The Consumer Behaviour of Latvian outbound tourists towards the online Dissertation

The Consumer Behaviour of Latvian outbound tourists towards the online and offline travel booking method - Dissertation Example Regardless of the advantages associated with the traditional methods of travel booking, from our findings, consumers still prefer online travel bookings and offers. This puts into consideration those consumers who are not in a position to exclusively make use of the services provided by travel agencies and are profiled to; take responsibility when it comes to their own planning and travelling, young tourists who in most cases use traditional means to travel and go for low prices, the economic situation forcing consumers to opt for services where they can find bargains and those who shy off from complex trips thus go for online booking addresses.   A detailed summary of this study gives out very vital information about tourists characters online and the risk incurred. The findings of this study conclude that the hospitality and tourism products are at a greater risk of being purchased, so the products should be well evaluated and this will play a big role in the decision making aspe ct of the consumers . From our findings we have discovered that this two aspects determine largely the specific online booking website to be selected by a tourist. However this two aspects can in one way or another affect the original price or quality of a product. When it comes to the distribution system, the type of booking methods as well as the preferable locations and sites were strongly associated with the nature of their visit.   From the respondents, it was evident that those consumers whose nature for touring happens to be the conference were observed to have their accommodation arrangements mostly done through their own companies and travel agencies. The number of such type of tourists who chose to have their booking done over the internet was minimal.   Tourists who were in the country for regular business trip were observed to have their booking done mostly in two ways; trough their own companies or through travel agencies.   The tourists that mostly did their book ing using the Internet were those who in the country mostly for leisure as they prefer their reservations to be done online. Demographic characteristics were also observed to impact the choice of the booking methods preferred by the visitors. When it comes to gender, there were no significant difference between the men and women booking behaviors. However, the online share reservation amongst women was observed to be slightly bigger than the case in men. Looking at the age factor with respect to online booking, the difference among the age groups was that big. The age group that had the minimal share of the online travel booking belonged to the age group 50 and above while the age group that enjoyed the biggest share was that from 30 to 40 years old v (Janda, Trocchia, & Gwinner, 2002).   Despite the difference, no age group can be regarded as having extremely high share of the online travel booking. The difference witnessed between the share of online travel booking by countries of origin of the tourists was to some level