and social network communities have become the essential channel for people looking for tourism\ninformation and online purchases or reservations. The academic community strive to better understand which factors\ninfluence online satisfaction and loyalty in the online travel industry. Many antecedents to e-satisfaction have been\nidentified in the literature, namely functional and relational website characteristics.\nWhile many studies have assessed the influence of functional characteristics on esatisfaction such as usability\nand security, few research focused on the influence of social and human dimensions of the interface, called relational\ncharacteristics, especially in the online travel context. In fact, the relational features have been studied as a part of\nthe optimization of the website interface and not from the logic of loyalty and brand-customer relationships. Moreover,\nthere is a call in the literature for more research on the impact of individual engagement on social networks sites on\nloyalty generation. Thus, the objective of this study is to investigate how online attributes under the control of the\ncyber-merchant (website functional and relational attributes) and social networking sites where the firm has far less\ncontrol, foster e-saisfaction and e-loyalty in the online travel industry. A self-administered survey was used and data\nwere collected from university students who had shopped from an online travel company in the past year. By using\nSEM modelling, results show that usability, quality of support, and security/privacy positively impact e-satisfaction\nwhile e-satisfaction influences both cognitive and affective loyalty. Further analyses showed that personalization\nand online social network communities significantly influence both cognitive and affective loyalty while perceived\nsocial presence has a negative impact on cognitive loyalty. By understanding website drivers of online satisfaction\nand loyalty, this study contribute to help online travel companies develop strategies positioned to build long-term\nrelationships, and thereby gain a competitive advantage.
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