in the impact of price on customers’ postpurchase perceptions and satisfaction
2005; Nusair, Yoon, & Parsa, 2010). Such work generally shows that price not
satisfaction. With the rapid development of the Internet, e-tourism is now being
24 JOURNAL OF HOSPITALITY & TOURISM RESEARCH
used by more travelers. Unfortunately, the influence of price on postpurchase
perceptions in the Internet environment, particularly in the context of online
reviews, remains largely unknown.
With the development of e-commerce, the global online retail sector earned
revenues totaling $434.6 billion in 2010, representing a compounded annual
growth rate of 16.3% since 2006 (MarketLine, 2011). According to a survey
conducted by the Keller Fay Group, more than 90% of online shoppers reported
that they had written online reviews (Bazaarvoice, 2007). These reviews pro-
vide a vital source of authentic content; they express reviewers’ emotions,
describe their real experiences, and offer recommendations as an enhancement
to seller-provided information about products and services. They also provide
important information about online shoppers’ postpurchase perceptions. Studies
show that online reviews may reflect a more accurate perception of the quality
of a product or service and customers’ satisfaction with it (Koh, Hu, & Clemons,
2010; Vermeulen & Seegers, 2009; Zhang, Ye, Law, & Li, 2010).
The rapid development of review systems on the Internet thus provides a
good opportunity for researchers to investigate the relationship between price
and postpurchase perceptions in the online context. Usually, customers post
reviews that combine their perceptions of both quality and value. In other
words, they incorporate the trade-off between quality and price into their rat-
ings. Previous research has not yet identified the effect of price on such reviews.
As such, there remains a gap in our knowledge about the relationship between
price and perceived service quality as well as perceived value in the online set-
ting. Accordingly, this study sets out to empirically investigate the impact of
price on customers’ perceptions of quality and value in an online context, with
a particular focus on traveler options from online reviews; it also discusses
whether star rating and trip type moderate this relationship. The focus is mainly
on the following research questions:
1. Does price affect customers’ ratings of perceived quality and value for hotels?
2. How do hotel star rating and the purpose of travel (business or leisure) moderate
any such impact of price on perceived quality and value?
The rest of this article is organized as follows. In the next section, we review
the relevant literature. We then develop our research methodology and the
results of the empirical testing of our model using online traveler reviews from
daodao.com. In the final section, we discuss the implications for managers in
the hotel industry and conclude by setting out the limitations of this study
together with topics for future research.
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