The Moderating Effects of Word-of-Mouth Intention in Online Travel Agencies Service Quality

Purpose: This study examines components that dictate service quality of Online Travel Agencies. Research design, data and methodology: This study performed a survey that targeted people who have purchased travel products using Online Travel Agencies in the past year at Incheon International Airport. Out of 280 questionnaires, this study selected 249(88.9%) questionnaires for analysis. In analysis, this study used statistical package called 'SPSS 22'. Results: Based on the results, this study identified that company reputation and transactional stability influenced consumers' intent to share anecdotal and practical information. Conclusions: This study discovered several major findings. First, 'convenience' and 'price', two major factors in service quality, imposed positive effects on word-of-mouth intention of consumers. In particular, 'convenience' had the most significant impact. Next, this study verified the moderating effects of 'transaction safety' and 'reputation' on the effect relationships between 'convenience' and 'price', and consumer word-of-mouth intention. The results conclude that, in fact, some statistically significant differences among the effect degrees of the two independent variables on the dependent variable according to the safety level of transaction on Online Travel Agencies website do exist. In short, 'transaction safety' variable does have moderating effects on the above relationships.