Data leaking scandal, risks, and financial consumption behaviors in online tourism platforms: The role of trust on college students and teachers

Abstract

Given the importance of data safety for psychology, the present study investigated the influence of data leaking scandal on campus customers’ financial consumption behaviors at intelligent tourism platforms in China, and explored the roles that individual characteristics play in this process by focusing on a set of participants from colleges. Data were collected through sending out an online questionnaire, where respondents were asked to finish a series of questions about their background information, their trust, future consuming intention, and defensive behaviors toward intelligent platforms. After they finished these questions, a short description about an online tourism platform leaking customers’ personal information was presented to the respondents, following which they were asked to report about their future consuming intentions and defensive behaviors again. In total, 236 participants of college students and teachers were recruited. Paired samples mean comparison showed that after the stimulus was presented, the respondents had a significant decrease in future financial consumption intention, and a significant increase in defensive behaviors toward online tourism platforms due to risks perceived. Multiple regression analysis was conducted subsequently to investigate individual characteristics that may account for part of the decrease (increase) in consuming intention (defensive behaviors). Results showed that, customers with higher level of trust and monthly income, as well as older customers, tend to experience higher level of decrease in consuming intention, and increase in defensive behaviors. These findings highlighted the importance of online tourism platforms guaranteeing data security of their customers.

Research on the Influencing Mechanism via Which Security Perception of Personal Information Affects Tourist Happiness: A Moderated Mediation Model

“…SPPI mainly comprises payment security perception [11,12,38,39] and application security perception [12,63,117], all of which are related to the status of tourists' SPPI before, during, and after touring. If the security of personal information is threatened and personal information may be leaked, the security of the property (and other properties of tourists) will be potentially damaged during or after the tourism event [9,15]. Tourists' positive perception of their experiences will be reduced, and their happiness will be affected.…”

“…Therefore, it is necessary to assess the level and degree of personal information security risk [13], as well as to encrypt personal information with information technology (such as four-qubit entangled state) [14], and to protect the security of personal information with effective laws [7]. Even so, personal data leakage occasionally occurs on online tourism platforms, and tourists' concerns about security perception of personal information (SPPI) affect their willingness to use smart tourism applications [15]. At the same time, this also shows the importance of smart tourism technology in smart tourism application.…”