Do Loyalty Groups Differ in the Role of Trust in Online Tourism Shopping? A Process Perspective

ABSTRACT

Today, Internet use is becoming increasingly prevalent, and people all over the world are shopping online with increasing frequency. While much of the current literature tends to focus on the dependent variable of loyalty on online tourism shopping, this study draws heavily on the moderating role of loyalty. In particular, this study aims to examine the relationships among perceived security, website properties, navigational functionality, trust, and satisfaction, as well as to use a process theory to investigate the differences in these constructs between low- and high-loyalty groups. The results of this study reveal that perceived security, website properties, and navigational functionality significantly and positively affected trust. In addition, loyalty was found to reinforce the relationships among perceived security, website properties, navigational functionality, and trust.

Keywords:

• Online tourism shopping
• process theory
• loyalty groups
• trust
• multi-group analysis

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by a post-doctoral fellowship grant from the Kyung Hee University in 2011 (KHU-20110701).