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Is planning through the Internet (un)related to trip satisfaction?

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Abstract

The relationship between Internet use and trip satisfaction has up to now been tested only with subjective variables regarding the Internet (e.g., e-satisfaction), not on actual Internet use. Subjective variables, including satisfaction, may share common variance and thus show spurious correlations. The aim of this article is to test the relationship between trip satisfaction and actual Internet use for planning and booking accommodation and activities in overseas trips. We use a large sample (n = 14,586) of official statistics micro data of European leisure visitors to Spain in 2014 planning the trip by themselves and arriving by low cost airlines. We use structural equation models with ordinal variables and statistical power analysis. We include trip characteristics as controls, and carry out a sensitivity analysis of the conclusions by varying the set of controls and sample selection. We find barely no relationship between pre-trip Internet use and trip satisfaction. Power analysis and confidence intervals combined with the large available sample show that the relationship is either null or extremely weak. Sensitivity analyses keep conclusions unchanged. Our null results contradict prior expectations on a relationship which the literature takes for granted but has never been put to test. More detailed measurements of both Internet use and trip satisfaction could be considered in further research.

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Notes

  1. Technically speaking it is a diagonally weighted least squares method applied on a reduced form of the model and the residual polychoric correlations, with mean-and-variance adjusted test statistics using full weights and sandwich standard errors.

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Acknowledgements

The first two authors want to acknowledge the support of the Catalan Autonomous Government grant 2014SGR551 funding their research group “Compositional and Spatial Data Analysis (COSDA)”, the Spanish Health Ministry Grant CB06/02/1002 funding their research group “Epidemiology and Public Health (CIBERESP)”, the Spanish Economy and competitiveness Ministry/FEDER Grant MTM2015-65016-C2-1-R funding their project “COmpositional Data Analysis and RElated meThOdS (CODA-RETOS)”, and the University of Girona Grant MPCUdG2016/069 funding their project “Statistical and Econometric Modeling”. The third author wants to acknowledge the support of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness Grant CSO2014-51785-R funding the project “The transformative effects of global mobility patterns in tourism destination evolution (MOVETUR)”.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department AEGERN, University of Lleida, Faculty Building of Law, Economics and Tourism, Campus Cappont, C/Jaume II, 73, 25001, Lleida, Spain

    Berta Ferrer-Rosell & Estela Marine-Roig

  2. Department of Economics, University of Girona, Faculty Building of Economics and Business, Campus Montilivi, C/Universitat 10, 17003, Girona, Spain

    Germa Coenders

Authors
  1. Berta Ferrer-Rosell
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  2. Germa Coenders
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  3. Estela Marine-Roig
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Berta Ferrer-Rosell.

Appendices

Appendix 1: Internet and satisfaction questions from the EGATUR questionnaire

  • At any time when planning this trip, did you use the Internet to search for information or make a reservation? (yes/no)

    • (If yes)

      •  Did you use the Internet to search for information about accommodation? (yes/no)

      •  Did you use Internet to search for information about activities? (yes/no)

      • Did you use Internet to pay for an accommodation reservation? (yes/no)

      • Did you use Internet to pay for an activity reservation? (yes/no)

  • Rate the trip as a whole (from 0 “very bad” to 10 “very well”)

Appendix 2: Estimates of the model in Fig. 1

Table 5 shows the standardized estimates and statistical significance of the parameters of the model in Fig. 1, without the effects of Internet use on trip satisfaction, in other words, only with the control variables.

Table 5 Standardized model estimates for each of the dependent variables
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Ferrer-Rosell, B., Coenders, G. & Marine-Roig, E. Is planning through the Internet (un)related to trip satisfaction?. Inf Technol Tourism 17, 229–244 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40558-017-0082-7

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