The Consumer Behaviour of Latvian Outbound Tourists - Dissertation Example

? The Consumer Behaviour of Latvian outbound tourists towards the online and offline travel booking method DISCUSSION With respect to both online and offline travel booking by consumers, it has been preserved not be a challenge but also a threat as most people considerer the current online and Internet booking options to be offering strong competition to the traditional methods of booking. Contrary to this, approximately 23% of the managers make use of online travel booking systems as an opportunity to embrace novelty, more agent options and mobility (Janda, Trocchia, & Gwinner, 2002). The strengths associated with traditional travel agency as opposed to online ravel booking can also be regarded as being complete travel packages, offer available information, personalized information, have certainty when it comes when it comes to preservation, provides guarantee in relation to the personal security of the consumers and ensure compensation for consumers in the event of any damages while accessing the travel services. Regardless of the advantages associated with the traditional methods of travel booking, from our findings, consumers still prefer online travel bookings and offers. This puts into consideration those consumers who are not in a position to exclusively make use of the services provided by travel agencies and are profiled to; take responsibility when it comes to their own planning and travelling, young tourists who in most cases use traditional means to travel and go for low prices, the economic situation forcing consumers to opt for services where they can find bargains and those who shy off from complex trips thus go for online booking addresses.  A detailed summary of this study gives out very vital information about tourists characters online and the risk incurred. The findings of this study conclude that the hospitality and tourism products are at a greater risk of being purchased, so the products should be well evaluated and this will play a big role in the decision making aspect of the consumers . From our findings we have discovered that this two aspects determine largely the specific online booking website to be selected by a tourist. However this two aspects can in one way or another affect the original price or quality of a product. When it comes to the distribution system, the type of booking methods as well as the preferable locations and sites were strongly associated with the nature of their visit.  From the respondents, it was evident that those consumers whose nature for touring happens to be the conference were observed to have their accommodation arrangements mostly done through their own companies and travel agencies. The number of such type of tourists who chose to have their booking done over the internet was minimal.  Tourists who were in the country for regular business trip were observed to have their booking done mostly in two ways; trough their own companies or through travel agencies.  The tourists that mostly did their booking using the Internet were those who in the country mostly for leisure as they prefer their reservations to be done online. Demographic characteristics were also observed to impact the choice of the booking methods preferred by the visitors. When it comes to gender, there were no significant difference between the men and women booking behaviors. However, the online share reservation amongst women was observed to be slightly bigger than the case in men. Looking at the age factor with respect to online booking, the difference among the age groups was that big. The age group that had the minimal share of the online travel booking belonged to the age group 50 and above while the age group that enjoyed the biggest share was that from 30 to 40 years old v (Janda, Trocchia, & Gwinner, 2002).  Despite the difference, no age group can be regarded as having extremely high share of the online travel booking. The difference witnessed between the share of online travel booking by countries of origin of the tourists was to some level larger.  A higher percentage of travel in relation to traveling activities is mostly witnessed between the 30-40 age groups. The data and reservations have positive and relevant coefficients that correlate with the consumer’s behavior when it comes to their choice on the system of travel booking. This is possible relative to the fact that this age group is both willing to travel and internet literate. Gender is another factor that greatly impacts the reservations and purchasing. This indicates that women have a higher tendency of booking and purchasing travel products through the internet . A frequency on the use of online travel booking carried out proved of less importance. In our own perception we expected to see a huge correlation in the fact that frequent users are of the internet are more familiar and mostly more confident with the use of technologies. Online booking websites are called upon to enhance their level of trust on their clients because this greatly reduces the expected risk and is a better and suitable way to market consumer online purchase demand. The implementations of public reforms or review sites are best example of a risk-reduction strategy that bases its facts against the use consumer reviews to minimize risks by potential consumers in the name of purchases. The price in the other hand contributes to this especially in medium income tourists ,the low quality ones are purchased at a cheaper price . In reference to the gender equality ,our conclusions show that both male and female are in a position to take risk in according to the perceived risk at stake. The rate of the Internet penetration in every Autonomous Community is vital for giving a review of the internet usage especially in planning of travelling as show by the results . It plays a very big role in the three uses of the Internet. The broadband penetration is also expected to be facilitated in a positive way. However with the inclusion of the variable the importance reduced mainly because of the increased relation with the penetration in the Internet rate. It was discovered that proportion of car trips as the transportation mode reduced the proportions of the travels planned and purchased through online booking. This can be attributed to the fact that by travelling by car and not traveling by air, railway or even boat, increases the chances of one of one using is his or her personal car and thus there is less requirement for purchase transportation . The rate at which online travel booking is used for purchasing reasons can also be affected by where the person is travelling to destination of travel. Our findings indicate that the more people who travel abroad the more the Internet is used for purchasing purposes. The significance of the Internet for travel and tourism industry has been boosted highly in the past few years. The knowledge about how travellers behave is of amicable importance to travel suppliers because it assists them in the in creating of suitable marketing strategies and policies in a manner to fully benefit from any potential new channel available. Looking at the distribution of the market segment of consumers, especially the middle aged and the young customers who are often less interested with too much human interaction and have the Internet as a basic part of their lives, they won’t stop to check for quality and are always ready to take risks. The most affected age group is that of young tourists between the age of 20 and 40 who travel individually or in few occasions in small groups and prefer to have their booking done in advance as it includes only the basic services like accommodation and transport.  Older tourists and business group were observed to go for agencies according to the findings.  Most mangers define such groups as their loyal customers with regards to the type of security they demand from services and products. Such groups fear any form of fraud thus shy away from the online travel booking.  This same group of tourists is strongly associated with high social status and high income. This brings out the correlation between the age and income with the choice of travel booking. The online booking system mainly addresses mass products and tourists who ask for both detailed information ands advice as they want to be assured of the quality offered.  The older age set of tourists prefer to travel with their families thus will go for more complex security and offers with respect to the travel packages they purchase. They in most cases travel in organized groups with an inclusive services package and such an arrangement is not possible when it comes to online travel booking (Janda, Trocchia, & Gwinner, 2002). . The provision of high quality products and services is considered by both consumers and managers as to contribute positively to promotion of the loyalty by consumers. Perceptions of the effect the strength of online completion has on agency customers is that loyalty is in most cases linked to the manner in which the travel agents asses the financial situation and behavior of the consumers. Those consumers who were not in a position to pay by card or did not have any access to the Internet made the majority of the share followed by the consumers who preferred face to face encounters and lastly those who preferred the required details to be given by personnel who are specialized. Online travel booking enable the clients to come up with sound decisions considering the prices. Looking at the distribution channels, the study identified the travel intermediates; the travelling agency, as the most common cooperation partners in Latvia. The accommodation sector was also preserved to play a greater role in attracting tourists and determining the mode of travel booking the consumers settled for. This followed the well developed hotels structure that cooperate with each other including a formal network as associations and cooperation on informal basis to serve similar interests with both participating in both online and off-online travel bookings. It was easier to obtain information about any destination site or other necessary information from hotels than even agents or from the Internet. The travel agencies were observed to offer all the necessary requirements by the consumers such as getting in contact with the transport companies, providing airline tickets for them, car hire, bus trips and accommodation survives (Janda, Trocchia, & Gwinner, 2002). . This led to some of the tourists to constantly prefer traveling agents to online booking especially the old aged and those travelling in groups. The strong correlation existing between the dependent and independent variables in this study suggest that the consumers in Latvia acknowledged the convenience associated with the online travel booking, the convenience associated with offline travel booking and the simultaneous risks and benefits associated with the two. From the study, it was clear that security and risk factors had the strongest influence when it came to the consumer behaviors while choosing which travel booking system was convenient for them. Other factors such as age, type of agency, net salary and language also played a great role in the choices made by consumers but were not the main determining factor. They came as second determining factor to risks and convenience. It was clear that despite the increasing public and private agencies in Latvia, the fact that there is a possibility of loss of privacy by the release of personal data by using online travel booking perceived a greater risk. This fact majorly contributed to the findings that indicated a strong but negative correlation between willingness and risk. The willingness to buy but the consideration of the associated satisfaction and risk thus the role played by the importance of decision making and not experience. This gives the implication that customer rendition to be considered as risk-free and does not necessarily increase the willingness of the consumers to prefer online booking or a given provider. The tourism and hospitality industry in Latvia has been on the forefront in capitalizing and adapting to new technologies to serve and offer the best services to the tourists. The distribution of travel services and products across the country has been appreciated as to heavily depend on information and consumers who are constantly looking for new approaches to help them in coming up with the best decisions before they settle for the preferable travel service and be contended with their trip. Following this trend, the Internet has stood out as a major factor that affects most of the aspects of the travel industry in the country. Such aspects include marketing strategies and information distribution to service and products delivery. Looking at the finding of this study, travel agencies were observed to be more in need to get out and reach out to the customers through coming up with their own websites to have the ability to work together besides the traditional practices. It is a new approach that has significantly taken the advantage of the use of the Internet to come up with effective relationship with their consumers and help them increase their loyalty. However, this approach has been challenged with the cost factor that is involved in adopting this new online reservation method for both purchasing website and flight searching. In addition, the travel agencies have to keep into consideration that the fact that the websites should be designed in such a manner that they should not confuse the consumers, be in operation for 24 hours, show a broad variety of quality and be easy to use (Janda, Trocchia, & Gwinner, 2002). . It can also be inferred from the findings that the signaling mechanisms employed in an effort to mitigate the asymmetries related information that play a big role in encouraging trust towards the company from which the consumers purchase their packages. However, this neither contributes to the reduction of the risk differential between the associated costs and the channels with the transaction. This implies that in both situations consumers perceive the use of Internet in the booking process as the most risky system and the one they incur the highest costs. This gives the consumers the notion of opportunistic behavior of the seller part in the Internet environment. Further analysis of the results of the study indicate that signals do not necessarily contribute to the reduction of information asymmetries following the significance associated with the consumers concern on post-purchase signals such as post sales and guarantee service now that the Internet forms the main information source. This means that consumers put together information sources in which the component predominates that are cognitive which are travel guides and the Internet in an effort to be better informed so that they check on the information asymmetries and be better placed to make their decisions. More so, such signals neither in any way contribute to cutting down on neither perceived costs of transaction nor the possible risks. The transaction costs also shades some light to the issues associated with message emission and the mistrust of the tourists towards the information they receive. This can also be taken to imply that although the Internet facilitates easy access to more information sources, it takes time for the tourists to evaluate and analyze all the information in the web pages. This results indicate the impact of understanding of the factors related with the choosing of suitable online travel booking channel for the purpose of traveling . A summary of the findings is as highlighted below: First ,in the process of applying new technology the findings show that the level of the Internet penetration greatly determines the amount of times the Internet is used in travel purposes . Online travel booking is used here in planning, booking or purchasing a trip. Second, in relation to the impact of demographic behaviors the results second the findings reached. Notably it was discovered that the age and gender heavily determine the character of a consumer ,that a higher tendency to book and purchase products through internet is seen in women . In reference to the age , a higher percentage of travel related internet activities are seen in the 30-40 age group (Janda, Trocchia, & Gwinner, 2002). . This study also plays a huge role in understanding and evaluating how the travel characteristics can impact the way the Internet is used for travel related purposes. From our findings we reach a conclusion that the Internet usage for purchasing purposes is greatly influenced by the mode used in transportation and the destination of travel. The retailers and policy makers use this information to come up with suitable strategies that can facilitate and promote e Commerce to long time users while maintaining their current customers (Janda, Trocchia, & Gwinner, 2002). However this can also be used by public authorities to mobilize more people to use the Internet for travel related purposes this in one way increases the rate of internet penetration thus making the targeted goals reachable. More so travel concerned with vendors can boost Internet travel related business by calling upon the 30-40 age group to become buyers and create their website to be reachable to women ,who are more targeted in the shopping industry than men . In conclusion ,the research has pointed out the need to develop a more detailed findings on the consumer behavior in tourism to constitute a complex research of booking and purchasing behavior this will mostly increase the level of understanding of the procedure of distribution. In future, corporate travel and online leisure will continue to grow. The main challenge to this growth is not on the bookings but the increased market fragments with limited loyalty. In order to retain and attract profitable customers and website suppliers will have to focus on consumer understanding preferences, web analytics and web analytics. For the companies to remain competitive in the tourism market, there has to be a greater investment in decision making in an effort to minimize conversion rate and revenues with all the customer interactions. References Janda, S., Trocchia, P. J., & Gwinner, K. P. (2002). Consumer perceptions of internet retail service quality. International journal of service industry management , 13 (5), 412-431. . Read More