اثر اعتماد درک شده بر تجارت الکترونیک: خرید آنلاین برای محصولات و خدمات گردشگری در کره جنوبی

According to the OECD's 2008 statistics (Seoul Finance Internet News, 2009), Korea was ranked number one in terms of the percentage of homes with Internet access, at 80.6% of the total population. The survey also reported that two-thirds of Koreans with access to the Internet at home are online shoppers. Many tourism companies now actively use Internet sites as a key marketing and sales vehicle for their products and services. To be successful, tourism e-commerce services must be trustworthy. This study aims to examine which factors influence trust, satisfaction, and loyalty. We employed a structural equation modeling approach to investigate the relationships among exogenous variables (navigation functionality, perceived security, and transaction cost) and mediating variables (trust and satisfaction), with loyalty as a dependent variable. To this end, a total of 340 questionnaires were collected from online panel respondents by an Internet research firm. The results of our study indicate that navigation functionality and perceived security had a significantly positive effect on trust. However, we found that transaction cost had no effect on trust. Satisfaction was found to positively impact trust—which, in turn, influenced customer loyalty. Our findings imply that customer satisfaction influences trust, which plays a key role as an antecedent of customer loyalty in online shopping for tourism products and services.

Information communication technology (ICT) and tourism are two of the most dynamic motivators of the emerging global economy (Buhalis, 2003, p. xxiv). Both tourism and ICT increasingly provide strategic opportunities and powerful tools for economic growth, the redistribution of wealth, and the development of equity around the world (Buhalis, 2003). Buhalis (2003) noted that the rapid development of the Internet has intensified thanks to the information marketplace, e-commerce, and online markets – the Internet is becoming more sophisticated across all of these areas. Online transactions are ushering in a new era for the tourism industry, which is working to implement better commercial practices. Currently, there are 1.46 billion Internet users in the world, up 305.5% from the year 2000 (Internet World Stats, 2009). The International Telecommunication Union (ITU, 2009) published international Internet usage rankings in which South Korea (hereafter “Korea”) ranked eighth in the world. Remarkably, the OECD's 2008 statistics presented that Korea ranks number one in terms of the percentage (80.6%) of broadband Internet-equipped homes (Seoul Finance Internet News, 2009). As of 2008, there were more than 35 million Internet users in Korea and the usage rate for Korean residents had reached 77.1% (National Internet Development Agency of Korea [NIDAK], 2009). The NIDAK (2009) reported that 60.6% of Internet users are also Internet shoppers, defined as those who have purchased products or services (including making travel/hospitality reservations) using the Internet during the last year. The Korea National Statistical Office [KNSO] (2009) reports that in 2008, business to consumer (B2C) market transactions reached US$14.88 billion, increasing by 15.1% over the previous year. In 2008, Korean online sales represented 7.4% of total retail sales, of which online travel arrangement and reservation services accounted for 15.7% (US$2.33 billion) of the B2C e-commerce market (KNSO, 2009). It is interesting to note that transactions of online shopping malls represent 66.5% of total B2C market transactions and on/offline mall transactions account for 33.5% of the total. However, online mall transactions represent 30.6% of travel arrangement and reservation services, and on/offline mall transactions account for 69.4% of the total (KNSO, 2009). Korean customers tend to buy relatively low- and medium-priced tourism products and services online, but they are likely to purchase high-priced tourism products and services such as luxury cruise packages offline. The energetic growth and development of the tourism industry can in part be attributed to the Internet and ICT (Buhalis & Law, 2008). Buhalis and Law (2008) suggested that reaching a new information threshold of universal, ubiquitous communication has brought the entire tourism industry into a new stage of interactivity, accelerating both wired and wireless management and marketing. The online method is ideal for the tourism industry in terms of enabling information retrieval and electronic transactions. Chen (2006) pointed to the success of certain online-tourism businesses, such as Expedia, Travelocity, and Orbitz, along with an increasing prevalence of online shopping for tourism products and services. In recent years, an increasing number of consumers have taken advantage of the many benefits offered by electronic commerce (Yoon, 2002, p. 48). Yoon (2002) presented convenience, economic cost, and product diversity as only some of the attributes associated with the e-commerce revolution that has brought about a fundamental change in the conceptualization of commercial transactions. The number of Internet users has increased dramatically, but many users are reluctant to provide sensitive personal information online because they do not trust e-commerce security (Suh and Han, 2003 and Yoon, 2002). Suh and Han (2003) contend that online users are able to access critical files on computers all over the world because the Internet was originally designed for research, not for commerce. Adding to the uncertainty of e-commerce is the fact that the parties to a transaction are not co-located and thus cannot rely on elements such as physical proximity, hand-shakes, and body language (Suh & Han, 2003, p. 138). The Internet has changed how the tourism business operates around the globe. For example, Maswera, Edwards, and Dawson (2009) explained how the tourism industry in sub-Saharan Africa may overcome various obstacles to e-commerce adoption and practice. In recent years, online relationships in the tourism industry have become very important throughout the world, with trust becoming one of the most important factors that makes e-business successful for hotels and resorts (Fam, Foscht, & Collins, 2004). The nature of the tourism industry seems ideally suited to the Internet: (1) the product offered by the tourism industry is intangible; (2) production and consumption are inseparable; and (3) demand is perishable and fluctuates significantly (McCole, 2002). McCole (2002) suggested that trust is essential to all commercial transactions and that the role of trust in economic exchanges online may be a key marketing tool. However, there is a dearth of research regarding perceived trust in online shopping for tourism products and services. Trust plays a central role in transactions, and a lack of trust in online businesses is a primary reason why many consumers choose not to shop online (Wu & Chang, 2006, p. 1254). Certain previous studies (Cyr, 2008, Cyr et al., 2008, Harris and Goode, 2004, Jin et al., 2007 and McKnight and Chervany, 2001) have tried to examine trust in electronic commerce contexts together with other factors. For example, McKnight and Chervany (2001) designed a typology of trust concepts by using an e-commerce customer relationships model. Kim, Kim, and Shin (2009) tried to model trust roles using subjective norms, offering practical suggestions for airline marketing managers regarding strategic plans and applications that are effective in enhancing productivity or performance. Furthermore, certain studies have explored consumer satisfaction and loyalty in terms of purchase intentions (Kim and Lim, 2005 and Lim and Kim, 2006). A few studies have been conducted on trust in the tourism e-commerce context with regard to other concepts that are important to consumer satisfaction (Chen, 2006, Kim et al., 2009, McCole, 2002 and Wu and Chang, 2006). Furthermore, research has been very limited regarding the perceived trust encountered by experienced online shoppers for tourism products and services. In this respect, this study aims to examine which factors influence trust and whether trust and satisfaction have an effect on loyalty. A structural equation modeling approach was employed to investigate the relationships among exogenous variables (navigation functionality, perceived security, and transaction costs), and trust, satisfaction, and loyalty.

In modern society, most people are discovering online shopping, and some are making very good use of electronic commerce (Tatnall & Lepa, 2001). Companies have enthusiastically used the Internet as a key marketing tool and sales vehicle for their products and services (Smith, 2008). Even though the number of online users has rapidly increased, many people are reluctant to release their personal information to a website as they do not trust e-commerce security. Few studies on tourism e-commerce have dealt with trust in the online shopping environment for general tourism products and services. Therefore, the objective of this study was to develop a theoretical model of tourism e-commerce that incorporates trust and satisfaction and to empirically test for those constructs that are likely to affect loyalty, which in turn influences purchase intention. The results of this study indicate that eight of nine posited relations among the constructed concepts exhibited significantly positive coefficients and that the research model was therefore generally plausible. Our model suggests that customers will purchase tourism products and services online if the e-commerce website is perceived as trustful. The navigation functionality metric, which is comprised of operational efficiency, the speedy transmission of words and images, and modern technology, had a significantly positive effect on a site's perceived trustworthiness and reliability. The relationship between these two constructs has been tested in previous studies, and it seems that the significance of this relationship changes from one study to another. Yoon (2002) found that navigation functionality does not impact website trust and reported that online users are minimally concerned with sites' functional attributes. On the other hand, Chen (2006) argued that this functionality influences a consumer's overall trust and provides positive moderate support, implying that a higher level of site functionality leads to stronger consumer trust. In our study, navigation functionality also exerted a significantly positive effect on satisfaction (see Table 5). Our findings are consistent with those of past studies in that functionality has significantly positive effects on website satisfaction. Our findings indicate that navigation functionality in the context of online shopping for tourist services is likely to impact consumer trust and satisfaction, which in turn influences purchase intention (Chen, 2006, Hwang and Kim, 2007, Marsh et al., 2000, Sillence et al., 2006 and Yoon, 2002). The perception of security as engendered by guaranteed online privacy, safeguarding of personal information, and risk-free payments had a highly significant positive effect on trust. Security also had a significantly positive influence on satisfaction. These and other relationships have been tested in previous studies and our findings are consistent with other reports (Fam et al., 2004, Kim and Lim, 2005, McKnight et al., 2002, Shankar et al., 2002 and Suh and Han, 2003). Although perceived security had a significantly positive relationship with trust and satisfaction, we were surprised to find that security had a much higher coefficient on trust than did satisfaction. Perhaps perceived security as related to privacy, payments, and personal information has a greater effect on trust when customers are buying tourism products and services online. The transaction cost was mainly to do with saving money online. We found a highly significant and positive relation with satisfaction but no significant effect on trust. With regard to satisfaction, the results of our study are consistent with those of others (Li et al., 2008, Lim and Kim, 2006 and McCole, 2002), but this is not the case with trust. It could be the case that although customers may not trust the online shopping experience, the associated savings result in great satisfaction levels. If a customer intends to buy tourism products and services online on account of cost, ultimately satisfaction mediates the influence of transaction cost and trust exerts some influence. We found that satisfaction had a significantly positive effect on loyalty. Our findings are consistent with those of previous studies (Bai et al., 2008, Kim et al., 2006 and Teo and Liu, 2007). While satisfaction was found to have a particularly significant effect on trust, we note that the relationship between trust and satisfaction often changes from one study to another (Cho et al., 2007 and Corritore et al., 2003; Kim et al., 2009; Wu and Chang, 2005, Wu and Chang, 2006 and Yousafzai et al., 2003). Past studies have failed to determine whether trust and satisfaction are causally related (Yoon, 2002). In other words, it remains unclear whether consumers are satisfied because they trust online shopping, or if they report improved trust because they are satisfied with Internet shopping. Our findings indicate that when consumers consider an online purchase, satisfaction is likely to affect their level of trust, which is critical for online shopping (Corbitt et al., 2003 and Lanford, 2006). Trust and satisfaction have significantly positive effects on loyalty, which in turn influences consumer behavioral intentions with respect to tourism products and services online (Jones and Leonard, 2008, Kim et al., 2004, Lee et al., 2006, Maswera et al., 2009 and McKnight and Chervany, 2001). 5.2. Implication and limitation Furthermore, research has been very limited regarding the perceived trust encountered by experienced online shoppers for tourism products and services. In this respect, this study aims to examine which factors influence trust and whether trust and satisfaction have an effect on loyalty. As this study sheds light on identifying the antecedents of trust which also influences on loyalty, our study may contribute to the theoretical framework for customer trust in the context of online shopping for tourism products and services. The results of this study offer practical implications for marketing managers and practitioners who prepare strategic plans and implement tools to improve the productivity or performance of tourism online shopping through B2C e-commerce. For example, our findings indicate that trust is a predictor of loyalty, which influences a purchasing intention in the case of online shopping. Thus, managers who run tourism e-commerce sites should pay attention to improve customers' level of trust, and marketers of such sites should pay attention to customer satisfaction, which is a mediator of trust. We also note that satisfaction is related to loyalty as a result of navigation functionality, perceived security, and transaction cost. Many consumers still tend to be reluctant to purchase tourism products and services online, especially the high-priced or luxury invisible tourism products and services since they are likely to be less trustful of e-commerce. Thus, tourism marketers may need to place a high priority on improving the level of customers' trust on online environments. To improve the level of customers' trust, tourism managers may need to provide clients' community site so that customers could exchange their experiences and get useful information on tourism products and services before they make actual purchases. Another important implication for tourism marketers is related to the role of perceived security. From our findings, protection for payments, privacy, and personal information appear to be the most important determinant of trust. Therefore, managers of tourism online companies should pay careful attention to creating a safe environment to protect their clients in terms of perceived security. The final important implication for tourism marketers is related to the role of transaction cost. We found a highly significant and positive relation with satisfaction, but no significant effect on trust. However, we found a significant positive indirect effect between transaction cost and trust. Therefore, in order to enhance customers' trust in tourism products and services online, the tourism marketer should improve the customer's satisfaction through low transaction costs. This study has one limitation which is related to the measurement of trust. Analyzing only two items of trust may be insufficient to build a robust model for the role of trust in online shopping for tourism products and services. Future researchers may need to conduct the same study with the inclusion of more trust-relevant items in order to improve the statistical power and to reduce the potential for error in this type of research. Another important limitation of this study is related to the definition for tourism products and services. In this study, the definition is a little broad so that the results may be not suitable to some specific areas. Thus, in future studies, presenting a specific tourism product or service may provide more insightful direction for academic and managerial fields. Also, future researchers may need to apply multi-group factor analysis in order to explore both low- and high-involvement products. These will vary in terms of online prices for tourism products and services. Marketing managers may be interested in identifying what these differences are since this could help segment online markets in terms of consumer involvement. The two segments may have different tastes in terms of quality, prices, and trust. Furthermore, it is desirable to provide respondents with a more specific time frame in designing the questionnaire so that respondents could better recall their online purchases.