Online Travel Agency Websites Research Articles

Customers' Attitudes Toward the Use of Online Travel Agency Websites' Travel Services: A Literature Review

Customers' Attitudes Toward the Use of Online Travel Agency Websites' Travel Services: A Literature Review

‘Instant Noodle Crisis’: understanding tourist and public sentiments towards collective tourist environmentally irresponsible behaviour in a tourist destination in China

ABSTRACT Limited studies have examined tourist and public sentiments towards tourists’ environmentally irresponsible behaviour. This study used Python to mine and analyze online reviews from online travel agency websites and social networking sites to comprehend a specific event of tourists’ environmentally irresponsible behaviour, the Laojun Mountain ‘Instant Noodle Crisis’ in China, which has triggered widespread online discussion. The findings are as follows: (1) Based on the event system theory, it showed that the evolutionary mechanisms of ‘Instant Noodle Crisis’ differ between online travel agency websites and social networking sites. (2) The results from keywords, semantic co-occurrence, and visual semantic association networks revealed that reviews on online travel agency websites focused on travel experiences and sights, with tourists rarely mentioned their own behaviour. In contrast, reviews on social networking sites concentrated on blame-assigning and cause-seeking. (3) Latent Dirichlet Allocations model analysis demonstrated that tourists’ environmentally irresponsible behaviour decreased positive feelings and increased negative emotions among tourists and the public. This study explored the occurrence mechanisms, tourist and public attitudes and emotions, related to collective tourists’ environmentally irresponsible behaviour from a novel perspective. It offer insights for future academic research in the field and tourism destination management strategies.

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.

Gender differences in user perception of usability and performance of online travel agency websites

The success of online travel business largely depends on the usability of online travel agency websites, and, hence, the need to rigorously evaluate such websites. Gender-a key variable that explains a website's usage behavior (i.e., acceptance) and gratification from Internet use (i.e., purpose)-may influence the usability requirements of the design of online travel agency websites. This empirical study examines the usability of existing online travel agency websites in terms of gender, focusing on both user perception and performance. The findings show that women have more usability needs than men. The two gender groups have different expectations of different usability features as well. We argue that these findings can improve the understanding of gender differences in user behavior in terms of usability. Developers can thus increase the quality of experience of travel agency websites by improving the websites' flexibility and user satisfaction.

The effects of persuasion heuristics presentation strategies on consumers’ hotel booking decisions on foreign online travel agency websites

The effects of persuasion heuristics presentation strategies on consumers’ hotel booking decisions on foreign online travel agency websites

Dark patterns used by online travel agency websites

• OTA websites used dark patterns to persuade travelers. • We identified various dark patterns and cognitive biases. • We describe linkages between dark patterns and cognitive biases.

Cooperation and competition between online travel agencies and hotels

With the advent of O2O (online to offline) mode, Online Travel Agency (OTA) websites help to introduce new customers to hotels. However, since OTAs charge a hefty commission, hotel managers hope returning customers can book future visits from hotel websites instead of OTA websites. The study is to investigate how OTAs and hotels cooperate and compete with each other at the same time in the multichannel environments. The results show that OTAs can attract new and returning customers by website service quality while hotels can attract returning customers by perceived value. On the other hand, OTA website service quality has a negative effect on intention to rebook via hotel websites and the intention to rebook via OTA and hotel websites indeed have a negative relationship. Thus, the two channels compete with each other for customers' future visits.

The Intention of Repurchase on e-Service Quality by Online Travel Agency Site

Purpose – The purpose of this research is reflected on the rapid development of online tourism industries. The study was to establish the strategy for Korean tourism enterprises to develop tourist commodities suitable for Chinese tourists and attract them to visit Korea by the empirical analysis of the relation between repurchase intention of tourists and its premise variables (e-service quality, perceived value and satisfaction). Research design, data, and methodology – This research carried out a questionnaire survey on Chinese tourists who visited Korea with experience of using the online travel agency web sites. A total 398 answers were recovered, 41 of them were excluded due to the dishonest answers and 357 of them were finally analyzed. The data was analyzed with IBM SPSS AMOS 22.0. Results – The research results show that in the online travel agency web site e-service quality, convenience, interactivity, information validity, credibility had a positive impacts on perceived value and satisfaction. The perceived value of online travel agency website users has positive impart on satisfaction and repurchase intention. Satisfaction of online travel agency web site users have positive impacts on repurchase intention. But safety has no impact on perceived value while positive impacts on satisfaction was affected. Conclusions – First, in the online travel agency web site e-service quality, safety has no impact on perceived value while it was shown to have positive impacts on satisfaction because the users of online travel agency web sites believe that the protection of personal information, the defense of cracker and the safeguard of payment security are the basic premises of website operation. Although safety does not have impacts on perceived value, users benefits will suffer damage when hacker intrusion and other accidents occur so that online travel agency web sites should not ignore the security concerns. Second, credibility is a major concern for online travel agency web site users. At this time, it is necessary for the web site to establish a system to display both the commodity information and the using experience published on the user's SNS, thus improving the credibility of the website information.

The Effect of Delisting a Hotel Market from Online Travel Agency Websites: Evidence from Columbus, Georgia

The purpose of this article is to further explore the relationship and balance of power between online travel agencies (OTAs) and hotel properties, specifically addressing and generally supporting the established but contentious concept of the billboard effect. The research also introduces the concept of chain immunity, an ancillary benefit that unlisted hotels receive as a function of the billboard effect. The empirical study conducted suggests that OTAs have less power than is generally perceived versus hotels. The findings further provide hoteliers with strong justification to support experimentation with their property's sales distribution systems as they seek to determine the most effective balance of OTA versus Brand.com promotional efforts for their properties.

A better last-minute hotel deal via app? Cross-channel price disparities between HotelTonight and OTAs

To better understand hotels' cross-channel pricing mechanisms, this study aims to investigate various factors behind price discounts (as a type of price disparity) from a popular last-minute hotel deal app, HotelTonight, compared to major online travel agency (OTA) websites. Using pricing data collected from the HotelTonight app and OTA websites in six U.S. cities, we estimate several regression models to examine price discounts. The results reveal that after controlling for other variables, price discounts are largely shaped by online reputation metrics (i.e., relative review valence and volume on TripAdvisor compared to on HotelTonight), complimentary access to services with high marginal variable costs, and uncertainty in the room type offered. However, hotels’ market power does not explain price discounts. Lastly, implications are discussed.

“What is beautiful we book”: hotel visual appeal and expected service quality

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate the effect of hotel aesthetics as represented in online spaces (e.g. online travel agency website) in prospective guests’ evaluation of expected service quality and booking intentions, as well as the interplay between aesthetic and functional values as related to those outcomes.Design/methodology/approachA scenario-based experimental design is conducted with 203 Chinese respondents. A between-subject two-way multivariate analysis of covariance (high vs low aesthetic value; high vs low functional value), which also controlled for respondents’ individual tendency to appreciate beauty, is used.FindingsResults show that high aesthetic value hotels are more likely to be booked and perceived as able to deliver better services in SERVQUAL dimensions of tangibles, reliability and assurance. There are no significant effects for responsiveness and empathy. Given the presence of the aesthetic effect, hotel functional value has no impact on the outcome variables.Practical implicationsHotel managers are recommended to employ professional photographer-artists who are aware of the aesthetic value of hotels and can translate this value into information technology-mediated spaces. Such professionals should be able to create a composition that balances the elements of classic (e.g. symmetry vs asymmetry) and expressive (e.g. color) aesthetics.Originality/valueThis research brings out a number of insights from the product experience literature in the hospitality context and points to the limitations of the product visual attractiveness in engendering positive service quality evaluation.

Developing a matrix for assessing serviceability of U.S. online travel agency websites

We examined the importance of website serviceability of online travel agencies (OTAs). We collected data from 283 users of OTA websites in the USA. Statistical differences were found for 8 out of 10 website serviceability items that were examined. In addition, 2 dimensions of functional website serviceability and technical website serviceability were derived from the website serviceability items. Last, both dimensions of website serviceability positively affected customer satisfaction, which, in turn, positively affected brand attachment and loyalty. These results will be useful for developing effective and efficient marketing strategies.

Travel websites: a relevant source of statistical information?

This study explores the two most popular travel websites: TripAdvisor, based fully on the Travel 2.0 and UGC application; and Booking.com, which has developed as an online travel agency website but has also absorbed a modern UGC approach. Their content concerning accommodation in Wrocław was analysed and compared to the official tourist statistics provided by both the Central Statistical Office of Poland, and the Central Register of Hotels and Similar Establishments published by the Ministry of Sport and Tourism. The article aims at an evaluation of the reliability and completeness of the information provided over the internet: firstly from the point of view of a potential customer, secondly for its value for market research purposes. Although electronic word-of-mouth websites are designed both for consumers and suppliers, from a methodological perspective the article is based on a content analysis of tourism social media. The study also contributes to both academic research and the tourism industry by identifying some gaps in existing work and providing an agenda for the future.

Improving the multidimensional sequencing of hotel rooms on an online travel agency web site

The focus of this study is customer behavior during the process of booking a hotel through online travel agencies (OTAs). We developed a stochastic programming model to design the optimal sequence of hotels that enables customers to find hotels at the minimum search cost and maximum utility gained from hotels. The number of available hotels in the sequence was strategically decided to minimize search cost. We considered the multidimensional preferences of customers, including price, star rating, review rating, and reservation price. We collected customer information through a survey and took hotel information from a selected OTA. This information was then used through numerical simulations to test the performance of the modeling approach. The results suggest that hotels with higher utility, review rating, star rating, and price should be ranked in the upper position of the sequence. We highlight an application of the proposed model that can help improve hotel performance in today’s competitive market.

A repülőjegyárak változásának időbeli alakulása, budapesti indulással

A repülőjegyárak változásának időbeli alakulása, budapesti indulással

Is It Possible to Retain Customer Loyalty When a Service Has Failed?

This article aims to analyze the impact of recovery on loyalty in the context of a service chain characterized by the e-quality-perceived value-loyalty relationship. A sample of 91 out of 1,201 respondents claimed to have had service problems with an online travel agency website. A causal model to test relationships was performed using structural equations modeling, and it was found that data fit with the proposed model. The really important point to retaining customers is quality. It is not so clear that the recovery effort might affect loyalty. Our findings underpin some previous stream of literature confirming that recovery does not always affect loyalty. Although the literature has not reached a consensus in this topic, we add new elements in this debate.

Measuring Web Site Quality for Online Travel Agencies

Online travel agencies face increasing levels of competition and, thus, experience an ever greater need to evaluate the effectiveness of their Web sites. This study examines the influence of perceived Web site quality on willingness to use online travel agencies. Six core dimensions were identified and empirically tested regarding their impact on behavioral intentions using a survey of 311 local residents in the United States. Ease of Use was found to be the most important dimension in determining Willingness to Use, followed by Information/Content, Responsiveness, Fulfillment, and Security/Privacy. No significant relationship was found for Visual Appeal. Implications of the results for online travel agency Web sites and future research are discussed.