DUGi

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

http://dugi.udg.edu/item/http:@@@@hdl.handle.net@@2072@@299931

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

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)”

Springer Verlag