Tourism Information Trust as a Bridge Between Information Value and Satisfaction: An Exploratory Study

Abstract

Online travel information embraces a variety of sources that represent different views and orientations. How do potential travelers decide whether or not to believe the information and, further, use it for their trips? This research proposes a theoretical model of potential tourists' level of trust regarding online tourism information, empirically investigates factors that produce trust (utilitarian value and hedonic value), and identifies beneficial consequences of trust (satisfaction). Structural Equation Modeling was employed to fulfill these research aims. The findings confirm that both the utilitarian and hedonic value attributes of travel information significantly contribute to the generation of trust. Travelers' trust was found to depend upon their satisfaction with online information. This study suggests that tourism information providers should not only limit their views to communicating marketing information and positioning strategies via the websites, but also need to think more about what information “buyers” need and want.