There has been an explosion of growth in the Global travel industry due
to the eased travel barriers around the world (e.g liberalizing overseas
trip, and Visa-free entry, etc.), shortened working hours, the business
expansion of low-cost carriers, an...
There has been an explosion of growth in the Global travel industry due
to the eased travel barriers around the world (e.g liberalizing overseas
trip, and Visa-free entry, etc.), shortened working hours, the business
expansion of low-cost carriers, and increased demands on FIT(Free
Independent Travel). It has been accelerating tourism environment
improvement as well as enlarging its fundamental scale. In addition, the
development of information and communication technology(ICT) has
created various business models and transaction methods such as
online and mobile travel agencies, platform business, and Fintech. The
sharing and securing of related information has become a daily routine,
and the method of trading products is changing from the traditional
method, led by brokers like travel agencies to a self-directed way. In
the hotel industry, the distribution channel is also rapidly changing to
online under this trend, and as of 2017, the revenue share of online
travel market in the United States, the home of OTA(Online Travel
Agency) reached 39%, and experts predict that it will achieve a share
of over 41% by 2020 (Hyunjoo Kim, 2017). Now, for hotels, OTA has
secured a position to determine the hotel's business to a certain extent
beyond a simple product brokerage channel, and as a result, they have
strengthened their bargaining power with hotels by increasing
commissions through superiority, so accordingly hotel sales shows the
external growth of the company. However, the profitability of the hotel
is inversely proportional paradoxically. As a self-measure for this
critical situation, hotels pay attention to their direct booking channel,
which is owned and managed by hotel, to reduce their OTA
dependence, to reduce commission burden, and to increase customer
loyalty. As the demand increase in this direct sales, it is necessary to
identify which attribute of the hotel booking site causes site switching
and induces re-purchase, and in particular, understanding of these
characteristics of each direct and indirect booking channels can help
the efficient operation on the hotel owned site. While this is a
essential point of empirical research, most of the studies so far have
focused on finding a way to increase room reservations through OTA.
Only few studies have attempted to switch to hotel direct reservations.
Therefore, this is the starting point of this study to focus on providing
certain attributes of the website which can lead and induce consumers'
repurchase intentions for switching channel to a hotel direct website,
and for this purpose, we will proceed with the following detailed
objectives. First, the study re-defines the concept and attribute
characteristics of the hotel booking site through literature research and
preceding research analysis. Secondly, this is to research and analyze
on how the attribute of each hotel booking site have an effect on the
switching cost. Third, this study to examine the influence of the
switching cost and repurchase intention, which had an effect on the
hotel booking site selection attribute. Fourth, as it is assumed that the
repurchase intention by switching cost would not appear to be the
same depending on the channel, the empirical analysis will examine the
moderating effect of the hotel booking platform (OTA) and hotel direct
booking site (Direct Booking Site) channels. Lastly, through this study,
it can be discovered the implication for developing a hotel direct
reservation site as a preferred distribution channel that consumers can
choose the first under this diversification of online hotel product sales
channels. It is to provide basic data to establish a customized
marketing strategy. This reseach was conducted by google online
questionnaire, for Korean customers who have booked through the
Hotel Reservation Platform (OTA) or the Hotel Direct Booking Site.
388 people were selected as samples. Analysis was conducted through
SPSS, and AMOS program. As a result of the study, among the five
attributes of hotel reservation site, price, information, system,
communication, and safety, 3 factors; the price, information, and
communication were confirmed by affecting the switching cost, but
system and safety did not affect the switching cost. In addition, the
switching cost was found to affect the repurchase intention. In this
process, there was a moderating effect between the hotel reservation
platform (OTA) and the hotel direct booking site (Direct Booking Site).
In the case, the intention on hotel direct booking site was not affected
by the repurchase intention, whereas the switching cost was affected
by the intention of the repurchase for users of the hotel reservation
agency (OTA). That is, it can be interpreted that the reservation
through the direct booking site showed repurchase intention and loyalty
regardless of its switching cost. Several studies related to the
website's system and safety attributes have shown that it affects
satisfaction, loyalty, and intention to switch, which is different from
that shown in this study, showing that the system and stability do not
affect the switching cost. It can be implicated that these system and
safety have an impact on customer loyalty and satisfaction, but not for
actual switching behavior. Thus, it is expected to contribute to serve
as a reference for establishing a customized sales strategy to
transition from the OTA reservation to the Hotel direct booking
channel. However, this study does not reflect the foreign opinions and
there is a limitation on result of the general and overall moderating
effect for each reservation channel. It is necessary to further
research on the correlation between the selection properties for each
reservation channel in future study.