Current Issue

WHAT ARE FACTORS AFFECTING CONSUMERS’  PURCHASE INTENTION TOWARD OTA-DATA ANALYSIS WITH SmartPLS

Ming-Lang Yeh

Dept. of Business Administration, Chung Hua University, Taiwan.

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Ping-Chen Shih

Ph.D. Program of Management, Chung Hua University, Taiwan.

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Wen Pei

College of Management, Chung Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan

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Abstract

In recent years, Online Travel Agent (OTA) have played an increasingly important role in the travel industry. However,consumers still face uncertainties about which OTA to book with. Therefore, this study aims to explore consumer choice behavior of OTA and applies Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) to conduct empiricalresearch.

This study collected data from Taiwanese consumers on two of the most well-known OTA (Booking.com, Agoda.com). After data analysis, the main factors affecting consumers' choice of OTA were found to include: two-sided platform effects, platform heterogeneity, platform user-friendliness, habit, and advertising effectiveness. Among them, habit and platform user-friendliness had the most significant impact on consumer choice behavior. In addition, this study also found that OTA advertising effectiveness had a less significant impact than expected on consumers' choice of OTA. This study suggests that OTA should focus on cultivating member loyalty and improving platform user-friendliness to increase consumers' willingness to choose and use their websites.

In summary, this study explored the factors that consumers consider when choosing OTA and provided correspondingrecommendations, which can provide practical reference for OTA operators. In addition, this study also provides a certain reference value for future related research.

Keywords: Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM), Online Travel Agent (OTA), Consumers’purchase intention, Habit