Online Travel Agencies Research Articles

Integrating ‘Sejahtera’: A Holistic Approach at Agoda

The case describes a practical approach adopted by a young Customer Service Specialist, Amalina Basir at Agoda, one of the world’s fastest growing online travel agencies. With a humble start in 2018 as a frontliner who managed calls, emails, and expectations between customers and their bookings, Amalina developed her career at Agoda. In 2021, Amalina was promoted as a Knowledge Management Specialist. Amalina often faced a compelling dilemma to find balance between giving the best services to the customers and maintaining the company’s best practices. Guided by an indigenous Malay concept of ‘sejahtera’, Amalina navigated her budding journey at Agoda in a holistic and balanced manner. Amalina’s ‘sejahtera’ principle was enhanced when she enrolled in an elective course on ‘Sejahtera Leadership’ during her studies in part-time Master of Business Administration (MBA) at the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM). Sejahtera Leadership taught Amalina to give a holistic view on the ten interconnected elements (i.e., SPICES) and find balance between the elements towards achieving a ‘sejahtera’ state and sustainable services in online travelling business.

Understanding continuous sharing behavior of online travel community users: a case of TripAdvisor

ABSTRACT Given the rapid development of the internet, the prospects for the online travel industry are promising, and online travel communities (OTCs) have become an invaluable platform for people exchanging travel information and making related decisions. However, the mobility and continuous sharing behavior of online travel community users has become a major source of uncertainty in platform management. To establish ways of regulating online communities and promoting innovation and development, this article builds on the knowledge and definitions of relevant concepts that we find in the research literature. Taking the online travel community as its research object and the TripAdvisor website as an example, based on social cognition theory and social exchange theory, this study identifies four community factors that influence the continuous sharing behaviors of users in online travel communities. The results show that richness of self-presentation, community identity, community support and community observation learning all have positive effect on the continuous sharing behavior of online travel community users. On this basis, the article offers comments and suggestions on the sustainable development of online travel agency enterprises.

Investigating customers’ responses to artificial intelligence chatbots in online travel agencies: the moderating role of product familiarity

研究目的研究旨在检验消费者对人工智能聊天机器人的感知如何影响潜在旅游者个体的认知、情绪状态以及购买意愿。研究设计/方法/途径研究结合线上、线上问卷调查方式共调研了566名体验过在线旅行社中聊天机器人的消费者, 进一步利用偏最小二乘结构方程模型对理论假设进行实证检验。研究结果:研究发现人机互动性和信息质量作为聊天机器人的外在刺激, 显著影响潜在游客的信任和购买意愿; 感知有用性在互动性、信息质量、顾客信任和购买意愿之间起中介作用。此外, 产品熟悉度高的顾客对具有高感知有用性的产品会产生更大的信任。研究原创性/价值研究结合认知一致性理论, 从理论上拓展了SOR框架在旅游聊天机器人的适用性, 解释了消费者响应人机交互的内在机制。

Click prediction boosting via Bayesian hyperparameter optimization-based ensemble learning pipelines

Online travel agencies (OTA's) advertise their website offers on meta-search bidding engines. The problem of predicting the number of clicks a hotel would receive for a given bid amount is an important step in the management of an OTA's advertisement campaign on a meta-search engine because bid times number of clicks defines the cost to be generated. Various regressors are ensembled in this work to improve click prediction performance. After preprocessing, the entire feature set is divided into 5 groups, with the training set preceding the test set in the time domain, and multi-set validation is applied. The training data for each validation set is then subjected to feature elimination, and the selected models are next validated with separate ensemble models based on the mean and weighted average of the test predictions. Additionally, a stacked meta-regressor is designed and tested, along with the complete train set, whose click prediction values are extracted in accordance with the out-of-fold prediction principle. The original feature set and the stacked input data are then combined, and level-1 regressors are trained once again to form blended meta-regressors. All individually trained models are then compared pairwise with their ensemble variations. Adjusted R2 score is chosen as the main evaluation metric. The meta-models with tree-based ensemble level-1 regressors do not provide any performance improvement over the stand-alone versions, whereas the stack and blended ensemble models with all other non-tree-based models as level-1 regressors boost click prediction (0.114 and 0.124) significantly compared to their stand-alone versions. Additionally, statistical evidence is provided to support the importance of Bayesian hyperparameter optimization to the performance-boosting of level-1 regressors.

How to introduce a livestreaming channel: a case of the hotel at a fixed capacity

AbstractConsidering two hotels that sell substitutable rooms through the same online travel agency (OTA), we study the optimal supply chain structure for a fixed‐capacity hotel to introduce a livestreaming channel (LC). First, ideal pricing and room allocation are explored through four scenarios: (a) a single channel with no introduction, (b) a dual channel with a hotel‐operated LC, (c) a dual channel with an OTA‐operated LC, and (d) a dual channel involving an influencer retailer. Upon comparing each model's supply chain performance, we find that small and large hotels prefer influencer retailers, while medium‐sized hotels favor a self‐operated LC when influencers cannot demonstrably extend the market. An OTA‐operated livestreaming service is only appropriate for a declining economy because the platform's reputation and livestream presentation can inform consumers’ travel intentions after recovery. Furthermore, OTAs may only suffer during the introductory period, whereas a supply chain system will benefit from celebrities’ charisma and impulsive consumption.

The Impact of Online Review and Price on Consumer’s Hotel Booking Intention at Online Travel Agency: Trust as a Mediating Variable

The Impact of Online Review and Price on Consumer’s Hotel Booking Intention at Online Travel Agency: Trust as a Mediating Variable

Procedural fairness concern in tourism supply chain: The case of a dominant OTA and a sustainable hotel

Environmental tourism has drawn widespread attention and has encouraged hotels to use sustainable materials or equipment in rooms to attract environmentally conscious consumers. Hotels must cooperate with the Online Travel Agent (OTA) to increase sales. This paper considers a hotel’s procedural fairness concern when the environmental sales effort is the OTA’s private information. An OTA decides the level of environmental sales effort and whether to afford the commission decision right to the hotel. The hotel decides the room price and environmental effort. Equilibrium solutions show a positive minimum environmental cost in the centralized model at which both the hotel and OTA can achieve the optimal channel profit. In the decentralized model, we find that when the hotel only considers his profit, the OTA always imposes commission. When the hotel has procedural fairness concern, however, the optimal choice scheme exists whereby the OTA relinquishes his right to make a decision regarding commission.

How online travel agencies’ logo design promotes purchase intention: a behavioral and neuroscientific interpretation of consumers’ construal level

ABSTRACT Using construal level theory as a theoretical framework, this study aims to understand how online travel agencies’ logo design, a combination of shapes and colors, influences consumers’ purchasing intentions using behavioral and neuroscientific data. Three studies are conducted to obtain behavioral and neuroscientific data for analysis. The results of these three studies show that the relationship between logo design and the destination product can be managed by framing consumers’ construal level. Further, evidence of the natural mindset congruency effect and consumers’ brainwave activities while reflecting on the logo design is provided.

Double blades: does a sharing platform benefit from integration to a popular OTA platform?

ABSTRACT With the rapid development of sharing economy, meal-sharing platforms are dedicated to expanding their influence and inclined to cooperate with online travel agencies (OTAs). The consequences of such an action remain unclear. Based on expectation disconfirmation theory (EDT) and dataset from EatWith, this study conducted empirical analyses with a difference-in-differences (DID) research design. The results suggest that the meal-sharing platform’s integration into an OTA brings more tourists to hosts at the cost of ratings decrease. This study underscored the double-blade effect of platform integration that the hosts, platform managers, and industry required attention and need to balance in practice.

From Darkest to Finest Hour: Recovery Strategies and Organizational Resilience in China’s Hotel Industry During the COVID-19 Pandemic

ABSTRACT In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic adversely affected the global tourism industry and continues to impact the Chinese hotel sector today. Using a multiple cases study method, we analyzed the response strategies of four Chinese hotel groups – Jinling, Jinjiang, New Century Hotels & Resorts, and Huazhu Group Ltd.—across four successive periods: (1) outbreak; (2) first recovery; (3) struggle; and (4) a predicted finest moment. We identified four internal recovery strategies: (a) rapid response, (b) recovery exploration, (c) optimization and upgrading, and (d) rejuvenation. Hotel groups’ resilience proceeded through all four stages include (re)activation, consolidation, extension, and ecosystem. Each stage demonstrated the companies’ movement from reliance on internal resources to interdependence across the supply chain with on the help of digital services such as contactless check-in, robot delivery and cloud-based PMS. We additionally identified a close link between stakeholders including online travel agencies, government and hotel chains. The analysis in the present study is premised on resource utilization, product and service development, organizational management and operation, leadership, digitalization, and social responsibility. Suggestions to cope with a long-duration crisis like COVID-19 are also provided.

The impact of negative emotions and relationship quality on consumers’ repurchase intention: An empirical study based on service recovery in China’s online travel agencies

Service failures of online travel agencies (OTAs) occur frequently, which makes the OTA business operation model face huge risks. However, the current academic circles still pay insufficient attention to OTA service recovery. This study obtained research data through scenario experiment method, and analyzed data through SPSS25.0, HLM6.08 and other statistical software to explore the impact mechanism of consumers’ repurchase intention in OTA service recovery. The empirical results of this study are as follows: Consumers’ negative emotions weaken their relationship with tourism suppliers and OTAs. If the relationship quality between consumers and tourism suppliers is improved, the relationship quality between consumers and OTAs will also be improved. The relationship quality between consumers and OTAs has a positive impact on consumers’ repurchase intention, and consumer forgiveness has a positive moderating effect between them. This study provides a consumer psychology perspective for discussing OTA’s service recovery, which is conducive to promoting the healthy development of OTA’s business operation model and benefiting consumers.

Estimation of accommodation performance by region using data from online travel agencies

This study identified the lack of data available to destination marketing organizations and other organizations in Japan. To enable strategic planning based on an immediate and detailed understanding of the situation, data beyond official statistics are required. Therefore, this study focused on plan data from online travel agencies. As online travel agency websites can be accessed free of charge, they can provide data, such as vacancies and plan types. This study proposed a methodology for estimating the number of vacancies at accommodations in Japan based on plan information. Accuracy was verified using graphical, autocorrelation, and regression analyses. The results indicated that the estimation was accurate. In addition, the estimated number of vacancies could predict accommodation performance in various regions. A comparison of the methods revealed that if the number of vacancies is unknown, using the number of rooms in a facility improves estimation accuracy. However, this method requires significant preliminary work compared to the method that assigns a constant. Therefore, analysts should select appropriate methods based on the aims.

Investigating priority service attribute for online travel agencies (OTA) mobile app development using AHP framework

This study aims to identify service priority attributes for online travel agency (OTA) mobile application development. A quantitative- descriptive research design was used in this study. Data collection was done through literature review and questionnaire surveys. The respondents in this study were 273 customers of OTA. The results showed that the service attribute with the highest importance was the fulfilment dimension with an average weighting of 4.84 out of 5. In the fulfilment dimension, the service attribute with code F3, which refers to the need for mobile applications to be able to deliver orders as quickly as possible, has the highest weight. In second place is the privacy dimension, with an average importance score of 4.80. In this dimension, service attribute P3, which refers to the ability of mobile applications to protect customers' credit card data, ranks first. In third place is the responsiveness dimension with an average importance value of 4.69. Attributes relating to the customer being able to speak directly to customer service in the event of problems are the attributes with the highest weighting on the responsiveness dimension.

The Implementation of Integrated Multichannel Services in the Hospitality Sector in Vietnam

The research streams on multichannel integration (MCI) in the hospitality sector recently caught the attention of academics and practitioners. However, knowledge and understanding of integrated multichannel services are still unfamiliar to enterprises, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and enterprises in developing countries like Vietnam. Since this topic is limitedly exploited in the hospitality industry, the paper explores the opportunities and challenges for implementing integrated multichannel services in the hospitality sector in Vietnam based on the service science perspective. In the context of emerging digital technology and changing consumer behaviour today, an exploratory study on integrated multichannel services of hotels was conducted on eight hotel managers, eight online travel agencies (OTA), and sixteen domestic tourists. The results show the variety of channels of hotels can reach customers thanks to integrated multichannel services. However, the current situation of channel integration (between the direct and the indirect channel of the hotel through online travel intermediaries) is currently inconsistent. For this reason, challenges related to integrated services, promotion and price, and information access in the channel integration of the selected hotels have been explored. Since then, several solutions are suggested to accelerate MCI in the hospitality sector to stimulate demand for domestic tourism.

Effect of electronic word-of-mouth on customers booking intention at online travel agencies: case in Vietnam

Effect of electronic word-of-mouth on customers booking intention at online travel agencies: case in Vietnam

Effect of electronic word-of-mouth on customers' booking intention at online travel agencies: case in Vietnam

Effect of electronic word-of-mouth on customers' booking intention at online travel agencies: case in Vietnam

Ідентифікаційні ознаки функціонування туристичного ринку Іспанії

The article examines a set of instruments that characterize the national peculiarities of achieving the quality of tourism services in the recreation industry of Spain, which has specific signs of competitiveness in the world tourism market. The necessity of the State support for the implementation of the conception of improving and ensuring the quality of tourism services as one of the prerogatives of the national policy of Spain, which is a characteristic feature of the tourism market, is substantiated. The content of five basic directions of the New Strategy for the Development of the Tourism Sector in Spain until 2030 is disclosed: joint management; sustainable growth; competitive transformation; tourist space, companies, and individuals; product, marketing and travel intelligence. It is noted that the comprehensive nature of the concept of marketing in tourism provides for its implementation at different levels of management of creation, formation, promotion and sale of tourism product. It is emphasized that an important role in comparing the pricing policies of hotels and tourist apartments in Spain is played by online travel agencies, which, on the one hand, attract tourists who are price sensitive, and on the other hand, combine many different hotel offers, which reduces the cost of information for tourists. The article allocates the brand of Spain and the tourist image, which it designs and which acts not only as a «brand umbrella», containing both communicative and tourism elements, but also forms its own tourist image of Spain, realized through tourist advertising. The article shows the necessity of segmentation of the tourism services market, i.e. development of a complex of marketing – targeting for classification of tourists into homogeneous groups or segments in terms of tourist preferences. The effectiveness of the State support of transport infrastructure as a key element of intensification of tourist flows to Spain is verified.

Consumer Buying Behavior on Travel Products through Online Travel Agencies

Consumer Buying Behavior on Travel Products through Online Travel Agencies

The Segmentation of Mobile Application Users in The Hotel Booking Journey

Aim/Purpose: This study aims to create customer segmentation who use Online Travel Agent (OTA) mobile applications in Indonesia throughout their hotel booking journey. Background: In the context of mobile hotel booking applications, research analyzing the customer experience at each customer journey stage is scarce. However, literature increasingly acknowledges the significance of this stage in comprehending customer behavior and revenue streams. Methodology: This study employs a mixed-method and exploratory approach by doing in-depth interviews with 20 participants and questionnaires from 207 participants. Interview data are analyzed using thematic analysis, while the questionnaires are analyzed using descriptive statistics. Contribution: This study enriches knowledge in understanding customer behavior that considers the usage of mobile apps as a segmentation criterion in the hotel booking journey. Findings: We developed four user personas (no sweat player, spotless seeker, social squad, and bargain hunter) that show customer segmentation based on the purpose, motivation, and actions in each journey stage (inspiration, consideration, reservation, and experience). Recommendations for Practitioners: The resulting customer segmentation enables hospitality firms to improve their current services by adapting to the needs of various segments and avoiding unanticipated customer pain points, such as incomplete information, price changes, no social proof, and limited payment options. Recommendation for Researchers: The quality and robustness of the customer segment produced in this study can be further tested based on the criteria of homogeneity, size, potential benefits, segment stability, segment accessibility, segment compatibility, and segment actionability. Impact on Society: This study has enriched the existing literature by establishing a correlation between user characteristics and how they use smartphones for tourism planning, focusing on hotel booking in mobile applications. Future Research: For future research, each customer segment’s demographic and behavioral factors can be explored further.

Factors affecting consumers’ behavioural intention to book travel products online using e-commerce: a case of online travel agencies

Factors affecting consumers’ behavioural intention to book travel products online using e-commerce: a case of online travel agencies