Journal of Quality Assurance in Hospitality & Tourism

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Customer Loyalty Towards Travel Agency Websites:

The Role of Trust and Hedonic Value

Tahir Albayrak, Sezer Karasakal, Özge Kocabulut & Aslıhan Dursun

To cite this article: Tahir Albayrak, Sezer Karasakal, Özge Kocabulut & Aslıhan Dursun (2019):
Customer Loyalty Towards Travel Agency Websites: The Role of Trust and Hedonic Value, Journal
of Quality Assurance in Hospitality & Tourism, DOI: 10.1080/1528008X.2019.1619497

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Published online: 23 May 2019.

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JOURNAL OF QUALITY ASSURANCE IN HOSPITALITY & TOURISM
2019, VOL. 0, NO. 0, 1–28
https://doi.org/10.1080/1528008X.2019.1619497

Customer Loyalty Towards Travel Agency Websites: The

Role of Trust and Hedonic Value
a
Tahir Albayrak , Sezer Karasakalb, Özge Kocabulutc, and Aslıhan Dursunb
a
Tourism Faculty, Akdeniz University, Antalya, Turkey; bTourism Faculty, Antalya Bilim University,
Antalya, Turkey; cTourism Faculty, Pamukkale University, Denizli, Turkey

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
Website quality of online travel agencies and the impact of per- Online travel agency;
ceived website quality on customer behavior are still the research website quality; customer
areas to be investigated by the academics. The present study trust; hedonic value
explores the relationships among the website quality, hedonic
value, customer trust, and loyalty using a comprehensive research
model. The sample consists of 329 respondents who previously
bought a service from an online travel agency. Four dimensions
underlying website quality are identified namely as the: design,
information, gratification, and rewarding. The result of the struc-
tural model shows that website quality affects both hedonic value
and trust, which in turn influence loyalty.

Introduction
Information and communication technologies enable the customers to buy
travel and tourism products or services whenever and wherever they want
(Law & Wong, 2003; Llach, Marimon, Del Mar Alonso-Almeida, & Bernardo,
2013). In addition, potential customers may easily reach numerous suppliers,
compare their offerings and prices, and easily complete their transactions. These
facts have considerably reshaped the distribution of the travel and tourism
products and services. Statistics show that with 564.9 billion US dollars in
sales in 2016, online travel sites have become an important distribution channel
for many businesses (Statista, 2016).
Increasing online sales volumes demonstrate the incontrovertible importance
of websites for the success of travel and tourism companies. However, online
distribution channels are perceived very risky by most customers because of the
distance between the buyers and sellers and the lack of face-to-face interactions.
In fact, previous studies indicate that perceived risk is one of the primary reasons
of not making online transactions from the customers’ perspective (Chiu, Wang,
Fang, & Huang, 2014). Thus, potential customers are assumed to purchase
tourism products or services from travel agency websites that they trust.

CONTACT Aslıhan Dursun aslihan.dursun@antalya.edu.tr Tourism Faculty, Antalya Bilim University,

Dosemealti Campus, Antalya, Turkey
Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at www.tandfonline.com/wqah.
© 2019 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
2 T. ALBAYRAK ET AL.

Moreover, the customers make online purchases not only with the purpose
of completing a task but also for enjoying the process. For these reasons,
apart from task completion (Babin, Darden, & Griffin, 1994), online buying
experiences also stimulate the customers’ hedonic value perceptions (To,
Liao, & Lin, 2007). Many studies reveal that hedonic value perception con-
tributes to the customer preferences towards a website and increases the
future intentions (Overby & Lee, 2006). However, to the best of authors’
knowledge, although trust and hedonic value are important in the context of
online purchases, there is no study that investigates their roles in the relation-
ship between website quality and customer loyalty.
The purpose of this study is, therefore, to empirically investigate the
nature of the relationships among website quality, hedonic value, customer
trust, and loyalty in the context of online travel agencies with a causal
research framework. Specifically, we hypothesize that website quality is an
important antecedent of both perceived hedonic value and customer trust,
which in turn affects customer loyalty.

Literature review
Website quality
Website quality is defined as the “customers’ overall judgment about
a website’s excellence and superiority” (Park, Gretzel, & Sirakaya-Turk,
2007). For evaluating website quality, researchers have developed various
instruments, such as SITEQUAL (Yoo & Donthu, 2001), WebQualTM
(Loiacono, Watson, & Goodhue, 2002), eTailQ (Wolfinbarger & Gilly,
2003), and E-S-QUAL (Parasuraman, Zeithaml, & Malhotra, 2005).
While some researchers tended to focus on the websites that provide
variety of products when they measure website quality (e.g., Chang, Wang,
& Yang, 2009; Gera, 2013), some others preferred to examine the websites
that offer only one type of product or service such as apparel websites (e.g.,
Ha & Stoel, 2012; Kim & Niehm, 2009), banks (e.g., Ho & Lin, 2010), and
bookstores (e.g., Lin, 2007). One of the former studies is conducted in the
UK by Ibrahim et al. (2006) who examined the customer perceptions about
e-service quality in the banking sector. The authors identified convenience/
accuracy, accessibility/reliability, good queue management, personalization,
friendly/responsive customer service, and targeted customer service as the
main dimensions of e-service quality. In another study, Ha and Stoel (2012),
by examining four apparel websites in the U.S., found that privacy/security,
website content/functionality, customer service, and experiential/atmospheric
were the key dimensions of website quality. The most common dimensions
identified so far by previous studies can be summarized as follows: reliability
(e.g., De Wulf, Schillewaert, Muylle, & Rangarajan, 2006; Shergill & Chen,
 JOURNAL OF QUALITY ASSURANCE IN HOSPITALITY & TOURISM 3

2005), responsiveness (e.g., Kassım & Asiah Abdullah, 2010; Lin, 2007), ease
of use (e.g., Ahn, Ryu, & Han, 2007; Cox & Dale, 2001), security/privacy (e.g.,
Eid, 2011), and information quality (e.g., Al Manasra, Khair, Zaid, & Taher
Qutaishat, 2013; Liu & Arnett, 2000).
In the tourism and travel literature, academics attempted to measure
websites that belong to hotels (e.g., Jeon & Jeong, 2016), airlines (e.g.,
Chen, 2008), destinations (Gupta, 2014; Loureiro, 2015), and travel agencies
(e.g., Elliot, Li, & Choi, 2013; Van Riel, Semeijn, & Pauwels, 2004). For
example, in a study conducted in the U.S., ease of use, accessibility, priv-
acy/security, aesthetic/design, and customization/personalization were
revealed as the key dimensions of quality in lodging companies’ websites
(Jeon & Jeong, 2016). A qualitative study, by Chu (2001), which was carried
out in Hong Kong, showed that the users expected to see informative,
interactive, and attractive features at the travel companies’ websites.
Similarly, Kim and Lee (2004) found that informative content was a vital
dimension of online travel agencies’ websites. Other common dimensions of
the websites which were identified in previous tourism research are as
follows: responsiveness, security/privacy, ease of use, website functionality,
and fulfillment (Hsu, Chang, & Chen, 2012; Soleymaninejad, Shadifar, &
Karimi, 2016; Sun, Cárdenas, & Harrill, 2016; Tsang, Lai, & Law, 2010).
Besides identification of the main website dimensions, researchers also
aimed to investigate the relationships between website quality dimensions
and some other variables such as perceived flow, customer satisfaction,
and re/purchase intention. For example, Tsang et al. (2010), who carried
out a study in Hong Kong by using both qualitative and quantitative
methods, found that four website quality dimensions (website function-
ality, information quality and content, safety and security, and customer
relationship) have significant effects on customer satisfaction and inten-
tion to repurchase. In a recent study conducted in Malaysia, Abbaspour
and HazarinaHashim (2015) tested the relationships between website
quality dimensions and customer satisfaction. The results indicated that
informativeness, security, responsiveness, website design, and interactivity
positively affect customer satisfaction. More recently, Ali (2016) con-
ducted a research on customers who made online hotel bookings. His
findings suggest that hotel website quality consists of usability, function-
ality, and security & privacy dimensions, and affects flow experience
perceptions of the customers.

Hedonic value
Customers, who make online purchases, want to feel pleasure and enjoy-
ment from these experiences, in addition to obtain product value (Llach
et al., 2013; To et al., 2007). Accordingly, many researchers focus on
4 T. ALBAYRAK ET AL.

exploring the hedonic aspect of online shopping experience as well as its

utilitarian side (e.g., Overby & Lee, 2006; To et al., 2007).
In previous studies, researchers mostly investigated the concepts show
similarity to hedonic value, such as pleasure (De Wulf et al., 2006;
Jarvenpaa & Todd, 1996), playfulness (Jarvenpaa & Todd, 1996; Mathwick,
Malhotra, & Rigdon, 2001), entertainment (Bellenger, Steinberg, & Stanton,
1976; Mathwick et al., 2001), and diversion from everyday life (Hur, Ko, &
Valacich, 2007; Rafaeli, 1986). For instance, Hur et al. (2007) defined diver-
sion term as the “desire to escape day-to-day boredom or stress, and seeking
pleasure, fun, and enjoyment via the Internet.” According to Bellenger et al.
(1976), entertainment value of any shopping environment represents its
hedonic characteristic. Pleasure occurs when the customers/users consider
the website visit as an enjoyable experience (De Wulf et al., 2006). In
a similar vein, playfulness of a website represents how it entertains its
customers/users (Qi, Ip, Leung, & Law, 2010). However, all of these concepts
overlap in the literature, resulting in an inevitable confusion in the terminol-
ogy (Llach et al., 2013). For example, hedonic value, which represents the
probability of entertainment and emotional worth of a purchase experience,
is derived mostly from some affective factors such as fun, enjoyment, and
playfulness rather than its conceptual characteristics such as acquiring
a physical object or completing a task (Babin et al., 1994; Hirschman &
Holbrook, 1982; To et al., 2007). Thus, we can conclude that hedonic value
contains the other concepts that are mentioned above. Therefore, in this
study, authors particularly preferred to use hedonic value as the representa-
tive of these concepts.
Offering high hedonic value to customers is a vital duty of the service/
product suppliers and website designers. If the customers are motivated to
become active users of an interactive website and enjoy from using it, that
will also create the customers’ pleasure (Chiu, Hsieh, & Kao, 2005; De
Wulf et al., 2006; Kim & Niehm, 2009), increase their online searches
(Chiu et al., 2005; To et al., 2007), intentions to buy (To et al., 2007), and
loyalty (Kim & Niehm, 2009; Llach et al., 2013). Many studies have
explored the relationships between perceived hedonic value, behavioral
intentions, and attitudes of online customers. For example, Overby and
Lee (2006) highlighted the importance of hedonic value in creating online
customers’ future intentions and affecting their retailer preferences.
Similarly, Ahn et al. (2007) conducted a study about the users of a web-
based online retailing company and demonstrated that playfulness plays
a significant role in enhancing user attitudes and behavioral intentions.
Likewise, in Chen and Lee’s (2008) study, which evaluated 20 cosmetics
and 20 hotel websites, perceived hedonic value was found to have
a positive influence on consumer attitudes in using the websites.
 JOURNAL OF QUALITY ASSURANCE IN HOSPITALITY & TOURISM 5

Customer trust
Online trust is “the belief that renders consumers vulnerable to the good faith
of online sellers after learning of their characteristics” (Pavlou, 2003).
Customer trust is one of the most important antecedents of online purchase
behavior. This is because if customers do not trust a website, they will avoid
completing their transactions with that website. Thus, many academics have
investigated the role of customer trust in online purchase behavior (e.g., Kim,
Chung, & Lee, 2011; Kim, Chung, Lee, & Kim, 2012). They revealed that
there were significant relationships between online trust and other constructs
which are important for understanding online purchase behavior, such as
website quality (e.g., Ribbink, Van Riel, Liljander, & Streukens, 2004), website
brand (e.g., Hsin Chang & Wen Chen, 2008), enjoyment (e.g., Hwang & Kim,
2007), anxiety (e.g., Hwang & Kim, 2007), intention to purchase from online
stores (e.g., Everard & Galletta, 2005), perceived usability (e.g., Flavián,
Guinalíu, & Gurrea, 2006), perceived risk (e.g., Hsin Chang & Wen Chen,
2008), satisfaction (e.g., Flavián et al., 2006), and loyalty (e.g., Kim, Jin, &
Swinney, 2009).
In one of the studies, Lee and Wu (2011) surveyed 236 international
tourists who purchased their airline tickets from one of the 30 different
airline websites in Taiwan. The results revealed that trust and usefulness
positively moderate the relationships among website quality, service value,
and satisfaction. In another study, Kim et al. (2012) assessed the perceived
security, website properties, navigational functionality, customer trust, and
satisfaction relationships by collecting data from 340 potential customers.
Website properties and navigational functionality emerged as the important
determinants of customer trust. Recently, Ponte, Carvajal-Trujillo, and
Escobar-Rodríguez (2015) investigated the relationships among perceived
information quality, privacy-security, and trust by using data obtained from
451 respondents who made online travel purchases. The study results indi-
cated that information quality, perceived security, and website quality are the
main antecedents of customer trust.

Loyalty
Oliver (1999) defined loyalty as an action of purchasing and consuming
a product or service continuously. Similarly, in the online setting, Anderson
and Srinivasan (2003, p. 125) defined customer loyalty as “the customers’
favorable attitudes toward an e-business resulting in repeat behavior”. These
definitions highlight that loyal customers have commitments and attachments
towards the subject business (Shankar, Smith, & Rangaswamy, 2003). Loyalty
can be measured by following one of the three perspectives, which are:
behavioral, attitudinal, and integrated approaches (Chang et al., 2009).
6 T. ALBAYRAK ET AL.

Behavioral approach focuses on the customers’ consumption frequencies

(Bandyopadhyay & Martell, 2007) whilst attitude approach examines the
customers’ psychological commitments. Integrated approach considers both
behavioral and attitudinal notions (Chang et al., 2009).
Behavioral loyalty copes with the customers’ purchase volumes or
repurchases, and that is why it ignores psychological meaning of loyalty
(Oliver, 1999). Since behavioral loyalty fails to distinguish the differences
between true and spurious loyalty, some scholars tend to use attitudinal loyalty
for overcoming this issue (e.g., Giovanis & Athanasopoulou, 2018; Vázquez-
Casielles, Suárez-Álvarez, & Del Río-Lanza, 2009). In this study, the authors
preferred to use attitudinal loyalty approach instead of other loyalty types.

Hypothesis development
People generally hesitate to share their personal or/and transactional infor-
mation at a website which they do not trust (Kim et al., 2011). Therefore,
trust plays a crucial role in electronic commerce transactions (Kim, Ferrin, &
Rao, 2008). While in some studies trust is used as a dimension of website
quality (e.g., Lin, 2007; Sigala & Sakellaridis, 2004), in other studies, it is used
as a mediating construct between website quality and customer satisfaction,
as well as website quality and e-loyalty (Kim et al., 2009; Lee & Wu, 2011).
A research conducted by Kim et al. (2011) in Korea shows that navigation
functionality and perceived security positively impact customer trust.
Another study which analyzed 701 eBay users indicates that improvement
of website quality may create customer trust (Gregg & Walczak, 2010).
Similarly, in Elliot et al.’s (2013) study, service quality and information
quality are identified to have a significant effect on customer trust. In
addition, Kim et al. (2011) showed that navigation functionality and per-
ceived security which are the sub-dimensions of website quality, affect
customer trust. Recently, Ponte et al. (2015) tested the perceived privacy-
security, information quality, and trust relationships. The results showed that
perceived security and information quality are the main antecedents of
customer trust. Therefore, it is logical to presume that website quality may
positively impact customer trust for online travel agency websites. Thus, we
hypothesized that:

H1: Website quality positively affects customer trust.

In general, the researchers suggest that websites should arouse the custo-
mer emotions (Bauer, Falk, & Hammerschmidt, 2006). Emotions, like fun
and playfulness, are closely related to hedonic value (Scarpi, Pizzi, &
Visentin, 2014) and may help differentiate a website from the others
(Eighmey, 1997), if the users evaluate their interactions as more positive
 JOURNAL OF QUALITY ASSURANCE IN HOSPITALITY & TOURISM 7

(Moon & Kim, 2001). In addition, website attributes, such as color and
layout, are shown to have a strong effect on purchase enjoyment of the
customers (Kim, Fiore, & Lee, 2007). For example, a study that investigated
the influence of website quality factors on the users’ technology acceptance
show that playfulness is affected by system, information, and service quality
(Ahn et al., 2007). Therefore, in this study, we hypothesized that:

H2: Website quality positively affects hedonic value.

Some of the previous studies have shown a statistically significant relationship

between hedonic value perceptions and repurchase intentions. For example,
Fiore, Jin, and Kim (2005) demonstrated that emotional pleasure (as a result of
hedonic value perception) affects the customer attitudes towards an online
retailer’s website as well as intentions to buy. Similarly, Chiu, Chang, Cheng,
and Fang (2009), who carried out a study among 360 online shoppers in Taiwan,
revealed the enjoyment as a significant determinant of repurchase intention.
This finding was confirmed by Hsu et al. (2012), who examined the users of
a travel website. They showed that perceived playfulness positively affect the user
satisfaction and purchase intention towards a specific travel agency website.
Likewise, Wang (2010) demonstrated that perceived hedonic value influences on
repurchase intention of the online customers.
Chang and Tseng (2013), who studied the customers of two popular
e-retail shopping websites in Taiwan, showed that hedonic shopping value
has a direct influence on online repurchase intention. More recently, Chiu
et al. (2014) found that hedonic value is positively associated with repeat
purchase intention, while perceived risk positively moderates this influence.
Additionally, Llach et al. (2013) studied the customers who previously
bought online airline tickets. They showed the existence of a significant
relationship between hedonic characteristics of the website and customer
loyalty. These findings allowed the following hypothesis:

H3: Hedonic value positively impacts the website loyalty of online customers.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, there is limited number of research

about online customers’ hedonic value perceptions and trusts. In one of these
studies, Chen and Lee (2008) found that hedonic value does not influence on
online customers’ trust. These researchers argued that hedonic value is
mostly related to buying pleasure. Therefore, they concluded that perceived
hedonic value should be indirectly related to trust through the customer
attitude. However, De Wulf et al. (2006), who conducted a study on online
customers, showed that pleasure to use website has a direct effect on satisfac-
tion and induces a higher level of commitment. Given these findings, we
proposed that:
8 T. ALBAYRAK ET AL.

H4: Hedonic value positively impacts customer trust towards a website.

Since customer trust is an important determinant of online purchase

intention, in many studies researchers investigated the effect of trust on
customer loyalty. For example, Kim et al. (2009) collected data from 182
online customers, who made online purchases, found that customer loyalty
was generated by both satisfaction and trust. Harris and Goode (2004)
attempted to investigate website service quality, perceived security, customer
trust, satisfaction, and loyalty relationships by collecting data from the
customers, who bought books and flight tickets online. They showed that
customer trust has a positive and significant influence on loyalty. Based on
these findings, the following hypothesis is proposed:

H5: Customer trust positively affects customer loyalty towards a website.

The research model that shows the hypothesized relationships is presented

in Figure 1.

Methodology
Survey instrument
In the current study, an online questionnaire that consists of two parts is
designed to collect data from the respondents. The first section of the survey
contains 37 items that measure website quality, hedonic value, trust, and
loyalty. Website quality is measured by 25 items adapted from Shchiglik and
Barnes’s (2004) work. Five items determining hedonic value are adapted
from Llach et al. (2013). Customer trust towards an online travel agency is
evaluated with two items adapted from Kim et al.’s (2011) study. Loyalty is
determined by five items (Ho & Lee, 2007). All items are measured on
a 5-point Likert type scale (from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly
agree). The second section of the survey contains questions about respondent

Trust
H1 H5

Website quality H4 Loyalty

H2 H3
Hedonic value

Figure 1. Research model.

 JOURNAL OF QUALITY ASSURANCE IN HOSPITALITY & TOURISM 9

demographics such as age, gender, marital status, monthly income, and

Internet usage habits (Appendix A).
The survey which is originally in English has been translated into Turkish
by the authors. After the translation process, a pilot test was conducted with
the participation of 26 respondents. Based on the pilot test results, 18 items
were revised.

Data collection
The study sample consists of the academics from Turkey, who bought any
services or products from an online travel agency website in the last 12
months. By using convenience sampling method, respondents were asked
to answer the questions with respect to the most recent online travel
agency from which they bought these services or products. A web-based
survey was designed to collect data for reaching the academics in country-
wide (Hsu et al., 2012). E-mail addresses of the academics were obtained
from official websites of the universities. From May to July 2017, 16.309
e-mail addresses in total were collected by the researchers. An invitation
e-mail that explains the aim of the study and directs the respondents to
online survey was sent from 20 July until 6 September 2017. A reminder
message was sent two weeks after the initial e-mail to encourage the
responds. Although a total of 409 questionnaires were collected, 80 of
them were eliminated. Some data were invalid, as the respondents left the
questions empty or gave an irrelevant name to the question of: “which
booking website are you considering when giving your answers to this
questionnaire?”. Some data were also unusable, since the questionnaires
are answered by completely identical style (e.g., all questions marked by 5
or 1). The final response rate which is 2% with 329 valid questionnaires
indicates a low ratio, similar to previous online researches (e.g. Ozkara,
Ozmen, & Kim, 2017). However, the sample size exceeds the minimum
requirement which is higher than 10 times the number of variables
(Hinkin, 1995).
In order to avoid common method bias, measures belong to indepen-
dent and dependent variables were obtained from different sources (Min,
Park, & Kim, 2016; Podsakoff, MacKenzie, & Podsakoff, 2012).
Additionally, Harman’s single-factor test was conducted to check the
common method variance (Min et al., 2016). The results of Harman’s
single-factor test revealed that the single factor accounts for less than
50% of the variance (where total variance explained was 44.48%), offering
evidence that the common method bias was not a concern in this study
(Podsakoff & Organ, 1986).
10 T. ALBAYRAK ET AL.

Results
Sample characteristics
Demographics of the survey participants are shown in Table 1. The gender
distribution was almost equal; 49.5% were male and 50.5% were female. Most
of the respondents were married (69.0%) and had an average monthly
income between $1,232 and $1,642 (43.2%). In addition, the majority were
between 31 and 40 years old (41.0%), followed by 41–50 years old age
group (24.0%).
Table 2 shows the summary of online habits of the participants.
Approximately two-thirds of the respondents (64.2%) use the Internet

Table 1. Sample characteristics (N = 329).

Characteristics Frequency Percentage (%)
Gender Male 166 49.5
Female 163 50.5
Marital status Married 227 69.0
Single 102 31.0
Age 30 and below 77 23.4
31–40 years 135 41.0
41–50 years 79 24.0
51 and above 38 11.6
Monthly income 1231$ and below 69 21.0
1232$-1642$ 142 43.2
1643$ and above 118 35.9

Table 2. Online habits of the participants (N = 329).

Frequency %
The length of Internet use (daily) 1 hour and below 20 6.2
2–3 hours 96 29.6
4–5 hours 104 32.1
6 hours and above 104 32.1
Number of online purchases (monthly) 2 times and below 171 53.8
3 times and above 147 46.2
Visited hotel booking websites Booking.com 153 46.5
ETS Tour 77 23.4
TatilSepeti.com 21 6.4
Tatilbudur.com 18 5.5
Jolly Tour 16 4.9
Hotels.com 10 3.0
Others 34 10.3
The frequency of visiting the respective website (annual) 1 time 22 6.7
2 times 54 16.5
3 times 45 13.8
4 times 32 9.8
5 times and more 174 53.2
The frequency of purchase from the respective website (annual) 1 time 146 45.6
2 times 84 26.3
3 times 41 12.8
4 times 14 4.4
5 times and more 35 10.9
 JOURNAL OF QUALITY ASSURANCE IN HOSPITALITY & TOURISM 11

more than four hours a day. Almost half of the respondents (46.2%) indi-
cated that they make at least three online purchases in a month. The majority
of the respondents prefer to make online reservations via Booking.com
(46.5%), followed by ETS Tour (23.4%). In addition, more than half of the
respondents stated that they visit the respective online travel agency’s website
five times or more (53.2%) and buy a tourism product at least two times
(54.4%) in a year.

Refinement of the scales

First, 25 items, that measure the website quality were factor analyzed using
the maximum likelihood method with the Varimax rotation technique. Items
that cross-loaded under two or more factors or had low communalities were
excluded from the further analyses. In addition, to ensure construct validity,
any item that had a loading below .707 (square root of .5) was eliminated
(Shimp & Sharma, 1987). As a result, four factors were obtained that
explained 74.10% of the total variance (Table 3). Cronbach’s alpha reliability
coefficients of the factors ranged from .784 to .926, which are higher than the
commonly accepted threshold of .70 (Hair, Anderson, Tatham, & Black,
1998). Each of the factors was named based on the items that they contained,
as follows: design, information, gratification, and rewarding. Two separate
factor analyses were also conducted for the constructs of hedonic value and
loyalty. One item from each of the constructs was eliminated due to their low
communalities.

Table 3. Exploratory factor analysis results of website quality.

Design Information Gratification Rewarding
Q1 The site is easy to navigate .773
Q2 The site has an attractive appearance .797
Q3 The design is appropriate to the type of site .772
Q9 Provides believable information .811
Q10 Provides timely information .861
Q12 Provides easy to understand information .785
Q13 Provides information at the right level of detail .792
Q15 Has a good reputation .740
Q16 It feels safe to complete transactions .782
Q22 Can be depended upon to deliver good/services as .729
promised
Q18 Creates a sense of personalization .780
Q19 Builds a sense of community .826
Q5 The site creates a memorable experience .718
Q23 Monetary (price and/or loyalty card points) .911
incentive for purchasing online
Q25 Provides reward scheme interaction .828
Mean 3.94 4.01 3.14 3.46
Explained variance 15.47 32.18 15.02 11.42
Cronbach Alpha .831 .926 .784 .785
12 T. ALBAYRAK ET AL.

Further analysis was conducted to understand whether there was

a multicollinearity between research variables. Variance inflation factor
(VIF) and tolerance values demonstrated the absence of multicollinearity
(VIF range: 1.04–2.75) since each indicator’s VIF was less than five (Hair,
Ringle, & Sarstedt, 2011).

Research model analysis

As suggested by Anderson and Gerbing (1988), the casual relationships
among the study constructs that are shown in Figure 1, were tested by a two-
stage analysis. First, with the aim of assessing the measurement model,
a confirmatory factor analysis was conducted. Second, the research model
was tested. Covariance-based structural equation modeling using the Lisrel
software was employed for the analyses because the scales were adapted from
previous studies, and the data showed normal distribution (Appendix B)
(Hair, Gabriel, & Patel, 2014).
The goodness-of-fit indices belong to reflective measurement model are as
follows: χ2 = 718.33 with 254 degrees of freedom (χ2/df = 2.82), goodness-of-
fit index (GFI) = .85, root-mean-square error of approximation (RMSEA) =
.075, comparative fit index (CFI) = .97, and normed fit index (NFI) = .96.
Although GFI value does not exceed the commonly accepted threshold value
of .90, it is still acceptable as stated by Baumgartner and Homburg (1996)
and Doll, Xia, and Torkzadeh (1994).
To evaluate convergent validity of the measurement model, factor
loadings and average variance extracted (AVE) values were used. As
seen in Table 4, all factor loadings are equal or higher than .66 and
meet the recommended threshold value of .60. In addition, AVE values
of the reflective constructs range from .517 to .783, which are above than
the threshold value of .50. Both factor loadings and AVE values support
the presence of convergent validity. The square root of the AVE for each
construct was compared with the inter-construct correlations for assessing
discriminant validity. As shown in Table 5, the square root of the AVE for
each construct was higher than inter-construct correlations, which sup-
ports discriminant validity.
After ensuring the adequacy of the measurement model, structural model
was tested for determining whether the hypothesized theoretical model was
supported by collected data. The goodness-of-fit indices for the structural
model are as follows: χ2 = 942.01 with 266 degrees of freedom (χ2/df = 3.54),
GFI = .81, RMSEA = .088, CFI = .96, and NFI = .95. These values showed
that some modifications are needed. The post hoc model modification
indices suggested to add two error covariances between website quality
item of 12–13 and information-trust constructs. Since information and
trust constructs contain similar items, it can be concluded that they may
 JOURNAL OF QUALITY ASSURANCE IN HOSPITALITY & TOURISM 13

Table 4. Measurement model results.

Constructs Items FL AVE CR
Design SQ1 .69 .636 .838
SQ2 .81
SQ3 .88
Information SQ9 .85 .647 .927
SQ10 .86
SQ12 .80
SQ13 .80
SQ15 .69
SQ16 .81
SQ22 .81
Gratification SQ18 .77 .554 .788
SQ19 .77
SQ5 .69
Rewarding SQ23 .69 .680 .806
SQ25 .94
Trust T1 .89 .783 .878
T2 .88
Hedonic value H1 .66 .517 .810
H2 .79
H3 .71
H5 .71
Loyalty L1 .82 .719 .910
L2 .93
L3 .74
L4 .89
FL: standardised factor loading; AVE: Average Variance Extracted
CR: Construct reliability

Table 5. Discriminant validity of the constructs.

Construct D INF G R T HV L
Design (D) 0.797
Information (INF) 0.605 0.804
Gratification (G) 0.464 0.473 0.744
Rewarding (R) 0.221 0.325 0.381 0.824
Trust (T) 0.463 0.796 0.327 0.241 0.884
Hedonic value (HV) 0.545 0.536 0.686 0.257 0.420 0.719
Loyalty (L) 0.459 0.712 0.444 0.372 0.697 0.562 0.847

have shared variance. After these modifications, the fit indices of the research
model are improved as follows. χ2 = 768.95 with 264 degrees of freedom (χ2/
df = 2.91), GFI = .84, RMSEA = .076, CFI = .97, and NFI = .96. The model
explains 29% of the variance of trust, 81% of hedonic value, and 73% of
loyalty.
Path coefficients (β) and their level of significance, obtained from the
structural model, were used to test hypotheses. As presented in Figure 2,
path coefficients from website quality to trust (β = .35) and from website
quality to hedonic value (β = .90) are significant (p < .01) and positive. Thus,
collected data support H1 and H2. Both hedonic value (β = .29, p < .01) and
trust (β = .66, p < .01) have a significant influence on loyalty, by explaining
14 T. ALBAYRAK ET AL.

Figure 2. Coefficients of the research model.

73% of the variance in that construct. This finding supports H3 and H5,
respectively. However, the results do not support the influence of hedonic
value on trust (β = .20, p > .01), which means H4 is rejected.

Discussion
This study was designed to investigate the relationships among website
quality, hedonic value, customer trust, and customer loyalty by using data
collected from 329 online customers in Turkey. First of all, to achieve the
objectives of this study, the dimensions of website quality were identified as
design, information, gratification, and rewarding. Design (De Wulf et al.,
2006; Kassım & Asiah Abdullah, 2010) and information quality (Ahn et al.,
2007; Shchiglik & Barnes, 2004) dimensions were similar to previous studies.
Moreover, rewarding dimension was similar to dimension of “incentive”
proposed by Santos (2003). The gratification dimension was named by the
authors based on the items it contains. This dimension reflects that the
customers give importance to get memorable experiences and to feel like
a member of a social community.
Hypothesized relationships among the research constructs were analyzed
using structural equation modeling. Analyses results offered a number of
substantial outcomes. First, the results showed that website quality has
 JOURNAL OF QUALITY ASSURANCE IN HOSPITALITY & TOURISM 15

a positive and significant influence on customer trust. This is consistent with

previous studies (Gregg & Walczak, 2010; Wang, Law, Guillet, Hung, &
Fong, 2015). For example, Elliot et al. (2013) found that service and informa-
tion quality (as sub-dimensions of website quality) were significant antece-
dents of customer trust. Similarly, Kim et al. (2011) found that customer trust
is influenced by navigation functionality and perceived security, which are
the sub-components of website quality. This finding indicates the need of
institutional security systems and certificates that protect the customers’
personal information.
Second, the test of measurement model showed that website quality had
a significant effect on hedonic value. This finding is also consistent with past
research which revealed that system, information, service quality, as the sub-
dimensions of web quality, affect playfulness (Ahn et al., 2007).
Third, our research supported the notion that hedonic value perception
enhances customer loyalty. This is consistent with the findings of Llach
et al.’s (2013) study that shows a significant relationship between hedonic
characteristics of a website and customer loyalty. By the inclusion of inter-
active and entertaining applications into websites, customers may able to
perceive a high hedonic value by their experiences. Designing entertaining
websites will help e-retailers to become more competitive, because in online
environment customers can easily compare the prices and switch the service
providers (Llach et al., 2013). Customers, who enjoy using a website, are
strongly possible to become loyal users. According to Childers, Carr, Peck,
and Carson (2001), a website without hedonic attributes can impact the
users’ behavior negatively. Apart from this, most previous studies have
shown a considerable relationship between hedonic value and repurchase
intention, which in turn leads to customer retention (Chang & Tseng, 2013;
Chiu et al., 2009, 2014; Hsu et al., 2012). Thus, website designers should
consider hedonic value in order to stimulate the repurchase intentions of the
customers and to build customer loyalty.
Fourth, the results of our study, in conjunction with past research (e.g.,
Ghane, Fathian, & Gholamian, 2011; Hong & Cho, 2011), suggested the
customer trust as an important determinant of customer loyalty. For exam-
ple, Hong and Cho (2011), in their study on 222 online customers in Korea,
showed that customer trust determines customer loyalty and purchase inten-
tion. It can be concluded that trust and loyalty constructs are closely related
to each other. Thus, website features such as refund policies and complaint
management systems may contribute to generate both customer trust and
loyalty.
Fifth, the findings of this study did not support the influence of hedonic
value on customer trust. Even though this result is similar to findings of
Chen and Lee (2008), a limited amount of empirical research has focused on
the relationship between hedonic value and trust. In previous studies, some
16 T. ALBAYRAK ET AL.

researchers argued that since hedonic value is directly related to satisfaction,

it should have an indirect impact on trust (Chen & Lee, 2008; De Wulf et al.,
2006). Nevertheless, further studies are needed to gain more insight in this
context.

Conclusion
The results of this study represent a step forward in understanding the
importance of website quality and its relationship with hedonic value,
customer trust, and loyalty. First of all, the results implied that website
quality consists of design, information, gratification, and rewarding
dimensions. As websites increasingly gain importance in the distribution
channel (Wang et al., 2015), the use of websites should be planned in
marketing strategy developments. In addition, information technology and
customer expectations, which are changing rapidly, began to force the
businesses to constantly update their websites by collecting feedback from
their customers.
The results of this study also indicated the role of website quality on
hedonic value and customer trust generation. As the customers expect to
get hedonic value from online purchases, well-designed and interactive
websites may enhance the customers’ value perceptions. For this purpose,
short videos that give information about the products or services and explain
the transaction procedures can be included into websites. It is a fact that
today’s customers are more interested in watching videos than simply read-
ing texts or looking at visual materials. Using more attractive and contem-
porary features such as JAVA, video, color, humor, sound, music, games, and
animations at websites may enhance customer experience (Ettis, 2017; Hsu,
Chang, Kuo, & Cheng, 2017). In addition, today’s customers often volunteer
to contribute website contents. Allowing the customers to upload their own
videos or social media networks into websites may, therefore, contribute to
improve their hedonic value perceptions.
Findings of this study showed that hedonic value and customer trust are
significant antecedents of customer loyalty. In other words, as far as custo-
mers feel trust towards a website and get hedonic value from their website
visits, they tend to become loyal. This is mainly because the Internet creates
a kind of commercial environment for the customers (Kim et al., 2008).
Tourism marketers, therefore, should pay attention on improving customer
trust in online environments. Another way of building customer trust is
having a strong brand image. In a customer’s mind, brand image is
a combination of every point of contact about the products or services. For
this reason, applications or functions offered at websites (e.g., online chat-
bots) should be viewed as contact points with the customers that can
potentially enhance brand image. Although brand image was not investigated
 JOURNAL OF QUALITY ASSURANCE IN HOSPITALITY & TOURISM 17

as a determinant of customer loyalty in this study, researchers are recom-

mended to measure the effect of brand image on loyalty and other variables
in future studies.
Finally, the limitations of this study, as well as some ways to address these
limitations in future research, should be mentioned. In this study, data were
collected from Turkish academics. Therefore, the results of the study should be
cautiously generalized to other groups and countries. Additionally, consumer
trust is handled to have a uni-dimensional structure as suggested in some of
the previous studies (e.g., Escobar-Rodríguez & Carvajal-Trujillo, 2014; Gao,
Waechter, & Bai, 2015; Ponte et al., 2015), since the main aim of this study was
to test relationships among the research variables, rather than identifying the
customer trust dimensions. However, increasing number of the academics
conceptualizes that consumer trust is a multi-dimensional variable.
Therefore, in the future researches, this should be taken into consideration.
Moreover, the proposed model contains only hedonic value, although previous
studies showed that customer value has hedonic and utilitarian value dimen-
sions. While this is in the line with previous studies that excluded the tradi-
tional goal-oriented part of purchasing value and solely focused on the hedonic
value in online purchases (e.g., Fiore et al., 2005; Chang, Burns, & Francis,
2004), future research may use both dimensions to gain more insight. Low
response rate which is one of the main disadvantages of online surveys (Hung
& Law, 2011) can be seen as another limitation of the study. Some of the
reasons that might negatively affected response rate can be spam-filtering
programs of the universities that prevent the messages coming from unknown
e-mail addresses and lack of a rewarding system for motivating the respon-
dents. Finally, the survey respondents were requested to respond to the ques-
tions by recalling the most recent purchases that they made in the past 12
months. However, it could not be validated whether the respondents have
noticed this time frame. Hence, in future studies, the researchers are recom-
mended to consider this issue.

ORCID
Tahir Albayrak http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6961-0550

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 JOURNAL OF QUALITY ASSURANCE IN HOSPITALITY & TOURISM 25

Appendix A. Questionnaire
Which booking website are you filling this questionnaire for? ____________________________

Please rate your level of agreement with the statements

below regarding the website you used for booking your Strongly Strongly
travel/accommodation disagree Disagree Neutral Agree agree
(1) This website has integrity 1 2 3 4 5

(2) This website is reliable 1 2 3 4 5

(3) Encourage friends and relatives to do business with 1 2 3 4 5

this website

(4) Say positive things about the website to other people 1 2 3 4 5

(5) Do more business with the website in the near future 1 2 3 4 5

(6) Recommend the website to those who seek the advice 1 2 3 4 5

(7) Consider this website as the first choice for buying the 1 2 3 4 5
travel/accommodation service that I most recently
purchased online

(8) I enjoy the multimedia information, suggestions, and 1 2 3 4 5

recommendations provided to the customer on this
website

(9) I think it is great fun to browse this site 1 2 3 4 5

(10) When interacting with this website, I do not realize 1 2 3 4 5

the time elapsed

(11) I enjoy sharing comments and experiences from 1 2 3 4 5

other travelers

(12) I really enjoy shopping at this website 1 2 3 4 5

(13) The site is easy to navigate 1 2 3 4 5

(14) The site has an attractive appearance 1 2 3 4 5

(15) The design is appropriate to the type of site 1 2 3 4 5

(Continued )
26 T. ALBAYRAK ET AL.

(Continued).
Please rate your level of agreement with the statements
below regarding the website you used for booking your Strongly Strongly
travel/accommodation disagree Disagree Neutral Agree agree
(16) The site conveys a sense of competency 1 2 3 4 5

(17) The site creates a memorable experience 1 2 3 4 5

(18) The site has a reasonable loading time 1 2 3 4 5

(19) The site is innovative 1 2 3 4 5

(20) Provides accurate information 1 2 3 4 5

(21) Provides believable information 1 2 3 4 5

(22) Provides timely information 1 2 3 4 5

(23) Provides relevant information 1 2 3 4 5

(24) Provides relevant information 1 2 3 4 5

(25) Provides information at the right level of detail 1 2 3 4 5

(26) Presents the information in an appropriate format 1 2 3 4 5

(27) Has a good reputation 1 2 3 4 5

(28) It feels safe to complete transactions 1 2 3 4 5

(29) My personal information feels secure 1 2 3 4 5

(30) Creates a sense of personalization 1 2 3 4 5

(31) Builds a sense of community 1 2 3 4 5

(32) Makes it easy to communicate 1 2 3 4 5

(33) Provides useful combinations for products being 1 2 3 4 5

purchased

(Continued )
 JOURNAL OF QUALITY ASSURANCE IN HOSPITALITY & TOURISM 27

(Continued).
Please rate your level of agreement with the statements
below regarding the website you used for booking your Strongly Strongly
travel/accommodation disagree Disagree Neutral Agree agree
(34) Can be depended upon to deliver good/services as 1 2 3 4 5
promised

(35) Monetary (price and/or loyalty card points) incentive 1 2 3 4 5

for purchasing online

(36) Provides convenience for purchasing 1 2 3 4 5

1 2 3 4 5
(37) Provides reward scheme interaction

Gender: Male ☐ Female ☐

Age: ___________
Marital status: Married ☐ Single ☐
Monthly income: 1231$ and below ☐ 1232$-1642$ ☐ 1643$ and above ☐
The length of Internet use (daily): _______________hours
Number of online purchases (monthly): _______________times
The frequency of visiting the respective website (annual): _______________times
The frequency of purchase from the respective website (annual):
_______________times
28 T. ALBAYRAK ET AL.

Appendix B. Descriptive Statistics

Statements X SD Skewness Kurtosis

T1 This website has integrity 3.94 .771 −1.223 2.601
T2 This website is reliable 4.01 .787 −1.075 2.171
L1 Encourage friends and relatives to do business with this website 3.84 .926 −.874 .624
L2 Say positive things about the website to other people 3.97 .818 −1.018 1.489
L3 Do more business with the website in the near future 3.75 .917 −.681 .446
L4 Recommend the website to those who seek the advice 4.01 .826 −1.164 2.129
L5 Consider this website as the first choice for buying the travel/ 4.06 1.044 −1.437 1.721
accommodation service that I most recently purchased online
H1 I enjoy the multimedia information, suggestions and 3.76 .925 −.615 .219
recommendations provided to the customer on this website
H2 I think it is great fun to browse this site 3.38 .933 −.236 −.053
H3 When interacting with this website, I do not realize the time 3.17 1.042 −.160 −.504
elapsed
H4 I enjoy sharing comments and experiences from other travelers 3.93 .931 −.904 .807
H5 I really enjoy shopping at this website 3.33 .906 −.191 −.137
Q1 The site is easy to navigate 4.03 .764 −1.040 2.148
Q2 The site has an attractive appearance 3.83 .792 −.730 .988
Q3 The design is appropriate to the type of site 3.96 .723 −.861 2.113
Q4 The site conveys a sense of competency 3.96 .811 −.935 1.534
Q5 The site creates a memorable experience 3.08 .952 −.174 −.017
Q6 The site has a reasonable loading time 3.91 .768 −1.064 1.776
Q7 The site is innovative 3.73 .813 −.493 .397
Q8 Provides accurate information 3.90 .809 −1.244 2.457
Q9 Provides believable information 3.94 .748 −1.126 2.412
Q10 Provides timely information 4.02 .751 −1.166 2.899
Q11 Provides relevant information 4.09 .779 −1.288 3.135
Q12 Provides relevant information 4.11 .723 −1.236 3.669
Q13 Provides information at the right level of detail 4.02 .802 −1.277 2.887
Q14 Presents the information in an appropriate format 4.06 .728 −1.197 3.410
Q15 Has a good reputation 4.22 .751 −1.346 3.764
Q16 It feels safe to complete transactions 3.95 .831 −.910 1.128
Q17 My personal information feels secure 3.85 .850 −.586 .334
Q18 Creates a sense of personalization 3.35 1.025 −.195 −.377
Q19 Builds a sense of community 3.00 1.012 .089 −.436
Q20 Makes it easy to communicate 3.70 .987 −.814 .359
Q21 Provides useful combinations for products being purchased 3.66 .887 −.623 .486
Q22 Can be depended upon to deliver good/services as promised 3.81 .917 −1.081 1.369
Q23 Monetary (price and/or loyalty card points) incentive for 3.63 .977 −.693 .215
purchasing online
Q24 Provides convenience for purchasing 3.96 .793 −.924 1.495
Q25 Provides reward scheme interaction 3.30 .989 −.398 −.022