Search results

The study aims to assess how corporate branding affects firm performance in the context of the Oman hotel industry, listed on the Muscat Stock Exchange (MSX).

This study approach was made by way of a mixed method. First, it examines qualitative and exploratory information collected from companies’ internet sites, audited annual reports (the financial year 2019) published in MSX, web searches and websites of companies and travel agencies from all the eight listed hotel companies in the MSX to examine the impact of corporate branding on firm performance proxied by return of assets (ROA) and return of equity (ROE) and secondly, it assesses the measurement and structural models by applying partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

The findings recommend that well-thought-out web marketing on corporate branding by hotel companies leads to firm performance. The findings indicate that corporate branding on travel agency websites and a company’s own website can help businesses become more profitable. In addition, there is a synergistic connection on corporate branding of the hotel industry, including the presentation of a novel hotel narrative, the conception of a cornerstone loyalty program, the demonstration of excellence in hospitality and service, information on timely amenities like Covid-19 safety measures and the use of technology and experiential elements through platforms like the company website or the website of the travel agent all essential to achieve firm financial performance. As per the importance–performance matrix map, websites of travel agents (agoda.com, booking.com and hotels.com) had the importance (agoda.com 0.616, booking.com 0.959 and hotels.com 1.036) to impact companies’ corporate branding and firm performance, whereas Google search shows a value of −1.954, which has no impact on companies’ corporate branding.

The study considered only one hotel/tourism industry to know the effect of corporate branding on firm performance. Further studies may be chosen on other industries needed to allow for generalization.

This study aims to provide insights into how the hotel industry can make use of corporate branding through the company website, Google sites and websites of companies’ travel agency by providing timely updated promotion, facilities, quality services and hygiene matters to enhance firm performance.

This study provides empirical evidence to find various factors of corporate branding of the hotel industry’s firm performance. In addition, the study offers valuable insight into the nonmonetary measures of achievements.

This study aims to contribute to the context of electronic trust (e-trust) research with an emphasis on the determination of tourists’ e-trust in hotel websites. This research used social exchange theory to elaborate how perceived attributes of a hotel website influence purchase behaviour of tourists. This area is often neglected because most studies focus on website users’ adoption or acceptance of other service industries. It is expected that trust-generating mechanisms have different impacts on the e-trust level in the hospitality services.

A comprehensive literature review identified the major antecedents and outcomes of e-trust. Data was collected from an online survey and 586 usable questionnaires were achieved. Structural equation modelling was used to examine the hypothesized model.

The results of this study demonstrated that the more tourists perceive influences positively, the more they are possibly to trust in hotel website. Findings revealed that perceptions about the attributes of hotel website, including security, privacy, usefulness, ease of use and compatibility are the main antecedents of trust in hotel website, which, in turn, lead to actual usage of the website for booking online.

This study is based on a large sample of tourists and broadens the understanding of e-trust in hotel websites by considering factors rarely discussed in prior tourism and hospitality literature.

The purpose of this study is twofold: it aims to examine hotel website features by conducting a content analysis and it analyses customers’ viewpoints about the importance of the contents of hotel websites. The study involves a quantitative method of measurement and evaluation of the information provided by hotel websites. It tries to evaluate the richness of definite and ample information dimensions, which as a whole constitutes the information services offered through the website.

The study is based on two pillars: all five-star hotel chains (113 hotels) in Egypt as the population frame to evaluate the contents of their websites; and a sample of 406 customers selected to examine the customers’ views on the importance of the contents of hotel websites. This study proposes a quantitative evaluation frame of all dimensions provided by hotel websites which is developed, tested and validated.

The study has revealed important findings that can help hotel managers to adjust the information on the websites to be more efficient and customer-oriented.

Because of the chosen research approach, the research results may lack generalizability. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test the proposed frame again in further studies.

The study includes implications for the development of hotel website evaluation from the perspective of two sides, hotel managers and customers, by using a unique quantitative evaluation model.

This research has for the first time combined statements from the perspective of two sides – hotel managers and customers.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the associations among hotel website quality, telepresence, websites’ utilitarian and hedonic performance and customers’ behavioral intentions.

An online survey was used to collect the data from 683 respondents. Data was analyzed by using the two-stage modeling technique through Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM).

Findings indicate a significantly positive impact of hotel website quality on telepresence, utilitarian and hedonic performance. In addition, telepresence has a significantly positive impact on utilitarian and hedonic performance. Finally, telepresence, utilitarian and hedonic performance have a significantly positive impact on customers’ behavioral intentions.

Based on the findings of this study, theoretical and practical implications for hospitality and tourism researchers are provided.

This study is one of the very few studies integrating hotel website quality scale to examine the hotel website features that influence telepresence and perceived utilitarian and hedonic performance leading to positive behavioral intentions.

本文旨在探究酒店网站的质量、网真技术、实用属性和享乐属性与客户行为意图之间的关系。

本研究对在线调查收集的683名受访者数据, 采用基于偏最小二乘的结构方程模型（PLS-SEM）分析了理论框架并检验了假设.

调查结果表明酒店网站质量对网真技术、实用属性和享乐属性具有积极显著的影响。此外, 网真技术对实用属性和享乐属性也有积极显著的影响。最后, 网真技术、实用属性和享乐属性对客户的行为意图也会产生积极显著的影响。

本文的调查结果对酒店旅游业学术研究提供理论和实践意义。

本文是现阶段极少数结合酒店网站质量等级来探究酒店网站性能的研究之一。这些酒店网站性能影响网真技术以及客户感知的实用属性和享乐属性, 从而影响客户的行为意图。

酒店网站质量、网真技术、实用属性和享乐属性、酒店

El objetivo de este estudio es examinar las relaciones entre la calidad de los sitios web de los hoteles, la telepresencia, el rendimento hedónico en utilitario de los sitios web y las intenciones de comportamiento de los clientes.

Se utilizó una encuesta en línea para recopilar los datos de 683 encuestados. Se adoptó el modelo de ecuaciones estructurales basadas en mínimos cuadrados parciales (PLS-SEM) para analizar el marco teórico y probar las hipótesis.

Los resultados indican un impacto significativamente positivo de la calidad del sitio web del hotel sobre la telepresencia, del rendimento hedónico en utilitario. Además, la telepresencia tiene un impacto significativamente positivo en el rendimento hedónico en utilitario. Por último, la telepresencia, el rendimiento hedónico en utilitário tienen un impacto significativamente positivo en las intenciones de comportamiento de los clientes.

Basándose en los resultados de este estudio, se presentan las implicaciones teóricas y prácticas para los investigadores de la hotelería y el turismo.

Este estudio es uno de los pocos que integran la escala de calidad del sitio web del hotel para examinar las características que influyen en la telepresencia y el rendimento hedónico y utilitario percibido, lo que conduce a intenciones de comportamiento positivas.

Calidad del sitio web del hotel, Telepresencia, Características utilitarias e idónias, Hoteles

The purpose of this study is to develop a useful, effective and comprehensive approach to facilitate the evaluation of hotel websites.

The paper examines the literature evaluating e-commerce sites, particularly that is focused on hotel, tourism and travel. Moreover, 5 criteria and 19 sub-criteria are identified, and a two-step method is proposed for the assessment of hotel websites whereby the global weights of the proposed criteria are determined by the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process, and hotel websites are ranked through the fuzzy technique for order preference by similarity to ideal situation.

The results show that the leading criteria to effectively evaluate hotel websites are trust and information quality and that the most important sub-criteria are special discounts, assurance and reservation information.

This research offers practical advice to increase understanding of the determinants of an effective hotel website so that appropriate strategies can be developed to convert a website visitor into a customer.

The study aims to contribute to businesses operating in the tourism sector which seeks to increase the effectiveness of their websites by identifying criteria and proposing a methodology for hotel website evaluation.

Based on equity theory, this paper investigates if guests write on different review websites because of different internal motivations. Furthermore, it examines the moderating effect of service’ exceeds, neutral, negative, and service recovery–on the relationship between motivations and type of website to write reviews.

To exam if the star ratings of the same hotels were significantly different across hotel, online travel agency, and third-party review websites, this study collected 12,000 star ratings from 40 hotels across the US and conducted t-tests. A survey of 1,600 US travelers was administered to uncover the motivations for writing on different websites/website combinations. Four different scenarios were used to test the moderating effect of service: exceeds, neutral, negative, and service-recovery. These responses were analyzed using backwards stepwise regression.

Star ratings for the same hotel do differ among the three websites; hotel is the highest and third-party is the lowest. There are seven distinct groups of guests. Guests are motivated to write reviews to balance inequitable relationships. They decide which website/website combination best improves the equity relationship. This research indicates that guests’ choice of website is based on different internal motivations. The moderating effect of the service experience was significant.

This paper contributes to the literature by examining different motivations to write online reviews by website. Prior research typically examined one website or aggregated results from multiple websites, ignoring website specific differences. This can help hoteliers to understand why initiatives to promote reviews on certain websites may be unsuccessful.

Despite the increasing utilization of webpages for the purposes of information seeking, customers’ concerns have become a crucial impediment for online shopping. The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of the effectiveness of web assurance seals services (WASS) and customers’ concerns on customer’s willingness to book hotels through perceived website trust and perceived value.

A questionnaire was administrated to measure the study variables. Using partial least squares–structural equation modeling approach to analyze the data collected from 860 users of online hotel websites.

The results indicate that WASS influence positively on perceived website trust and negatively on consumers’ concerns. As well as, perceived value and trust play a mediating role in the link between WASS and consumers’ concerns and their intentions. Finally, perceived website trust and perceived value have greater effect on intention to book hotel for low-habit consumers.

This study ignored the cross-culture issue as it concentrates on the customers from developing countries, so further research may need to compare between two or more than two samples from different societies that could give a significant insights. Second, this study stresses on the WASS to predict customers booking intentions that indicates significant results, so further research may need to examine the role of online reviews as a predictor of customers purchase decision as well.

To the authors’ best knowledge, this is the first empirical research that investigates and examines the influence of the effectiveness of WASS and consumers’ concerns on consumers’ intentions through perceived value and trust. This research also investigates the moderating role of habit in the link between perceived website, perceived value and consumers’ intentions.

This empirical study uses the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) framework to examine the interrelationships amongst hotel websites and app quality, flow, telepresence, user engagement and booking intentions.

Data from two different datasets, including users of hotel websites (N sample 1 = 257) and hotel mobile apps (N sample 2 = 292), were collected. Partial least squares (PLS-SEM) was used to test the research model.

Findings indicate that the quality of the hotel websites and mobile apps positively influences telepresence, flow and engagement. Telepresence and flow positively affect the users booking intentions for both the samples. However, for hotel website users, engagement has a no-significant effect on booking intentions. Finally, telepresence has a non-significant effect on flow, and flow has a non-significant effect on engagement for both the users of hotel websites and mobile apps.

This study uses two datasets to understand how hotel booking channel (hotel website and mobile app) quality leads to booking intentions by tapping into telepresence, flow and engagement.

Customers' focus increasingly turns to the green practices of firms. Organizations need to rethink their strategies and position themselves concerning their environmental responsibility. The idea behind this study is to observe the influence of hotel website quality and hotel environmental management initiative (HEMI) on green customer loyalty in the Pakistan hotel industry with the mediating role of green trust (GT) and green satisfaction (GS).

The study is quantitative, and partial least squares structural equation modelling followed to test the proposed hypotheses. A total of 542 questionnaires were used for analysis through SPSS 25.0 and SmartPLS 3.2.9.

The findings confirm the proposed positive influence of hotel website quality and HEMI on green customer loyalty. Moreover, GT and GS significantly mediate the relationship, further enhancing the relevance of green practices for hotels.

Hotel management can get maximum customer loyalty to concentrate on hotel website quality, HEMI, GT and GS.

This study aims to develop a research model to incorporate hotel website quality, HEMI, GT, GS and green customer loyalty by using signalling theory and natural resource-based view theory that prior studies ignored.

This study aims to investigate the relationships among sensory, emotional and cognitive attributes on a hotel’s website, customers’ telepresence, their attitudes toward the hotel’s website, brand attitudes and their behavioral intentions, based on telepresence and parasocial interaction theories as theoretical backgrounds.

A cross-sectional, online, self-administered survey was conducted to examine the proposed framework from previous hotel guests in the USA, who booked the hotel via its website within the previous 12 months.

Results identified sensory and emotional attributes influenced customers’ telepresence; however, cognitive attributes did not affect telepresence on the hotel’s website. Telepresence then influenced customers’ attitudes toward the hotel’s website and their behavioral intentions. Both attitudes toward the hotel’s website and brand attitudes influenced customers’ behavioral intentions.

This study was the first study to propose the telepresence model in the hotel website context, investigating antecedents and outcomes of the telepresence.