Predicting Online Travel Purchase Behavior: The Role of Trust and Perceived Risk

ABSTRACT

Developments in internet and mobile technology during current times have brought about a disruptive change in travel information communication technology (ICT), which in turn has altered the overall business model and consequently tourists’ overall experience. The current study examines travelers’ attitude, intention and behavior toward online travel purchase. It also examines the mediating effect of attitude and moderating effects of subjective norm, perceived risk, and trust. The primary data was collected through an Amazon Mechanical Turk. Findings confirm the role of perceived risk on the attitude-intention gap. Subjective norm positively moderates the link attitude-intention. Besides, trust is also found to be a significant factor which influences attitude, purchase intention, and perceived risk. The findings will be useful for tourism managers and policymakers in designing their offerings, processes and websites that are relevant to the online travel context.

KEYWORDS:

• Online travel purchase
• OTP
• subjective norm
• perceived risk
• trust
• attitude–intention gap