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Top1. Introduction
Using the Internet as a reservation method has benefited businesses and customers by reducing costs and providing up-to-date information to both parties (Sohn & Tadisina, 2008, Al-maghrabi et al., 2011a). In fact, many researchers believe that online reservation, such as hotel and airline reservation, is considered one of the largest and fastest growing areas of B2C e-commerce (Buhalis & Licata, 2002; Ruiz-Mafe et al., 2009). Studies have shown that hotel reservation is the second most frequently purchased travel product online (Card et al., 2003), and according to PhoCusWright, one third of the world’s travel sales will be conducted online by the end of 2012 (Cezar & Ogut, 2012). Accordingly, companies are investing a huge amount of money and effort to provide better online services to improve customer satisfaction, and consequently, retention through the Internet (Khalifa & Liu, 2001; Bhattacherjee, 2001a; Thong et al., 2006).
Despite this increase in the number of customers using the Internet to reserve online, relatively little research has been devoted to investigating user attitude towards this service in particular compared to the enormous number of studies about online shopping in general. For example, the study of Bigne et al. (2010) investigates the impact of motivation, opportunity and ability of e-customers on ticket repurchasing intentions. Their findings have revealed that all three factors influence repurchasing intention, but that the influence of opportunity is relatively small compared with that of motivation and ability. Llach et al. (2013) examine the impact of e-quality on consumer’s loyalty in the context of the online airplane ticket purchase. They have found that the functional and hedonic quality significantly affect loyalty through perceived value. Al-maghrabi et al. (2011a) integrate the technology acceptance model with the expectation confirmation theory to measure continuance intentions of online shopping for airlines web sites. Their results have found that perceived usefulness, enjoyment, social pressure, and loyalty incentives are determinants of online flight booking continuance in Saudi Arabia.
The study of Li and Buhalis (2008) has revealed that the type of travel website most visited, self-efficacy, domain-specific innovativeness, and perception of the Internet, significantly influence online booking among Chinese customers. Kim and Kim (2004) have surveyed customers from eight hotels in Korea to investigate the determinants that explain a customer’s online reservation intention. They have found that convenience, safety, price, ease of information search and transaction significantly affect online reservation intention and that ease of information search and transaction are more important than price. Wong & Law (2005) have examined the effect of information quality, sensitivity content, and time on online hotel purchase intention and have found that all three factors positively affect intention.