Predictors of customer preference for online versus offline air travel booking

• Zu-Hsu Lee ^[1] ; Kuangnen Cheng
  1. [1] Marist College

     Marist College

     City of Poughkeepsie, Estados Unidos

     
• Localización: Tourism review international, ISSN 1544-2721, Vol. 13, Nº. 3, 2009, págs. 183-200
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Airlines increasingly use their own websites to sell products directly to customers. Because Internet- based distribution is low cost, this means lower prices for the consumer. To compete with such sales channels, global distribution systems (GDS) firms have made ready-made online booking tools available for conventional walk-in travel agencies. This presents such agencies with a choice¿to use online or more traditional offline methods in dealing with their customers. This study has two goals: to identify a small set of predictive factors that effectively forecast customer preferences, and to demonstrate the utility of such factors for predicting customer choices. We began by designing and executing a detailed questionnaire fielding some 300 respondents, then applied hypothesis testing to extract important factors from the data, and finally, used the logistic regression methods applied with these factors to efficiently predict customer choices. The findings indicate that the majority of customers believe that online booking is cheaper and faster than offline. However, booking choice is strongly influenced by whether cost or service is the paramount emphasis. If customers want lower prices, they will typically book online. If they want service¿such as help making special travel arrangements¿they will usually choose offline.