Investigating antecedents of customer loyalty for web-based travel ıntermediaries

Abstract

Information technology has conspicuously influenced and transformed travel and tourism industry. With the advent of different technological developments such as Computer Reservation Systems (CRS) in the 1960s, Global Distribution Systems (GDS) in the 1980s and the Internet in the early 1990s, the travel and tourism industry has faced with new opportunities and challenges. These technologies have also changed customer behavior. There are few studies investigated the relationship among trust, satisfaction and loyalty of customers together in the literature in terms of web-based travel intermediaries. The main aim of this study is to investigate factors such as trust and satisfaction creating customer loyalty in web-based travel intermediaries. It was explored the degree of importance of trust, besides satisfaction, when it is associated with loyalty. Multiple linear regression was used to examine the relationship among web-based travel intermediary loyalty, satisfaction and trust. The research was conducted between February and April 2018 in Istanbul. A total of 362 data were collected by questionnaires and analyzed. The results indicated that participants’ satisfaction and trust predicted web-based travel intermediary loyalty at 68.9% level. Accordingly, satisfaction and trust seem to have a significant and positive effect on web-based travel intermediary loyalty. The results provide evidence that trust is a strong influence on customer loyalty as well as satisfaction. Contributions, recommendations and limitations are also outlined at the conclusion part of this study.