Online Travel service Quality

Online Travel Service Quality: the Role
of Pre-Transaction Services

ALLARD C. R. VAN RIEL*, JANJAAP SEMEIJN** &
PIETER PAUWELS*

*Department of Marketing, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Maastricht University, Maastricht, the Netherlands, **Department of Management Sciences, Open University Netherlands, Heerlen, the Netherlands

ABSTRACT

The Internet revolution has led to significant changes in the way travel agencies interact with customers. Travel websites are used to different degrees, and for a variety of combinations of pre-transaction, transaction and post-transaction services.
A betterunderstanding of how customers interact with online services will help providers improve service quality to levels
that satisfy oreven delight customers, and thus create loyalty.

This article provides acomprehensivereview of the literature on online service quality, applies the theory to online travel
offerings, and reports on an empirical study of quality perceptions of pre-transaction services
provided on three travel websites.
Effects on customer responses were measured for process and outcome dimensions of online service quality. Implications forthe design of online travel services and suggestions for further research are formulated.

KeyWord: Online service quality, internet travel agencies, pre-transaction services

Travel agencies provide a broad range of services, largely consisting of information exchange and information processing
activities. Information intended to support customers in their travel decision-making is generally provided in pre-transaction services. In addition, in transaction services the customer’s personal information and payments are collected, verified and processed, and information is relayed to third party transportation and hospitality providers.
Finally, in post-transaction services travel agents communicate last-minute information to the customer and provide after-sales assistance. As the travel industry is largely information-driven, the World Wide Web is considered ideally suited as a medium for these activities (Adamic & Huberman, 2000; Morgan et al., 2001; Petersonet al., 1997), and it is hardly surprising that online travel services have developed into one of the largest e-commerce domains (Anckar & Walden, 2000; Clemons
et al., 2002). There is great diversity among travel agencies’ use of IT and the Web. Most traditional travel agencies have at least a basic presence on the Internet to promote their business or to exchange e-mail with customers.
More sophisticated travel sites allow customers to search, select or arrange travel and holiday packages, and to make reservations and bookings themselves. In spite of the slowdown occurring in other e-commerce areas, the online travel business has shown sustained growth (TravelWeekly, 2001).

The Internet has increased competition among travel agents considerably. Even if price plays only a secondary role in online services (Pan et al., 2002; Reichheld & Schefter, 2000; Smith, 2002), the information efficiency of the Internet still poses
a substantial threat, as all online travel agencies offer similar services. Service quality may help create differentiation between providers, thereby further easing price competition (Clemons et al., 2002), and may therefore be among the most
important success factors of any Internet business (Zeithaml et al., 2002). Excellent online service will satisfy or even delight customers and increase their patronage (Rust & Oliver, 2000), resulting in desirable behaviours such as word-of-mouth
promotion, willingness to pay a price premium and repurchasing (Reichheld et al.,2000; Reichheld & Schefter, 2000; Reichheld & Teal, 1996). Nonetheless, only a few sites are reported to appeal to their customers, and even fewer create significant value to the customer and the provider (Gro¨nroos et al., 2000).

The issue of quality management has become quintessential in the travel and tourism industry, which is suffering from a general slowdown since 11 September 2001, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the outbreak of the SARS virus in
Asia. Despite the increased importance of quality, satisfaction and loyalty in the travel industry (Augustyn, 1998; Augustyn & Ho, 1998), and the increasingly important role of the Internet in the service encounter, surprisingly few research
articles have been dedicated to the issue of online (self-) service quality in the travel domain. Research in the field of customer evaluations of self-service technology (Dabholkar, 1996; Meuter et al., 2000) and online services is generally
considered to be in an early stage. Developing general insight in the determinants of perceived e-service quality, and the influence of e-service quality perceptions on satisfaction and loyalty is of great academic interest, but insufficient to help
service managers make adequate decisions, since the dimensionality of service quality is dependent on the type of services offered (Babakus & Boller, 1992). Therefore, what is currently needed is research focusing on specific service
categories. For travel agencies desiring to survive and thrive on the Internet, and willing to invest in online services, it is critical to know precisely how customers will evaluate their full service offer and which service categories and quality
dimensions are valued most (Jeong & Lambert, 2001; Jeong et al., 2003). Hence,the problem statement of the present study reads:

Which factors play a role in customer evaluations of online travel service quality?

Three sub-questions were formulated.

(1) How do customers perceive and use online travel services?
(2) To what extent can traditional measures be used for online service quality?
(3) Which quality dimensions do customers of online travel services consider
important?
The study aims to explore the issue of customer quality perceptions of travel
websites. First, differences in the way consumers perceive and use traditional and

online services will be identified, and the consequences of these differences for the conceptualization of online travel service quality will be discussed. A model of online travel service quality will be developed, which will be validated in an
empirical study. In the conclusion, implications and directions for future research are presented.