How Influential Are Travel Websites On Travelers’ Travel Planning? An Empirical Research in Turkey

Abstract

Travel Websites have become the most influential tools, and they have been commonly used in today’s world because access to the internet has become easier and more widespread thanks to Information Technologies. This research intended to examine perceptions of Turkish travellers regarding travel websites in terms of their perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, perceived trustworthiness and behavioural intention to use information obtained through travel websites and their impacts in their travel planning and decision-making processes. Simple random sampling method, which is a probability sampling method, was used in data collection and 212 travellers from Turkey filled in the questionnaire. Respondents were filtered with the help of two filtering questions at the beginning of the questionnaire and only those living in Turkey and having travelled for some purpose in the past were included in the study. The results obtained through relevant statistical analyses revealed that there is a positive relationship among perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, perceived trustworthiness of travel websites and behavioural intention to use information obtained from such websites. The research also revealed that education level is a factor influencing travellers’ travel planning processes. 

Keywords

• Decision-making process,Travel Planning,Travel Plans,Travel Websites,Tourism,E-Tourism

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