Determinants of adoption of global travel metasearch engines

Abstract

Global travel metasearch engines emerged as a new type of intermediaries in the travel industry. Despite of their fast growth rates in all markets, the main strategic goal remains the facilitation of adoption by the new customers. This work set a goal to identify the determinants of adoption of global travel metasearch engines. During the research the Unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT – Venkatesh et al., 2003) was modified according to the peculiarities of the travel metasearch engines and used for the identifying the determinants. Elaborated hypotheses were validated by the metasearch company representative and tested via survey. Main results showed that age, gender and Internet experience as well as the perceived usefulness in terms of finding the best prices have no positive interrelation with the behavioral intention, whether speed of purchase, ease of use, lack of assistance needed and social influence have positive interrelation with the adoption intention. As the result, number of strategic recommendations were derived.