Traveler Decision Making in Online vs. Offline Buying Behavior
The growing preference of consumers to search for information and make web purchases in travel and tourism context is forcing a number of enterprises to go online. Looking at the complexity that already lies in offline decision making, attracting consumers online, understanding their psychology, and making them purchase is becoming a stringent job for the marketers. Though significant research work has been done in terms of adoption of website services for travel websites, a comparative understanding of the offline and online purchase decision-making process of the consumer and how that can be leveraged in making the consumer loyal through continuous usage of the website services still needs an in-depth understanding. In this chapter, the authors have tried to differentiate between online and offline behavior and proposed a model based on intention adoption and continuance framework which will surely provide insights to both the academicians and marketers/website developers in terms of improving the online buying behavior of consumers in travel and tourism context.