Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, University of Guelph, Guelph, Canada N1G 2W1
School of Management, Harbin Institute of Technology, 13 Fayuan Street, Nangang District, Harbin, 150006, China
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history:
Received November 2012
Accepted April 2013
Available online 15 May 2012
Keywords:
Virtual travel community
Consumer behavior model
Online travel agent
Service quality
a b s t r a c t
Technological innovations in the tourism industry have signicantly inuenced the communication channels
between service providers and potential travelers. Virtual travel communities (VTCs) are now popular and
inuential venues for tourism information sharing, yet little is known about membership behavior. The purpose of this study is to test a new model of VTC beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors using structural equation
modeling. The model integrates measures proven in traditional consumer behavior theory, such as satisfaction, trust, and brand attitude, with behavioral measures unique to the virtual domain, such as stickiness.
The results of an online survey of members of C-Trip, a Chinese VTC, indicate that the quality of the community signicantly inuences member satisfaction and trust. However, trust does not directly inuence site
stickiness or intention to transact. Member satisfaction signicantly inuences site stickiness, whereas
trust inuences brand attitude, which in turn inuences intention to transact. These relationships suggest a
service blueprint for site owners to ultimately stimulate online transactions.
2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Technological innovations in the tourism sector have signicantly
inuenced the communication channels between service providers
and potential travelers, yet supporting research is lacking in comparison
to its availability in other sectors, notably consumer retail goods
sectors (Matzler, Grabner-Krauter, & Bidmon, 2008). Tourism is an
information-rich industry, and more travelers rely heavily on the Internet as their single most important source of travel information to make
their trip decision (Arsal, Backman, & Baldwin, 2008; Fodness & Murray,
1998). The advent of virtual travel communities (VTCs) provides a
unique platform for both tourism service providers and travelers to
exchange travel information (Kim, Lee, & Hiemstra, 2004) by making
it easier for people to obtain information, maintain connections, develop relationships, and ultimately make travel-related decisions (Jiang,
Mills, & Stepchenkova, 2008). Although the importance of VTCs is recognized, few studies examine the behavior of these communities, and
the understanding of the members' needs remains fragmented (Illum,
Ivanov, & Lian, 2010; Wang, Yu, & Fesenmaier, 2002). Yet, their power
and popularity suggest that VTCs have the potential to play an important role in customer relationship management and e-business strategy.
2. Theoretical background
The Internet explosion of the mid 1990s facilitated the emergence of
virtual communities (VCs), which have developed at a rapid pace over
the past two decades. While several denitions of VCs exist within
this relatively new eld (Komito, 1998; Turban, King, Viehland, & Lee,
1154
H1a
System Quality
Satisfaction
H2a
H1b
Stickiness
H2b
H1c
Service Quality
H3a
Trust
H1d
H4a
H1e
Information
Quality
1155
H3b
H3c
Intention to
Transaction
Brand Attitude
H1f
1156
importance of brand attitude is recognized, few studies have examined its relationship to business service quality and members' intention to transact. The hypotheses are as follows:
Intention to Transact:
H3a. Site stickiness positively inuences intention to transact.
H3b. Member trust positively inuences intention to transact.
H3c. Member brand attitude positively inuences intention to
transact.
3.3. Attitudes toward VTC
Formation and expansion of a VC depend on the willingness of
members to share information and services. Researchers nd that
trust is a core component facilitating the anonymous interaction in
communities and e-commerce, and therefore trust building online is
a common research topic (Cox, Burgess, Sellitto, & Buultjens, 2009;
Hoffman, Novak, & Peralta, 1999; Luo, 2002; McKnight, Choudhury,
& Krcmar, 2002; Tan & Thoen, 2001; Urban, Sultan, & Qualls, 2000;
Ye & Emurian, 2005; Yoo & Gretzel, 2010). Observing that trust development is a complex process, researchers have investigated the formation of trust and its impact. McKnight et al. (2002) points out
that, when users develop trust in a website, they intend to continuously participate and conduct transactions with the content provider.
Liu et al. (2004) also suggests that trust can lead to repeat purchasing,
repeat website visiting, and website recommendation. Casalo, Flavian,
and Guinaliu (2007) conducted a web survey using members of several free software VCs and found a positive and signicant effect of
consumer trust on loyalty.
Cox et al. (2009) found that, when making travel plans, hospitality
and tourism consumers consider government-sponsored tourism
websites to be the most credible and trustworthy providers of UGC.
This suggests that, while UGC may be increasingly popular, trust has
an impact on its actual inuence. Yoo and Gretzel (2010) also found
trust to be inuenced by the source of UGC, with ofcial destination
and travel agency websites ranked as more credible than personal
and sharing websites such as YouTube. Notably, their study also
found that with greater trust comes greater perceived benets from
UGC use, suggesting the need for websites to make efforts to gain visitor trust (Yoo & Gretzel, 2010). To measure the relation between
trust and service provider, brand attitude is used as an indicator.
The hypothesis is:
Member Trust:
H4a. Member trust positively inuences member brand attitude.
4. Study method
The model test implements an online survey of C-Trip VC members. C-Trip is a mainland China travel agency that sells airline tickets
and accommodations and also runs a very large travel website
(Leung, Law, & Lee, 2011). The survey instrument is a structured
questionnaire comprising seven-item measurement scales for all latent variables. The measures for Quality, Trust, Satisfaction, and
Brand Attitude use bipolar adjective scales, and the measures for
Stickiness and Intention to Transact use Likert-type scales. The questionnaire has at least three items per latent variable to reduce factor
indeterminacy (Ferguson, Partyka, & Lester, 1974). The Englishlanguage questionnaire was translated into Chinese, then backtranslated into English to test for equivalency. The questionnaire
was pretested with a small sample of Chinese students before eld
implementation. The online questionnaire was uploaded on the website of Qualtrics.com and an invitation letter was posted to forums of
the C-Trip VTC. A total of 243 questionnaires were collected; this was
5. Results
Following the two-step approach recommended by Anderson and
Gerbing (1988) to analyze structural equation modeling, conrmatory factor analysis (CFA) with AMOS 17.0 was performed to assess the
validity of all model latent constructs. Items of system quality, service
quality, information quality, trust, satisfaction, brand attitude, intention to transact, and stickiness were modeled as reective indicators
of latent constructs respectively. These constructs were allowed to
co-vary freely in the CFA model. The result suggests adequate model
t (2/df = 2.08, p b .001, CFI = 0.94, IFI = 0.94, NFI = 0.896, TLI = 0.93,
RMSEA= 0.07). Loadings for all variables are in an acceptable range,
being above 0.60. Thus, all measures are retained in the model. Composite reliability measures range from 0.77 to 0.94, indicating strong reliability of the constructs. To assess discriminant validity, the average
variance extracted (AVE) was computed for each construct. AVEs
range from 0.542 to 0.838, well above the conventional benchmark of
0.50. Table 2 presents mean, standard deviation, factor loadings, composite reliability, discriminant validity, and model t indices.
The VTC model test used structural equation modeling (SEM) to
simultaneously measure the hypothesized relationships between
constructs. The model produced 2 (520) = 1061.57, which equals a
CMIN/DF ratio of 2.04, within the acceptable range of 1 to 3, indicating a good t. The model also produced a CFI = 0.92, IFI = 0.93,
NFI = 0.86, TLI = 0.91; all these t indices close to 1 indicates a good
t, and an RMSEA = 0.07, within the acceptable range of 0.08 and
Table 1
Demographic characteristics of the C-Trip VTC sample.
Gender (n = 201)
Male
Female
Age (n = 198)
Marital status (n = 201)
Yes
No
Education (n = 203)
High school diploma
College graduate
Some university
University graduate
Income (n = 204)
Below 2000 yuan
20015000 yuan
Over 5000 yuan
Internet usage frequency (n = 204)
120 h per week
2140 h per week
Over 40 h per week
Number of VC memberships (n = 204)
13
Over 3
a
b
Range.
Mean (std. dev.).
Frequency
Percent (%)
107
94
1858a
53.2
46.8
31.8 (7.6)b
114
87
56.7
43.3
12
36
106
49
5.9
17.7
52.2
24.1
30
75
99
14.8
36.7
48.5
66
53
85
32.4
26.2
41.7
104
100
51.0
49.0
1157
Table 2
Measurement model summary.
Online community quality
System quality
Easy to use
Convenient to access
Flexible
Reliable
Service quality
Visually appealing
Prompt service
Well-organized
Sincere in term of solving problems
Information quality
Timely
Complete
Accurate
Useful
Trust
Trustworthy
Believable
Does the job right
Satisfaction
Pleased
Satised
Contented
Brand attitude
Good
Pleasant
Like
Favorable
Positive
Intention to transact
Next time I book a trip
During the next 6 months
If they offer what I am looking for
Stickiness
Spend more time
Read more postings
Increase my visits
Continue to visit the site
Factor loadings
Composite reliability
5.6 (1.23)
5.6 (1.33)
5.4 (1.23)
5.4 (1.41)
.74
.88
.91
.84
0.54
0.83
4.5 (1.40)
4.9 (1.30)
5.1 (1.32)
5.4 (1.31)
.66
.83
.88
.85
0.60
0.77
5.1 (1.29)
5.0 (1.16)
5.3 (1.04)
5.6 (1.07)
.84
.88
.84
.85
0.61
0.86
5.8 (1.22)
5.8 (1.14)
4.9 (1.21)
.97
.99
.61
0.64
0.84
5.8 (1.04)
5.8 (1.03)
5.6 (1.08)
.93
.95
.91
0.84
0.94
6.0 (1.02)
6.0 (1.05)
6.0 (1.04)
6.0 (1.02)
5.9 (1.10)
.96
.97
.97
.93
.94
0.67
0.91
5.0 (1.42)
4.7 (1.42)
5.3 (1.53)
.97
.84
.80
0.84
0.94
5.0 (1.28)
5.3 (1.29)
5.1 (1.24)
5.4 (1.28)
.90
.94
.94
.87
0.71
0.91
Fit index
2 = 784.59
df = 377
2/df = 2.08
(p b .001)
CFI = 0.94
IFI = 0.94
NFI = 0.896
TLI = 0.93
RMSEA = 0.07
1158
.23*
System
Quality
Satisfaction
.50***
-.02
Stickiness
.42***
Trust
Service
Quality
.08
.60***
.74***
.27***
Information
Quality
.84***
.20*
-.05
.14*
Income
Intention to
Transact
.24*
Brand
Attitude
-0.29
-.03
..05
Age
Education
.01
VC membership
Fig. 2. Virtual travel community model with structural equation model path coefcients. *** Path coefcient estimate is signicant at p b 0.01. * Path coefcient estimate is signicant
at p b 0.05.
et al., 2004; McKnight et al., 2002) that as cognitive resources are very
limited in the decision making process, trust plays a critical role by mitigating the risks of uncertainty and reducing perceived risk in the online
shopping environment (Grabner-Kraeuter, 2002). The result may reect the particular parameters of this study, the nature of a travel virtual
community, and/or the inuence of culture. For instance, the study nding can be explained by Zeithaml, Parasuraman, and Malhorta (2002).
They argue that online consumers in a country with a large power distance tend to positively behave toward expertise and authority. In this
instance, a well-known online brand (i.e. C-Trip) is well received by
consumers in countries such as China, Korea and Japan. Accordingly,
trust may not be a key factor directly affecting transaction intention
and stickiness. In the study context, Trust positively inuences Brand
Attitude, which in turn positively inuences Intention to Transact.
This is an interesting nding, suggesting the fragility of consumer
trust, and perhaps reecting the extreme cautiousness of Chinese consumers to transact online, even with somewhat trusted sources. It
seems more likely that the consumers' trust will help to build a positive
attitude toward brand, or site rst (Chen, Wu, & Chung, 2008), then,
transactions may follow. Once consumers are experienced purchasers,
trust is gained. It is that rst transaction that is the challenge set before
VTC managers, and requires attention to quality, satisfaction and brand
to overcome.
A notable limitation of the study is the collection of data through the
VTC, whereby members self-select to participate. Also, it is difcult to
assess the potential bias of this method, or even estimate an accurate response rate. Both the advantages of convenience and reach of virtual
surveying, and the disadvantages of reliability and validity, have been
well documented (Illum et al., 2010). Given the goal of this study, to understand VTC member behavior, the methodology was deemed appropriate. A benet to the particular VTC selected, based on China's
popular C-Trip site, is the insight the ndings shed on this new yet
promising outbound market.
The VTC as a customer relationship management tool can enable
tourism businesses to build customer satisfaction, and even trust, in a
variety of ways. This new communication media can uniquely engage
customers through in-depth, focused, and member-generated content.
VCs can enable Internet travel agents to promote product, increase customer participation and interaction, leading to greater site stickiness,
and a better understanding of customer needs. VTCs may well be one
of the most effective business models in the technology age, providing
great opportunity for both providers and customers alike.
Finally, this study only tested the proposed model with a Chinese
sample. Based on previous research (Hofstede, Sternkamp, & Wedel,
1999), culture plays a signicant role in consumers' responses, from
decision making and purchase intention, to stickiness and loyalty.
However, few studies have focused on examining the impact of culture specically on purchase behaviors online. Thus, there is a need
for a better understanding of how culture affects online consumers'
trust and other key variables. To address this gap, future studies
could test cultural differences using not only national boundaries,
but also ethnic background and Hofstede's uncertainty avoidance
index.
7. Conclusion
This study contributes to the growing body of services marketing literature on VTCs, specically addressing gaps in the academic research
to date by integrating measures of beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors in
one model. For practitioners, the identication of factors, such as service
quality, that strongly inuence VTC member satisfaction can help to
focus technological resources in key areas. For academics, the results
provide additional insights into behavioral factors in a VTC environment, helping to sort out relationships between traditional measures
and relatively new measures. For example, the behavioral measure of
stickiness is unique to this domain and appears to work well as an outcome in VTC modeling. Trust, on the other hand, is a traditional measure
in behavioral models, yet its role in the VTC environment seems more
complex and warrants further study.
In addition, this study includes the attitude measures (satisfaction,
trust, and brand attitudes) and behavioral measures (stickiness and
intention to transact), partially conrming that some relationships
between behavioral measures and attitude measures can be used to
estimate the potential protability of VC membership. Also, marketers
1159
Table 3
Results of hypothesis analysis.
Hypothesis
H1: online community quality
a. System quality
b. System quality
c. Service quality
d. Service quality
e. Information quality
f. Information quality
>
>
>
>
>
>
Satisfaction
Trust
Satisfaction
Trust
Satisfaction
Trust
H2: Stickiness
a. Satisfaction
b. Trust
>
>
Stickiness
Stickiness
>
>
>
Intention to transact
Intention to transact
Intention to transact
H4: trust
a. Trust
>
Brand attitude
Control variables
Age
Education
Income
Internet usage frequency
Number of VC memberships
>
>
>
>
>
Intention
Intention
Intention
Intention
Intention
to
to
to
to
to
transaction
transaction
transaction
transaction
transaction
Est.
S.E.
C.R.
Support
.24
.02
.47
.60
.30
.16
.11
.07
.12
.11
.11
.08
2.27
.22
3.96
5.50
2.72
2.15
.02
.82
.00
.00
.01
.03
Moderate
No
High
High
Moderate
Moderate
.54
.12
.11
.15
4.92
.84
.00
.40
High
No
.66
.08
.28
.08
.17
.12
8.41
.47
2.38
.00
.64
.02
High
No
Moderate
1.20
.13
9.45
.00
High
.00
.10
.11
.01
.08
.01
.11
.05
.04
.14
.51
.96
2.49
.14
.53
.61
.34
.01
.89
.59
1160
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