Online Information Sources Used in Hotel Bookings: Examining Relevance and Recall

摘要

The relevance and recall of information sources, particularly those used in the prepurchase hotel search process, have not been fully explored. As they are critical to inform the final hotel booking, it is essential to examine the relevance and recall of information sources used by customers. Thus, the main aim of this article is to investigate both relevance, in this case measured by the pages viewed, and recall, gauged by both aided and unaided recall of keywords used and websites visited during an online session. An exploratory, observation method that is goal-directed is the main research instrument with both qualitative and quantitative data collected. This method is supplemented with questionnaires to measure both implicit and explicit recall. Results show that online travel agencies are more relevant than both search engines and travel-related social media, based on the number of pages viewed. The recall of both keywords and websites was low, both for aided recall and unaided recall.