Fraser McLeay

E-WOM and Accommodation An Analysis of the Factors That Influence Travelers’ Adoption of Information from Online Reviews

Online reviews (ORs) are continuing to foster a renewed spread of word-of-mouth in the travel industry. Travelers are increasingly using ORs to inform them about accommodations and other tourism-related products. As such, it is important to improve our understanding of the behavioral consequences of e-word-of-mouth. In this article, we adopt the elaboration likelihood model to identify what influences travelers to adopt information from ORs in their decision making. We measure the influence of six dimensions of information quality that are part of the central route and two dimensions that are associated with the peripheral route of persuasion. The results of this study reveal that product ranking, information accuracy, information value-added, information relevance, and information timeliness are strong predictors of travelers’ adoption of information from ORs on accommodations. These results imply that high-involvement travelers adopt both central (information quality) and peripheral (product ranking) routes when they process information from ORs.

Dimensions Driving Business Student Satisfaction in Higher Education.

Purpose – This study aims to identify the dimensions of business student satisfaction in the Malaysian private higher educational environment and evaluate the influence that demographic factors have on satisfaction. Design/methodology/approach – A questionnaire was developed and distributed to 1,200 undergraduate business students at four private higher educational (PHE) institutions in Malaysia. Exploratory factor analysis was used to identify the underlying dimensions that drive student satisfaction. ANOVA and t-tests were conducted to evaluate the influence that demographic factors have on the results. Findings – Factor analysis resulted in the adoption of a 12-factor solution from an original set of 53 satisfaction items. The results also indicated the influence of demographic factors on the level of business student satisfaction. Originality/value – This study identified 12 factors or the underlying dimensions that drive business student satisfaction in the Malaysian PHE. The 12 factors are: professi...

Alive and kicking: evaluating the overseas package holiday experience of grey consumers in the United Kingdom.

An overseas package holiday is a high-value purchase and a unique and complex service product with a fragmented experience, which can take place for several months or more. There is a gap in the experience literature on overseas package holidays, despite the fact that this industry generates approximately one third of all trips and expenditure in the United Kingdom. This article aims to increase the understanding of this service product and critically evaluate the consumer experience. The authors focus on ‘grey’ consumers who form a market segment that is growing in size and extremely important in the travel industry. However, it has been neglected in consumer behaviour literature that explores the experiential aspects of extended service encounters. Template analysis is used to identify six key categories that contribute to the package holiday experience of UK grey consumers holidaying in Tenerife. The six categories are the preholiday experience, travel and transit experience, self-made experience, provided experience, satisfaction, and loyalty. The grey market for package holidays is alive and kicking with many greys seeking fun, entertainment, enjoyment, and active participation in activities and meeting other guests. Undoubtedly, the Thomson Gold model, which disallows stays by those younger than 16 years, is highly suited to the needs of this market. The security and consumer protection offered by package holidays is highly important to these consumers who appear satisfied with the quality of their experience, which leads to exceptionally high levels of loyalty and repeat visits.

Perfect weddings abroad

Approximately 16% of UK couples are currently married abroad. However, academic or practitioner focused research that explores the complex nature of a couple’s buying preferences or the development of innovative marketing strategies by businesses operating within the weddings abroad niche sector, is almost non-existent. This exploratory paper examines the role and relevance of marketing within the weddings abroad sector. The complex nature of customer needs in this high emotional and involvement experience, are identified and explored. A case study of Perfect Weddings Abroad Ltd highlights distinctive features and characteristics. Social networking and the use of home-workers, with a focus on reassurance and handholding are important tools used to develop relationships with customers. These tools and techniques help increase the tangibility of a weddings abroad package. Clusters of complementary services that are synergistic and provide sources of competitive advantage are identified and an agenda for future research is developed.

The art of SME export marketing: a case study

In this paper, it is proposed that integrating arts and culture into international trade missions will stimulate arts and crafts, as well as SME exports. It can also help to package trade missions so that they appeal to a wider audience and build SMEs’ relationships with international partners. Arts and cultural organisations – as well as individual artists – share features and interests with other SMEs. A case study illustrates that by piggy-backing on each others’ unique skill sets, industry, tourism and the arts can together successfully contribute to trade missions that promote a region and the products produced there. Lessons that the primary author has learnt from organising and participating in numerous trade missions are used to develop a framework that could potentially be utilised to develop similar programmes. The results should be of value to policy-makers, export development organisations, arts and cultural development organisations, and individual SME managers and artists.

New applications for importance-performance analysis (IPA) in higher education: Understanding student satisfaction

Purpose The constantly evolving higher education (HE) sector is creating a need for new business models and tools for evaluating performance. In this paper, an overview of the importance-performance analysis (IPA) model and its applicability as a management tool for assessing student satisfaction in the HE sector is provided. The purpose of this paper is to apply IPA in a new and novel manner, undertaking analysis at three levels; the individual student, for individual attributes and at a construct or factor level which combines individual attributes that are correlated. A practical application is illustrated, assessing the gap between the importance placed on specific student satisfaction attributes and corresponding levels of student-perceived performance realised. Design/methodology/approach The “service product bundle” (Douglas et al., 2006) is refined based on focus group evaluation. Survey responses from 823 students studying across four Malaysian private universities are analysed using factor analysis and the IPA model utilised to identify importance-performance gaps and explore the implication of the iso-rating line as well as alternative cut-off zones. Findings Factor reduction of 33 original measurement items results in eight definable areas of service provision, which provides a refined and extended management tool of statistically reliable and valid constructs. Research limitations/implications The research is undertaken in a private business school context in Malaysia. Further research could focus on other universities or countries, as well as faculties such as computing and engineering or explore other elements of education-based performance. Practical implications The research method and study outcomes can support HE managers to allocate resources more effectively and develop strategies to improve quality and increase student satisfaction. Originality/value Distinct from other IPA-based studies, analysis is undertaken at three levels; the individual participant, for individual items and at the factor level.

Antecedents of Travellers’ Satisfaction and Purchase Intention from Social Commerce Websites

The popularity of social commerce websites (SCW) is constantly growing among consumers, who are increasingly adopting them before buying tourism services. Understanding the factors that influence traveller’s decisions to purchase from SCWs is of critical significance for evaluating their impact in the travel industry. This study draws upon the Delone and McLean’s (1992) Information System Success Model (ISSM) to investigate the factors that affect purchase intention. Predictions were tested with data from 119 users of Tripadvisor using structural equation modelling. Findings reveal that information quality affects both system quality and satisfaction. System quality also influences satisfaction, which ultimately influence purchase intention from a SCW.

Bleisure: motivations and typologies

ABSTRACT The theme of motivation in travel and tourism research has been largely dominated by a leisure focus and has consequently failed to reflect the changing landscape of business travel. This paper focuses on exploring the motivations of different types of “bleisure travelers”: individuals who combine leisure with professional business obligations when abroad. We employ a multi-disciplinary mixed-methods approach, using photo-elicitation to identify and describe five types of bleisure. As existing theories of tourist motivations have mainly been developed in a leisure context, they fail to fully capture the nuanced scope and subtle context of business and leisure motives. We therefore draw upon experiential learning, boundary-less career theory, expectancy theory, and social capital theory in order to put forward contemporary insights on the nexus between business and leisure tourism.

Consumer perceptions of information helpfulness and determinants of purchase intention in online consumer reviews of services.

Online consumer reviews offer an unprecedented amount of information for consumers to evaluate services before purchase. We use the dual process theory to investigate consumer perceptions about information helpfulness (IH) in electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) contexts. Results highlight that popularity signals, two-sided reviews, and expert sources (but not source trustworthiness) are perceived as helpful by consumers to assess service quality and performance. Although two-sided reviews exercise a significant influence on perceived IH, their influence on purchase intention was indirectly mediated by IH. IH predicts purchase intention and partially mediates the relationship between popularity signals, source homophily, source expertise, and purchase intention.

‘Radical marketing, meet Newcastle upon Tyne’: reflections on a memorable AM2016

Marketing has evolved over time to meet the constantly changing environment in which it operates. Some contemporary marketing practices could never have been envisaged only a decade or two ago, while some remain true to the founding tenets of the marketing tradition. Radical marketing spans both the traditional and the truly innovative; ‘radical’ is a term which describes both the fundamental (stemming from the roots of modern and postmodern marketing), as well as that which is challenging, cutting edge and inventive. The 2016 Academy of Marketing (AM2016) conference, hosted by Newcastle Business School at Northumbria University in the North East of England adopted radical marketing as their conference theme.