The Metasearch Road to Purchase : An investigation of the Touchpoints on Metasearch Engines in the Travel Distribution Industry

Abstract

The travel distribution industry is growing. While traditional distribution channels such as online travel agencies and physical stores are decreasing in revenues, metasearch companies are receiving greater attention from consumers. However, metasearch companies face challenges even with an increasing market. Offering a proposition with a business model that revolves around pay per click and advertisements, you are in need of large amount of traffic. To understand the consumer behaviour has never been more critical. It is about increasing the ability to create a rich customer experience. In order to do so, companies are in need of understanding how to interact with consumers. The interaction is mainly occurring through touchpoints. Accordingly, the aim of this study is to investigate how the current identified most relevant digital touchpoints are having impact on the consumers opinion of metasearch websites in the travel distribution industry. By doing so, we contribute to marketing theory, method and practices. The importance of certain touchpoints and to find out if they have the same relevance when the purchase itself is excluded. Focus is being towards factors that metasearch companies see as undiscovered. A quantitative study was conducted with a sample of 148 respondents. The result not only gave new insight in terms of touchpoints relevance in metasearch industries but also a theoretical ground for future research