The effect of electronic word-of-mouth, customer expectations, and emotions on intention to take low cost airlines

Abstract

With the rapid development of low cost airlines in the Taiwan’s airlines market, there are both positive and negative critiques of low cost airlines. Inexpensive prices are the way for low cost airlines to attract the public; however, unstable service quality is criticized by travelers. This study seeks to incorporate the effect of word-of-mouth, customer expectations, and emotional contagion into the dimensions to be explored, focusing on whether such factors affect the behavioral intentions of travelers to take low cost airlines. Results show that online word-of-mouth for low cost airlines would not affect consumers' intention to take low cost airlines. However, the expectations and emotional contagion of consumers would affect the intention to take low cost airlines.