An Exploration of Antecedent Characteristics for Predicting User Perseverance in Online Travel Shopping

In this study, we explore how user characteristics, such as trust, persistence and consumer perceptions of the benefits and impediments of online travel shopping, influence user likelihood to complete a specific travel shopping task. Through an uncontrolled experiment with a multi-step travel search task, we test the difference in user characteristics between those that completed and those that did not complete the task. Sixty-four percent of respondents gave up before completing the assigned travel itinerary. Through logistic regression we found that people who trust more were less likely to complete the task, while thos with a high perception of the benefits of shopping online were more likely to complete the task. User persistence was somewhat significant. User perceptions of impediments to online shopping were not found to be significant.