A perceptual mapping of online travel agencies and preference attributes

Abstract

Planning and booking a trip online is now increasingly common for travelers. This manuscript addresses two purposes. One is to investigate the important choice attributes of online travel agencies from which online customers may select. Two, the study identifies the current positions of seven online travel agencies in the perception of the customer. The data for this study was collected from the directories of seven universities through an online survey. In terms of the importance of online travel agency attributes, finding low fares was the most critical followed by security. Customers considered various attributes simultaneously, other than bargain price and security. Furthermore, the result from the multidimensional scaling showed how travelers perceived the seven online travel agencies in comparison with each other. The results also revealed that each online agency had some different patterns based on travelers' perceptions in terms of web features, user friendliness and security, and finding low fares. © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.