How Influential Are Travel Websites On Travelers’ Travel Planning? An Empirical Research in Turkey

Abstract

Travel websites have become one of the most influential tools in travel planning and they have been commonly used in today's travel world as access to the internet has become easier and more widespread thanks to technological advancements. This research intended to examine the perceptions of Turkish travellers regarding travel websites in terms of their perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, perceived trustworthiness and behavioural intention to use information obtained through travel websites and their impacts on their travel planning and decision making processes. Simple random sampling method, which is a type of probability sampling, was used in data collection and 212 travellers from Turkey filled in the relevant questionnaire. Respondents were filtered with the help of filtering questions at the beginning of the questionnaire and only those living in Turkey and having used any travel websites in their travel planning were included in the study. The results obtained through relevant statistical analyses revealed that there is a positive relationship among perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, perceived trustworthiness of travel websites and behavioural intention to use information obtained from such websites. The research also revealed that education level is a factor influencing travellers' decision-making process in the constructs explained in detail in the study.