study service quality, customer satisfaction, and repurchase intentions. In practice, it is expected to be a consideration and input for marketers and business actors in maximizing service quality and customer satisfaction as an effective and sustainable marketing strategy to increase repurchase intentions.

When do tourists prefer to continue using online travel agencies? An empirical study from Vietnam

Online travel agencies have profoundly influenced the travel industry by offering numerous essential advantages to both consumers and service providers. This paper aims to examine the factors that influence the intention to continue using online travel agencies in Vietnam, while also assessing the moderating effect of e-loyalty on the relationship between perceived usefulness and continuance intention. An integrated research framework was constructed using the Technology Acceptance Model as its foundational basis. The study utilized the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling approach to analyze the data. The survey data were obtained through an online survey administered to a valid sample of 301 Facebook users with prior experience using online travel agencies. Compared to conventional approaches such as telephone or mail surveys, utilizing Facebook for data collection offers a more cost-efficient alternative. This platform also enables researchers to reach a broad and diverse population of potential respondents, representing a wide range of demographics, geographic locations, and backgrounds. The results reveal that perceived compatibility, perceived ease of use, innovativeness, electronic word-of-mouth, and subjective norms all positively influenced perceived usefulness. Additionally, perceived usefulness is found to have a significant impact on the intention to continue using online travel agencies, while e-loyalty positively moderates the relationship between perceived usefulness and continuance intention to use online travel agencies. These findings extend the Technology Acceptance Model within the context of online travel agencies and provide practical insights for enhancing strategies among online travel agencies in Vietnam. AcknowledgmentThe author would like to thank the International University, Vietnam National University (VNU), HCMC, for providing research assistance.

Behavioural economics: the role of trust in hospitality

ABSTRACT Behavioural economics is a recent field of economics, and in this study, we assess how e-trust affects hotel satisfaction and behavioural intentions, representing different purchase modes: online travel agencies and hotel websites, through a mixed structural equation and a third-person perception questionnaire. The results suggest that travellers believe that hotel websites are more benevolent and have more integrity and reliability than online travel agencies, whereas online travel agencies are more effective in terms of competence. In addition, consumers are more satisfied when their trust is high, and they are more likely to recommend and return to the same hotel. Reliable and efficient information management systems, whether provided by online travel agencies or hotel websites, are recommended.

ANALISIS FAKTOR MEREK, KEGUNAAN SITUS WEB DAN HARGA YANG MEMPENGARUHI PERSEPSI KONSUMEN TERHADAP AGEN PERJALANAN ONLINE

The rapid development of information technology today has a significant effect on all human life and also makes business organizations easier to do business. Travel and tourism have illustrated how e-commerce can change the structure of the industry and in the process create new business opportunities. Although the online travel agent market is still small, it poses a threat to traditional/conventional travel agents because it operates 24 hours. However, travel companies can take advantage of opportunities by implementing e-commerce technology in their business. The purpose of this study was to identify whether brand, website usability, and price affect customer perceptions in choosing an online travel agent. The number of respondents participating in this study was 116 samples that could be taken using a random sampling method to Indonesian internet users who had made online transactions. This study uses multiple linear regression with the SPSS 21 statistical program. The results showed that the variables brand, website usability, and price have a positive effect partially and simultaneously on customer perceptions.

Online travel agency or blockchain-based platform?

Online travel agency has been used by most hotels to attract customers. However, hefty commissions and unverified reviews reduce hotels' cooperation intentions. Armed with unique advantages, blockchain-based platforms with higher blockchain-adoption costs can alternatively offer peer-to-peer booking service. This paper investigates the hotels' choice strategies on online travel platforms, blockchain-adoption conditions, and effects of blockchain-based platform. The results show that marginal blockchain cost, commission rate and customers' perceived distrust value of online reviews have great influence on the hotels' decisions. Although blockchain-based platforms can create win-win situations for hotel(s) and customers, they are not widely available as it is considered imperfect and costly. Alarmingly, there exists an invalidation effect of online travel platforms in a competitive market, resulting in non-equilibrium.

Evolving Consumer Preferences: The Role of Attribute Shifts in Online Travel Agency Satisfaction and Loyalty

The attributes that people consider when selecting an online travel agency (OTA) change over time, affecting how consumer satisfaction and loyalty evolve. However, attribute weight shifts in subsequent OTA visits cannot be determined using a cross-sectional approach. Thus, this study investigates the linkage dynamics between satisfaction and loyalty intentions as OTA attribute weights shift over time. We also assess the moderating effect of sales promotions on this linkage across subsequent OTA visits. Using a two-time-lag survey methodology (T1 and T2), we obtain 329 usable data. Our findings demonstrate that the link between satisfaction and loyalty intentions strengthens as customers gain more experience with an OTA. While price and post-service quality weights increase sharply, the weights of security and ease of use decrease. Furthermore, our findings show that the moderating effect of sales promotions does not appear in the early stages of a consumer’s experience with an OTA. Our research is the first to offer a complete understanding of the role of sales promotions based on the satisfaction–loyalty mechanism, considering a broad range of OTA selection attributes.

Air quality and tourism orders: a quasi-experimental study

ABSTRACT Using a unique dataset collected from a Chinese online travel agency, we empirically examine the causal effect of air quality on tourism orders by employing a two-step regression-discontinuity design (RDD). The RDD serves as a local randomisation approach that allows us to eliminate the endogeneity concern of air quality. We control for meteorological conditions, city and month fixed effects, and additional social factors specific to the tourist destination. Our empirical results show a range of 49.3% to 51.9% drop in travel orders on the day at the cutoff point where air quality breaks through light to moderate pollution levels (AQI = 150). Furthermore, our empirical results suggest that tourists who select different orders may respond differently to air quality. Our research provides critical empirical evidence, elucidating the additional cost incurred in the tourism sector due to poor air quality.

Is The Instagram as A Homestay Selection in A Tourist Village?

This research explores how Instagram is used to find homestay information in tourist village areas. Using a descriptive method and quantitative approach, data were collected through field surveys, Google Forms, and in-person interviews with participants from Jakarta.. The findings show that women prefer Instagram over men due to its image-centric nature, and young people aged 16-25 find it useful for homestay searches. Nonetheless, 27% of respondents express disagreement, stating that they primarily use Instagram for archiving photos and videos and favor online travel agent apps for booking accommodations. Nevertheless, 73% of participants concur that Instagram's features streamline the process of finding homestays. This study contributes to the tourism sector by highlighting Instagram’s potential to enhance homestay visibility, which could help improve the household economy in tourist villages. Keywords: Instagram, homestay, tourist village

Navigating the Digital Landscape: Evaluating the Impacts of Digital IMC on Building and Maintaining Destination Brand Equity

In the evolving realm of digital marketing, digital integrated marketing communication (IMC) has emerged as a critical factor in building and maintaining brand equity for sustainable tourism destinations. This research examines the impact of digital IMC consistency and interactivity on establishing destination brand equity, while exploring the interconnections among its various dimensions. Grounded in both empirical and theoretical frameworks, this study collected data via an online questionnaire administered to 435 users of online travel agencies, which was analyzed through Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). The results demonstrate that customer-perceived digital IMC (consistency and interactivity) exerts a significant positive influence on destination brand equity, uncovering the intricate dynamics among destination awareness, image, perceived quality, and loyalty. Notably, destination loyalty is influenced by destination awareness through destination image and perceived destination quality, with destination image having a more significant impact than perceived destination quality. This research is significant in constructing knowledge of IMC in the digital tourism marketing paradigm, shedding light on how the consistency and interactivity of online communication affect various consumer brand equity outcomes. Additionally, it provides valuable insights into digital tourism practices and sustainable development, enriching the discourse regarding how digital IMC enhances destination brand equity.

Customer Behaviour towards Online Travel Agency (OTA) Services in the Hotel Industry: A Case Study in Doha, Qatar

This research investigates customer behaviour towards online travel agency (OTA) services in the hotel industry using a quantitative design and correlation research method with 139 tourists in Doha, Qatar. 95% response rate is collected and analysed using SPSS software. The results show that service quality, perceived value, and brand loyalty significantly affect customer satisfaction, while customer expectation does not. However, the study finds that customer satisfaction significantly influences customer behaviour toward OTA services in the hotel industry. The study provides practical insights for hotel managers and OTA services to enhance customer experiences by identifying the key factors that drive customer behaviour. Moreover, it contributes to the existing literature on customer behaviour towards OTA services in the hotel industry by identifying the crucial factors that influence customer behaviour.

Proposed Strategy to Improve Product Innovation and Service Quality at Pegipegi

Indonesian people’s interest in Online Travel Agents (OTA) is relatively high, even though it experienced a decline from 2019 to 2021 due to the pandemic. There are still many people who choose to use Online Travel Agents (OTA) because it provides convenience and comfort. However, in Indonesia, the competition is quite tight, and Pegipegi needs to innovate its Products and Services. The objectives of this research are to improve product innovation to distinguish Pegipegi from its competitors and to improve the quality of service to increase its competitive advantage over its competitors. Digital Innovation and SERVQUAL Framework have been used to analyze the issue and identify the root cause. It has been found that Pegipegi Products and Services needs to develop and improve because the indicators are low criteria. The recommendation for the company is required to innovate and improve the Products and Services of Pegipegi. Product Innovation can be achieved by creating new products with advanced technology, such as through Gamification, Owned Media channels, and improving User Interface. On the other hand, service improvement can be done by combining technology such as involving ChatGPT in daily work and training customer service.

Identify Issues That Influence Customer Satisfaction Using Sentiment Analysis and Topic Modeling

The development of internet users in Indonesia continues to increase over time, this makes customers comfortable with digital transactions. Trinusa Travelindo Company or better known as Traveloka, which is engaged in the online travel agent sector, has proven its extraordinary achievement, namely becoming the E-tourism application that is ranked 1st most visited by the Indonesian people in 2022. However, these results are also directly proportional to the number of negative reviews created in the application review itself. This study aims to identify what issues affect customer satisfaction with topic modelling. This study uses the text mining method derived from the results of Traveloka application user reviews. The data source obtained in this study is secondary data by using the Traveloka application review data crawling technique with samples from January to May. Based on sentiment analysis, positive sentiment is more dominant (50.38%) compared to negative sentiment (49.62%). User reviews are grouped based on the results of sentiment analysis, then Topic Modelling is carried out to find out what issues affect customer satisfaction. The topic modelling of the data used is Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) and Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) with the help of phyton 6.3. to find out what words and topics often appear or as factors that influence customer satisfaction. The most influential negative issues include the refund and payment process, pay later services, and the ordering experience which is considered complicated. On the other hand, issues that contribute positively to customer satisfaction include product quality, service quality, and promos and discounts. This is reinforced by the results of topic modelling which show that these aspects are often the main concerns in user reviews on the Google Play store. Thus, this study suggests that in order to increase customer satisfaction, Traveloka needs to focus on improving the quality of service, products, and offering more attractive promos, while simplifying the refund process and ordering experience in the application, some still say it is complicated.

Customer Booking Habits and Attitudes Towards AI-Powered Features in Online Travel Agencies

The use of modern technologies, especially AI enabled features, has led to significant changes in the hospitality and tourism industry, both for travellers and service providers. Thanks to the rapid development of various AI features, the Internet of Things and other technologies, travellers can enjoy personalised and tailored booking and travel experiences. Online travel agencies (OTAs) are websites or mobile applications where users can book a variety of travel-related services such as accommodation, cruises, airline tickets, car hire and many other travel items. The focus of this study is on the impact of the introduction of AI technology in OTAs (online travel agencies) on travellers. It represents the realisation of the fourth phase of the research, which focuses on the analysis of travellers' habits and key demographic characteristics, as well as significant differences between genders and the travelling' frequency of the respondents. For this purpose, an originally developed questionnaire with specific demographic questions, OTA booking habits and 12 questions on different AI features in OTAs was used. One-way ANOVA (for frequency of travel) and a two-sample t-test (for gender) were used for this study. The results obtained showed significant differences in responses for some questions, both for gender and travel frequency, and are presented in detail in the Results and Discussion section

Improving Airplane E-ticket Purchasing Decisions Through Social Media Marketing Instagram and Ease of Use of Online Travel Agent Applications in Indonesia Mediated by Trust

This study aims to ascertain how social media marketing (such as Instagram) and ease of use affect consumer decisions, as well as how trust functions as a mediating factor in the relationship between social media marketing and ease of use and consumer decisions. There are two types of data that are used; primary data are gathered through questionnaires, and secondary data are gathered from books and journals. This study used probability sampling techniques with a simple random sampling method, namely with 170 respondents. The analysis method in this study uses SEM-PLS (Structural Equation Model - Partial Least Square). This study's findings indicate that trust has a major impact on purchase decisions, simplicity of use has a large impact on decisions, and social media marketing has no significant impact on decisions. Ease of use and social media marketing's influence on purchase decisions might be mitigated by the trust factor. If respondents trust online travel brokers, social media marketing will have an impact on their purchase decisions.

Online content analysis between bike related attributes and review content in case of Budapest

Active tourism, in our case bicycle tourism has been a proof of health benefits as well as responsible, sustainable way of transport. As tourist move around to see sights as well as gather experiences, this is a way to be efficient and green effective. This study aims to investigate bicycle tourism in cities, especially focusing on decision making as a bicycle tourist, when it comes to online bookings system, focusing on choosing a hotel. Method: we have used the several methods to analyze the reviews and ratings of hotels on Booking and TripAdvisor. We used hotels from Budapest only, focusing on bicycle tourism within the city. We investigated if there was any demand for bike related services when it comes to booking online. Our results show that there is significant relationship between choosing a hotel and the relevance of bike related services of the accommodation; however, it might not be the primarily decision making, and also following our hypothesis, online travel agents do not offer full package for bikers.

Beyond Convenience: Exploring the Hidden Impact of Algorithmic Pricing on Consumer Trust and Loyalty in Chinese Online Travel Agencies

ABSTRACTThe emergence of online travel agencies (OTAs) provides travelers with “one‐stop” convenience, but also faces issues of price discrimination. This mixed‐methods study began with semi‐structured interviews of 30 participants to explore initial perceptions, followed by a survey of 307 Chinese consumers. The study examined attitudes toward OTA overreliance on algorithmic pricing and unclear information, and their impact on trust and loyalty. Findings reveal that during peak seasons, regular customers without value‐added membership services paid higher room rates than new customers. The results indicate that once trust is established through clear information quality and reliable service, consumers are less wary of pricing quotes. The conclusion summarizes the findings and suggests further research to promote transparent and fair pricing practices, enhancing consumer trust and loyalty.

Keywords-enhanced Contrastive Learning Model for travel recommendation

Travel recommendation aims to infer travel intentions of users by analyzing their historical behaviors on Online Travel Agencies (OTAs). However, crucial keywords in clicked travel product titles, such as destination and itinerary duration, indicating tourists’ intentions, are often overlooked. Additionally, most previous studies only consider stable long-term user interests or temporary short-term user preferences, making the recommendation performance unreliable. To mitigate these constraints, this paper proposes a novel Keywords-enhanced Contrastive Learning Model (KCLM). KCLM simultaneously implements personalized travel recommendation and keywords generation tasks, integrating long-term and short-term user preferences within both tasks. Furthermore, we design two kinds of contrastive learning tasks for better user and travel product representation learning. The preference contrastive learning aims to bridge the gap between long-term and short-term user preferences. The multi-view contrastive learning focuses on modeling the coarse-grained commonality between clicked products and their keywords. Extensive experiments are conducted on two tourism datasets and a large-scale e-commerce dataset. The experimental results demonstrate that KCLM achieves substantial gains in both metrics compared to the best-performing baseline methods. Specifically, HR@20 improved by 5.79%–14.13%, MRR@20 improved by 6.57%–18.50%. Furthermore, to have an intuitive understanding of the keyword generation by the KCLM model, we provide a case study for several randomized examples.

How consumers process online hotel ratings

Online travel agencies commonly utilize 5-point and 10-point scales to display hotel ratings. When processing and comparing hotel ratings on different numerical scales (e.g., 4.1/5 vs. 8.4/10), what method(s) do consumers use? Through nine studies, this research shows that consumers tend to employ absolute differences (e.g., 5–4.1 vs. 10–8.4) or relative differences (e.g., 4.1 ÷ 5 vs. 8.4 ÷ 10) when making comparative judgments. Notably, the choice of method can lead to preference reversals. We further reveal that higher numeracy leads to greater reliance on relative differences. However, such an impact is attenuated under a utilitarian motive. Additionally, a greater promotion focus leads to greater reliance on absolute differences. The findings contribute to a more nuanced understanding of how consumers process hotel ratings.

What Has the Most Impact? An Exploration of Dual-Processing Systems in Hotel Booking Decisions

This research explores the role of dual-processing systems in evaluating complex information on online travel agency (OTA) websites, explicitly focusing on the transformative effects of multiple cues considering information sources. Two experimental studies were conducted to explore the processing modes of information using priming in assessing the impact of a controllable cue (brand in study 1 and scarcity in study 2 and an uncontrollable cue (customer ratings). The findings indicate that customer ratings function as a primary cue. With positive priming producing heuristics, the value of a brand offsets the negative impact of low ratings, while it is disregarded with high ratings. The perceived value of scarcity aligns consistently with customer ratings due to its inherent uncertainty with irrelevant priming triggering a systematic mode. This research advances the understanding of customers’ evaluation of complex information and suggests practical guidelines for implementing optimal marketing strategies in OTA settings.

Leveraging gamification for tourism marketing activities: Toward a comprehensive conceptual model

Gamification has become one of the most effective ways to generate customer engagement. However, there needs to be more structured research on the drivers of the adoption and sustained use of gamification in travel and tourism research. Drawing upon the uses and gratifications theory and the technology acceptance model, this research examines the individual motivational drivers for adopting gamification in the context of tourism services. We employed a combination of partial least squares—structural equation modeling and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis on the data gathered from 680 users of various online travel agencies. Our findings show that individual motivational dimensions of uses and gratifications significantly influence perceived usefulness and ease of use in gamified marketing activities. Our analysis demonstrates five configurations leading to a high level of adoption of gamified marketing activities. This study extends the use of gamification in the tourism industry, offering insights into enhancing customer motivations for adopting and effectively utilizing game mechanics and dynamics in marketing activities. Furthermore, through a novel framework, this study advances the uses and gratification theory at the intersection of gamification research and tourism literature.