Online Travel Agent Service and Customer Satisfaction Based On
Online Travel Agent Service and Customer Satisfaction Based On
Online Travel Agent Service and Customer Satisfaction Based On
The research is supported by Guangdong Province High Education Comprehensive Reform Project.
Abstract
With the cooperation of Internet and travel industries, online travel market has been booming, the expected
number of online travel users will be a larger growth in the future and service quality will also become an
important part of the tourism industry chain. It is a question of travel companies to think about how to improve
the online travel service quality and customer satisfaction, to obtain the profits greatly. To scientifically prioritize
the key driving factors of online travel agent service is of vital importance for travel service provider to improve
the customer satisfaction. So this paper adopts PZB gap model and SERVQUAL questionnaire as a reference,
builds six service quality dimensions of online travel booking which based on data analysis and research, namely,
"tangible", "reliability", "guarantee", "responsiveness", "empathy" and "user friendliness", with 18 specific
measurements, the online travel booking service quality measurement instrument is eventually established.
Through the statistical analysis, the authors test the hypotheses with reaching the following conclusions:(1)
There is significant difference between customer perceived service quality standards and customer expectations
of service quality level of online travel booking. (2) The online travel booking service quality dimensions
positively correlated with overall satisfaction. Finally, the conclusions of this paper provides a reference to
improve the quality of service and overall customer satisfaction of online travel booking.
Keywords: Online Travel; Service Quality; Customer Satisfaction; Marketing
1. Introduction
China witnesses a rapid growth in online travel booking with strong sustainability and optimistic prospect.
According to the latest statistics of CNNIC, There are 0.133 billion person times with the experience on-line
booking in flight, hotel, train and itinerary till June 2014, which is 22.4% of netizen population. While at the end
of December 2014, there were 0.112 billion person times with the experience on-line booking in flight, hotel,
train and itinerary which is 19.8% of the all population of netizen (CNNIC, 2014). So the fact proves that it
increases by 2.6%, 21 million person times in 6 months. It is concluded that rapid-growing market and huge
potential space has become the engine to encourage the growth of online travel agent market. While in terms of
online-booking users, the usage ratio is far lower than the internet developed countries. With upgrading of
people’s consumption structure, the development of leisure travel idea, improvement of transportation, and
guidance from service suppliers to citizen, it is predicted that more travel demands will be cultivated to
encourage more people to use on-line booking service. According to the statistics of Ireasearch consultancy,
online travel transaction of China in 2015 has reached to RMB 218.12 billion, in which on-line flight ticket and
hotel reservation is the major part.
As internet development in China is on the way of commercial era from entertainment Tencent,
Taobao, Baidu have directly participated or indirectly financially supported on-line booking sector. Involvement
of capital market will undoubtedly promote the boom of travel booking service, and a great increase number of
user is predicted. Therefore, on-line booking service will grow to be an important part along travel industry chain.
It has become an urgent issue for on-line travel companies to think about how to improve on-line booking
service and customer satisfaction. At present, the research on on-line booking majorly focuses on satisfaction
evaluation with few on relationship between online travel agent l service with customer satisfaction. Hence, the
authors do the research with the model of PZB service quality Gap model which was founded by three professors
of Cambridge university, Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Berry in 1985. They think there is a gap between customer
perceived and expected service which results in the establishement of a conceptional model of service quality
based on this gap named gap to form PZB (Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Berry) model. Hence, the authors first
designed questionnaire by SERVQUAL scale with PZB Gap model,they secondly assess the key element of
online travel agent by IPA model (Importance-Performance Analysis),and thirdly they try to prove the
hypothesis of this study by SPSS to supply theoretical ground for study and improve online travel agent service
and customer satisfaction.
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2. Literature Review
2.1 Service quality and On-line service quality
Service quality is evolving from the conception of product quality with the shared ground that it composed of
expected service and perceived service, which is a customer’s subjective conclusion about expected service and
perceived one (Peng, 2007). With the boom of internet, the researchers will study on the network service quality
with SERVQUAL. As for the past study proves that the standard of internet service quality consists of
correctness and promptness, and it is a vital element whether travel information quality supplied by booking
website could meet visitor’s demand and expectation. This study bases on SERVQUAL scale by keeping five
dimensions, that is tangibility, reliability, responsiveness , guarantee , empathy. While they adjust the
intonation of various dimensions to propose the dimension of “user friendliness”by referring to the past research
of travel websites.
Parasuraman, Zeithaml & Berry had a deep interview on the management in bank, credit card company,
equity agent, maintenance sector, they found there is a gap between customer’s perceived and expected service
level and the size and direction of the gap will effect service quality. Hence, they set us a service quality gap
model, in brief, PZB model which is composed of five service quality gap:
Gap One: perception gap between customer’s expectation on service and service supplier for
customer’s expectation;
Gap Two: the gap between service supplier’s awareness of customer’s expectation and transferring the
awareness into service quality standard;
Gap Three: the Gap between service quality standard and the available service;
Gap Four: The Gap between the available service and external communication for false information
from advertisement and other marketing approaches;
Gap Five: the gap between customer expected service level and experienced service level.
Gap five will be affected by former four gaps, so it can be regarded as the function of gap one-gap four.
Model PZB defines customers perception of various service quality (Q) as the gap between perceived service
level (P) and expected service (E). Therefore, in order to better service quality, service supplier should start from
knowing customer expected service to narrow the gap by improving various service quality.
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satisfaction on travel websites to discuss adjustment of travel network in China; Li Yanli (2006) proposed
judgment criterion of user satisfaction of travel websites to discover the elements to constrain user’s
satisfaction(demand and supply contradiction) and inner discipline (virtual distance declining rule);Guan Hua,
Yin Min (2007) chose Ctrip as the object to have quantitative analysis on influential elements of user satisfaction
on travel websites by factor analysis; Zhang Weiwei(2010) discussed the influential factors and assessment
model of electronic travel service quality by empirical research and then the influential scheme of user’s
satisfaction and loyalty of electronic travel service quality had been further studied. Qin Baoli (2011)
systematically addressed the intonation of customer perceived value, involvement and loyalty and their
relationship under the settings of online travel agent service.
To sum up, the present researches mainly involve assessment system of satisfaction, but few about
relationship of on-line booking service quality and customer satisfaction. Hence, the author base on PZB Gap
model and apply SERVQUAL scale questionnaire to evaluate crucial factor of online travel agent by IPA model.
3. Research Design
The author firstly refers to SERVQAL scale to design measurement dimension of online travel agent service
quality and then to set specific measurement item for every dimension and finally to make measurement scale of
online travel agent service quality to design questionnaire. Based on the statistics of questionnaire, the authors
will discuss online travel agent service quality on the gap between expected service and perceived service.(Gap 5
of PZB Model)to prove visible difference between two.According to the research from Cronim and Taylor, the
authors try to evaluate service quality from customer’s perception on service to discuss the causality between
customer’s perceived service quality and satisfaction to further address the difference of service quality and
overall satisfaction affected by population statistical variables.
3.2 Hypothesis
The authors put forward the following hypothesis for the solutions:
Hypothesis 1: There is no significant difference between customer’s expectation and perception about online
travel agent service quality
Hypothesis 2: Various service quality dimensions indicate no significant relevance on overall satisfaction.
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purchased relevant on-line travel product from any on-line travel website. Network questionnaire is the main
data collection method of this article. This study adopts on-line questionnaire platform named “Wenjuan.come”
to collect the data. The questionnaire and data collection is done by data bank automatically which guarantees
the accuracy and efficiency of data with saving efforts and energy.
4. Empirical Analysis
4.1 Analysis on sample information
The author choose visitors who have used online travel agent website as the objects to send to on-line
questionnaire 335 articles with collecting 324, the collection ratio is 91.3%, According to the survey, as for
gender, male is the main part, 56.2%, for more men surf on internet than women, what’s more, there are larger
number of male visitors or business travelers. In terms of age, the people in 18-24 is the majority, 34.3%,
because this group is mainly students with a high demand of ticket; In terms of education
Table 1 Service quality measurement dimension and measurement item
Dimension content in questionnaire
1.The interface and art design of this website is visually appealing
Tangibility
2.This website conveys the message in various way with words and pictures displayed
3.The website can offer in-time and accurate product information
Reliability 4.This website’s online transaction system is working smoothly
5.This website could offer relevant service promptly
6.The staff is ready to offer service
Responsiveness 7.The website can immediately solve problem on-line
8.The website can quickly confirm your on-line transaction request
9. This website can safeguard your personal information and privacy security
10.This website can safeguard on-line transaction security
Guarantee
11. This website guarantees professional after-sale service
12.The website offers favorable price of product
13.This website will concern about your unique demand
14.This website can offer your personalized product and service
Empathy
15.This website actively inquire your needs
16.This website is able to know your needs
17.This website can help your find the product and service information easily
User friendliness 18.This website can supply friendly guidance and assistant system to make sure convenient
on-line purchase
background, undergraduates, 68.5%, is the major part, for people with good education absorb new
knowledge easily, and they are the drive to encourage on-line travel at the initial stage. What’s more, university
students share a large market in on-line travel with attracting more users with good-education background. As
for monthly income, most people earn RMB 3000-5000 per month, the ratio is 42.3%; In recent one year, most
users will book the travel on-line in 3-5 times, 51.5%, and the website most frequently visited is Qunar.com,
46.3%, the second is Ctrip.com in 31.2%, which is fundamentally identified with the data issued in “the Report
of Chinese Netizen travel and reservation behavior” by Internet information center of China.
Secondly, it is reliability coefficient test for questionnaire for this study adopts widely used reliability
coefficient Cronbach’s α coefficient. Most scholars think 0.70-0.98 is in high reliability for Cronbach’s α
coefficient.It can be accepted when it is above 0.5, while it will be rejected if it is below 0.35.The statistics show
that the measurement variable Cronbach’s α is always above 0.6 which proves favorable performance of the
questionnaire scale. Thirdly, it is the validity test for adopting content validity analysis.As the questionnaire’s
content is designed on the base of PZB gap model and SERVQUAL scale, and authors will refer to literature
review and traits of online travel agent to attain the contents with pre-investigation and modification by some
users, so it remains relatively content validity.
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there is causality among various dimensions. Relevance analysis from table 4, there shows positive relevance
between client overall satisfaction and six dimensions of service quality, that is, tangibility, reliability, guarantee,
responsiveness, empathy and user friendliness. Therefore, given overall satisfaction as dependent variable, six
dimensions as independent variables, regression model is set as follows:
Overall Satisfaction=β0+β1Tangibility+β2Reliability+β3Guarantee+β4Responsiveness+β5Empathy+β6
Table 4. ANOVAb Variance Test
Model Quadratic Sum Mean Square F Sig.
Regression 22.371 2.773 24.863 .000a
Residual 8.979 .246
Total 31.350
a. Predication Variable: (Constant), Reliability, User friendliness, Guarantee, Empathy, Responsiveness,
Tangibility
b. Dependent Variable: Overall satisfaction
Variance Test is used to test whether there exists different level from six dimensions towards online
tourist’s perceived overall satisfaction. Table 5 tells us F is 24.863, Sig. is .000, which indicates this regression
model is working with statistical meaning, that is, six dimensions car be explained as overall satisfaction.
Table 5. Analysis Table of Regression coefficient on various dimension of overall satisfaction
Non-standard Coefficient Standard Coefficient
Model t Sig.
B Standard Deviation Trial Version
β0 3.863 .365 4.996 .000
Tangibility(β1) .057 .102 .051 .468 .677
Reliability(β2) .365 .142 .321 2.655 .006
Guarantee(β3) .277 .119 .244 1.662 .097
Responsiveness(β4) .182 .122 .133 1.227 .152
Empathy(β5) .159 .101 .120 1.049 .188
user friendliness(β6) .313 .125 .289 2.043 .038
According to table 4-12, the research figures out the regression equation of online travel agent overall
satisfaction towards various dimensions of service quality:
Overall Satisfaction=3.863+0.057*Tangibility+0.365*Reliability+0.277*Guarantee+0.182*Responsiveness
+0.159*Empathy+0.313*User friendliness
In terms of equation’s regression coefficient, reliability of service quality affect overall satisfaction in
greatest degree, user friendliness and guarantee is secondary. It indicates that reliability, user friendliness,
guarantee of service quality in travel booking website play great impact on on-line visitor’s satisfaction.
(3) Empirical result analysis
Above analysis tells the comparison between hypothesis and real situation. (See Table 6)
Table 6. Testing result of hypothesis
Hypothesis Testing Result
Hypothesis 1: There is no significant difference between customers expectation and real
False
perception of online travel agent service quality’s traits
Hypothesis 2: Various dimensions of service quality presents no significant difference to
False
overall satisfaction
It is false to assume no significant difference between clients expectation and real perception on on-
line travel service quality. The result indicates there exists significant difference between performance level of
booking service quality and clients attention degree for all 18 items on clients’ perceptive service quality level is
lower than their attention level. It is false for the hypothesis that there is no significant relevance from various
service quality dimension towards overall satisfaction. The results indicate, customer’s satisfaction represent
positive relevance with tangibility, reliability, guarantee, responsiveness, empathy and user friendliness.
Moreover, the outcome of regression analysis indicate various service quality dimensions greatly affect overall
satisfaction.
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Vol.11, 2015
different needs. Meanwhile, it should be able to solve customer’s problem quickly and efficiently, execute
promised service so as to gain people’s trust with promoting their satisfaction to greatest extent.
(2) Adopt different improvement for different demographic variables.
The research indicates that there is no significant difference on perceived level of various dimension in service
quality towards sex, monthly income of demographic variable. Furthermore, sex and education in demographic
variable represents no significant difference towards satisfaction. In addition, online travel agent enterprises
should have effective customer group segment, that is, to adopt specific solution and offer differentiate service
for customers with different age and monthly income.
(3) Improve customer satisfaction accordance with different service quality dimension
1) Developing tangibility of online travel agent website
It is suggested to take user-oriented as the principle, reasonably arrange the web page layout. What’s more,
information in website should be sorted to make it more concise. Color allocation and readability of writing
should be guaranteed to make it more visually compelling so as to attract customer immediately to convey the
message of website effectively. Moreover, it is necessary to create website’s particular character to integrate
website with enterprise’s image.
2) Improve reliability of online travel agent website
As reliability plays a prominent role on affecting satisfaction of on-line travel service quality, the website should
firstly make sure the reliability of product information quality, for example, it can try to collect latest reserving
product, travel itinerary, new product launch etc. Meanwhile, maintenance for hardware and software should be
strengthened to guarantee steadily working of the whole system, the most important, it should keep the
commitment, gain customer’s trust to increase overall satisfaction.
3) Strengthen the guarantee of online travel agent website
It is recommended that all the websites strengthen network safety technology to strictly protect user’s personal
register information, keep user’s purchase behavior confidentially to safeguard customer’s transaction process.
What’s more, it should offer professional after sales service to establish a regulated after sales service rules to
maximally improve customer’s satisfaction.
4) Increasing responsiveness of online travel agent network.
It is necessary for website having immediate and effective respond for any problems and any delay might cause
to loss customer. Therefore, it is suggested that on-line travel website should store the sorted problems in the
way of “data-bank” to set up on-line customer service center to list routine problems by increasing website
column which helps customer search easily. If it is a complicated problem involving customer’s personalized
need, it needs professional staff to offer service for customer to increase their satisfaction.
5) Increasing empathy of online travel agent website
Online travel agent enterprise should actively understand real need and particular problem of user so as to offer
personalized tourism product and proper service. The websites can keep the record on user’s purchase by data
system and to sort them into different categories to offer them personalized service. Furthermore, it can have
special greeting at certain occasion to recommend personalized product information to actively cultivate their
needs.
6) Enhance user friendliness of online travel agent website
The job of sorting for tour product information index should be more specific and clarified to improve user
friendliness of website. What’s more, transaction procedure should simplified and illustrations are necessary for
support and explanation to help the new user. In order to avoid user registration when user click the page,
Cookies technology is recommended to record user’s purchase behavior, and when registered user finish the
purchase to confirm, it can be done after some simple steps. As the sample of this study is just 324 people, future
study needs to cover larger populations with different income, education, demographical, and psychological
attributes and more representative sample, and improved the generalizability of the research outcomes.
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