Investigation of Hong Kong Customers’ Preference in Searching for Tourism Products Online

Abstract

Airlines and hotels focus on their direct-to-customer distribution through their websites. The inter-connectivity and inter-operability between hotels and airlines are major tools used by customers to connect with tourism organizations. An effective hotel and airline website can facilitate communication with customers, enabling the latter to share their information and to use the hotel's or airline's booking processes. The generalized use of the Internet and other information and communication technologies has significantly changed the tourism market. Likewise, easy access to the Internet has facilitated pricing transparency. Thus, customers can use the suppliers' websites to search for information and compare different products. Hong Kong is one of the cities with high rates of Internet access attributed to the purchase of airlines tickets. Given the need for research on this area, the present study aimed to examine the searching behaviors of Hong Kong web users regarding tourism products. A purposive sampling of 30 interviewees indicated their various expectations from different travel websites. The search behavior of these individuals was also identified. Relevant implications for marketers are presented in this paper to enable them to fully understand the behavioral patterns of Hong Kong web users in searching for tourism information.