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example_1111111111.docxMeans-Ends Chains
Examining the Intention of Travelers to Use Mobile application of Online Travel Agents (OTA).
Introduction
Mobile applications or mobile apps are widely used in the United States (US) today. They have become indispensable to their users especially to travelers (Durgahee, 2012). The number of smartphone users in the US alone has greatly appreciated with 64% of American adults owning a smartphone by year 2014 (Smith, 2015). According to Taylor (2014), Americans spend 162 minutes (almost 3 hours) on their mobile devices per day, mostly with their mobile applications. Smartphone users while traveling rely on their phones for almost everything affecting their travel (Durgahee, 2012). These mobile apps have encroached almost every aspect, subject or sector that is applicable to our society today. Also, the travelers may book a room in a hotel, may reserve a table in a restaurant, or rent a car by using their smartphones. Moreover, before purchasing a ticket, or booking a hotel room, travelers may compare prices between hotels and find a hotel room or a flight ticket, which fits their budget. Almost 40% of smartphone users are using mobile applications for their needs, such as booking, renting, and purchasing, while traveling (“Travel Statistic For Tour Operators,” 2015). Furthermore, nowadays there are many online travel agents (OTA) that are offering their services for travellers, thus, the competition very high in this field. Travellers have many options to choose from, thus, it becomes very important for OTA to establish mobile application for travellers and set a price, which can be considered reasonable by travellers. Moreover, besides having reasonable price, OTA should make accessible their applications for travellers, and should develop an application that will be easier to navigate. In this case, understanding the attitude and intention of travellers may provide OTAs with knowledge, what should their mobile applications have and how it should be, to be adopted enthusiastically by travellers.
Theoretical Model
Price fairness is defined as a consumer’s assessment and associated emotions of whether the difference between a seller’s price and the price of a comparative other party is reasonable, acceptable, or justifiable (Xia, Monroe, and Cox, 2004), It has been reported that perception of price unfairness leads to consumer dissatisfaction, they are losing a desire to keep using or consuming product, consumers spread negative information, or they might be involved in some other scenarios which will reduce reputation or trust of sellers (Kannan & Kopalle, 2001). Price fairness carries a huge importance in the online sales channels. Now travellers have many vendors that offer different prices, thus sellers must be aware of price sensitivity of consumers (Encarnacion, 2014). Some travelers have realized that they could have booked a cheaper room and could have done it easier directly from the hotel than using mobile application of third party. By having this kind of experience because of using OTA’s mobile applications travelers, start having negative attitudes toward mobile travel applications.
Travelers who use mobile applications sometimes struggle and complain about mobile travel applications that they take a long time to launch. Furthermore, mobile travel applications deliver some irrelevant information or some undesired advertisements pop up while using the application (Rooney & Ben, 2011). As a result, people find themselves in difficult situations. People use mobile applications because they consider applications faster and easier. Especially travelers say that use of mobile applications are faster because online travel agents know what the travelers want to know or to find out (Rooney & Ben, 2011). However, sometimes mobile applications disappoint people with their navigation issues. For example, there have been some travelers who have complained about applications’ launching time. They say that while they are expecting applications to be useful, work faster and be more effective, nevertheless, they find themselves in difficult situation because some applications do not meet their expectations in terms of speed and accurate information delivery. This research will also talk about the applications that do not meet the expectations of their users. The study focuses on, how by having negative experience, travelers start having negative attitudes, and how by having positive experience travelers start having positive attitudes toward mobile applications. As a result depending on the situation that traveler experiences, she/he creates emotions, attitude, and intention about mobile travel applications of OTAs.
Poslad (2011) defines attitude as an expression of favor or disfavor toward a person, place, thing, or event. Attitude is difficult to measure. The purpose is to see how the factors such Price Fairness and Navigation will affect users’ attitude and how it will affect their intention to keep using mobile applications of OTAs. Ajzen (1991) defines attitude as the major element that affects people’s intention and further behavior.
Intention can be described according to Sigala as a move or an idea that is planned or aimed for by an individual. (Sigala, Mich, & Murphy, 2007). According to Poslad (2011), intention is the plan that a person does to achieve the goal. Intention is desire of somebody that he or she plans to do (Poslad, 2011). When a person is planning to achieve a given consequence, there may be several intermediate steps that have to be taken before the full result as desired is achieved (Sigala, Mich, & Murphy, 2007)
Price Fairness
Intention to Use
Attitude
Navigation
Methodology
Means-Ends Chains technique is one of the several kinds of qualitative research. Means-End Chains technique is focuses on the linkage among attributes of products or services, the consequences or benefits provided by those attributes, and the consumer values that achieve his or her desired value (Reynolds & Gutman, 1998).
In this study, the researcher using one-on-one interview method to identify travelers’ values when they use mobile applications of Online Travel Agents (OTA). Participants have been chosen from La Fitness at Springfield Park, on Saturday, October 31, from 10 am until 2 pm. 44 members of La Fitness have been asked whether they use mobile applications of OTAs. 10 out of 44 members of La Fitness answered “yes” and have been recruited to take part and answer question, which is “What are the attributes you consider important when using mobile applications of OTAs?” For data collection, the researcher used laddering exercise. Laddering refers to an in-depth, one-on-one interview technique used to understand how consumers evaluate the attributes of products or services, translate them into benefits, and, finally, achieve their end goals. In laddering, the respondents reply to a series of “why?” questions: for example, “Why is that attribute (and consequence) important to you?” This kind of questions creates hierarchical value connections, which shows the linkages among the attributes, consequences or benefits and end values. In this research, the researcher asks questions “why is that attributes or consequences important to you?” after getting answer for the first question, which is “What is the attribute you consider important when using mobile applications of OTAs?” The author used to ask “why?” until no new concepts regarding end values were generated.
Participant 1.
1. “What attribute you consider most important when using mobile applications of OTAs?”
Answer. “They are usable for me in travel purpose.”
2. “Why is usability important to you?”
Answer. “I know how to use them and I can save time and spend saved time for my job.”
3. “Why saving time for your job is important to you?”
Answer. “I do not like wasting time. I should save time and work hard in order to be successful.”
4. “Why is being successful important to you?”
Answer. Because I want to be successful person.
Participant 2.
1. “What attribute you consider most important when using mobile applications of OTAs?”
Answer. “I consider mobile applications as a usable tool.”
2. “Why usability of mobile applications is important to you?”
Answer. “They are usable; you do not spend too much time on it to get a hotel room booked.”
3. “Why saving time is important to you?”
Answer. “I rather to save time on the process of booking a hotel room, and spend time for travel. I like travelling.”
4. “Why having more time to travel is important to you?”
Answer. “I like fun travelling, so I guess to have more fun activities.”
5. “Why fun activities are important to you?”
Answer. “I have no idea how can I answer this question.”
Participant 3.
1. “What attribute you consider most important when using mobile applications of OTAs?”
Answer. “I like using mobile applications because they are useful.”
2. “Why is usability of mobile applications is important to you?”
Answer. “I do not like spending my time to unusable things.”
3. “Why saving time is important to you?”
Answer. “I like when I have more time to travel and I do not like the travelling planning.”
4. “Why having more time to travel is important to you?”
Answer. “I like being involved into too many fun activates while travelling.”
5. “Why being involved into too many fun activities is important to you?”
Answer. “Because I like having fun.”
Participant 4.
1. “What attribute you consider most important when using mobile applications of OTAs?”
Answer. “I like that mobile applications have many functions and I think it is important.”
2. “Why functionality of mobile applications is important to you?”
Answer. “Because it has functions and I do not look for other things and I am saving time with it.”
3. “Why saving time is important to you?”
Answer. “I can work instead of traveling.”
4. “Why more working is important to you?”
Answer. “I like my job and want to be successful in my working field.”
5. “Why is being successful important to you?”
Answer. “Being successful is important to me.”
Participant 5.
1. “What attribute you consider most important when using mobile applications of OTAs?”
Answer. “I would say functionality of mobile applications.”
2. “Why functionality of mobile applications is important to you?”
Answer. “It has many functions and I save time, when I do everything by using one application.”
3. “Why saving time is important to you?”
Answer. “I do not like traveling but I do travel once with my family in a year. I would spend my time to work.”
4. “Why more time for job is important to you?”
Answer. “Because I like to be successful, and if I will spend my time to travel I cannot be successful.”
5. “Why is being successful important to you?”
Answer. “It should be important to me, otherwise I cannot be who I am.”
Participant 6.
1. “What attribute you consider most important when using mobile applications of OTAs?”
Answer. “I can rely on mobile applications while travelling and I consider it as an important attribute for mobile applications.”
2. “Why reliability of mobile applications is important to you?”
Answer: “I know that they won’t steal my money and I will save my money at the end.”
3. “Why saving money is important to you?”
Answer. “I guess it is important for you too.”
Participant 7.
1. “What attribute you consider most important when using mobile applications of OTAs?”
Answer. “Reliability is the attribute that I consider as an advantage of using mobile applications.”
2. “Why reliability is important to you?”
Answer. “Because users won’t be cheated and will save money.”
3. “Why saving money is important to you?”
Answer. “I do not know it is just important to me.”
Participant 8.
1. “What attribute you consider most important when using mobile applications of OTAs?”
Answer. “I thing they have cheaper price.”
2. “Why cheaper price is important to you?”
Answer. “They have provided discount that hotels do not provide.”
3. “Why discount is important to you?”
Answer. “I can save money this way.”
4. “Why saving money is important to you?”
Answer. “I have no answer.”
Participant 9.
1. “What attribute you consider most important when using mobile applications of OTAs?”
Answer. “They work 24 hours, which is important to me.”
2. “Why 24 hours working is important to you?”
Answer. They are accessible.
3. “Why is an accessibility is important to you?”
Answer. “Because I can do procedure faster.”
4. “Why is being faster is important to you?”
Answer. “Because it is more comfortable.”
Participant 10.
1. “What attribute you consider most important when using mobile applications of OTAs?”
Answer. “Their working hours never end.”
2. “Why is 24 hours business is important to you?”
Answer. “I like when I can call any time to make a reservation.”
3. “Why accessibility is important to you?”
Answer. “I can do things faster this way.”
4. “Why doing things faster is important to you?”
Answer. “It is more comfortable this way.”
Table 1 shows the attributes, consequences or benefits, and values.
|
No |
Attributes |
Consequences/benefits |
Values |
|
1 |
Usability |
Save time, More time for job, success |
|
|
2 |
Usability |
Save time, More time for travel, fun activities |
Self Esteem |
|
3 |
Usability |
Save time, More time to travel, fun activities |
Self Esteem |
|
4 |
Functionality |
Save time, More time for job, success |
|
|
5 |
Functionality |
Save time, More time for job, success |
|
|
6 |
Reliability |
Save money |
Economy |
|
7 |
Reliability |
Save money |
Economy |
|
8 |
Price |
Discount, save money |
Economy |
|
9 |
24 hours business |
Accessibility, faster, convenience |
|
|
10 |
24 hours business |
Accessibility, faster, convenience |
|
7
Self esteem
Self esteem
Self Esteem (2)
Self esteem
Convenience
Success
Fun Activities
Faster
Discount
Saving Money
More Time to travel
More Time for Job
Access
Save Time
24 hours business (2)
Functionality (2)
Price (1)
Reliability (2)
Usability (3)
Result & Result Discussion
Results show that the attributes that people consider important, when using mobile applications of OTAs, are “usability,” “functionality,” “reliability,” “price,” and “24 hours business.” In this study, three people answered “usability” is an important attribute, two people answered “functionality,” two people answered “reliability,” one person answered “price,” and two people answered “24 hours business” is an important attribute. Figure 1 shows: five attributes have generated 10 consequences or benefits and four end values.
Further, analysis show that attributes “functionality,” “reliability,” and “24 hour business” are also important attributes for people using mobile applications of OTAs, since participants have chosen each attribute as an important attribute twice. “Functionality” attribute has generated three consequences, which are “saving time,” “more time for job,” and “success” further consequences could not been indicated to any end value. The “reliability” attribute has generated one consequence “saving money” and the consequence has indicated to “economy” value. The “24 hours business” attribute has generated three consequences, which are “access,” “faster,” and “convenience” consequences, which could not been followed by an end value.
Further, only one participant has considered the attribute “price” as an important attribute. The “price” attribute has generated two consequences, which are “discount” and “saving money” and these consequences have indicated to “economy” value.
The results of this study also show the ultimate values of people who use mobile applications of OTAs. Figure 1 shows that the end values that have been indicated by consequences are “self esteem,” and “economy.” However, majority of respondents have indicated to “economy” end value. In total, “economy” has been indicated three times and “self-esteem” two times.
Also, in the result of this study, it has been showed that most frequently mentioned consequence is “saving time,” which has been indicated five times. Also, the consequences, which have been indicated three times, are “more time for job,” “saving money,” and “success.” Also, consequences “more time to travel,” “fun activities,” “access,” “faster,” and “convenience” have been indicated two times. However, consequence “discount” has been generated only once.
Result Discussion
“Economy” value and consequences under economy value can be considered as aspects relating to price fairness factor. Price fairness is a factor that might has an influence to people’s “economy” value. Kannan and Kopalle (2001) have said that perception of price unfairness leads to consumer dissatisfaction, they are losing a desire to keep using or consuming product, consumers spread negative information. This study also proves that price fairness is an important factor for people. Most frequently appeared value is “economy.” According to the result of this study, there is a relationship between price fairness and travellers intentions to use mobile applications of OTAs.
Moreover, consequences “convenience,” and “faster,” are the consequences which could not been lead to an end value. However, these consequences can be considered as aspects of navigation. Rooney (2011) have said that travellers consider mobile applications faster. In this study, there have been participants who mentioned that mobile applications are faster. Rooney (2011) also said that travellers use mobile applications because they think that OTAs know what the travellers want to know or to find in their travel destination. Further, according to the result of this study, there is a relationship between navigation and travellers intentions to use mobile applications of OTAs.
