U n i v e r s i t y o f A m s t e r d a m
February
2018
2
Do the scarcity and popularity cues at Booking.com
influence consumers’ booking intentions?
An experimental study on which factors moderate and influence consumers’ online booking intentions
Xanthe Wijma
10333142
Master’s Thesis
Master Track Persuasive Communication, Graduate School of Communication
Supervision by prof. dr. Bas van den Putte 7440 words
Abstract
In the field of influencing consumers’ online booking intentions, scarcity and popularity cues are a well-known and commonly used marketing tool. Surprisingly, to date little is known about which factors influence the relationship between the usage of these promotional cues and booking intentions. An experimental design is used to examine the moderating effects of
need for uniqueness, cultural background (individualistic and collectivistic) and perceived source credibility on this relationship. Contrary to expectations, no main or interaction effects
were found on need for uniqueness and cultural background. When consumers perceived Booking.com as a credible source booking their intentions increased, but this was not related
to the usage of promotional cues. Extra analysis revealed that younger consumers and females in general have the highest booking intentions. Younger consumers’ booking intentions seem to be positively influenced by the usage of promotional cues, while the opposite occurred for older consumers. Based on these findings, implications and limitations
1. Introduction
In 2014, Booking.com got involved in an issue with the Dutch Advertising Code Committee (RCC) on misleading visitors of their website by providing them incorrect information about the availability of hotel rooms (“Booking.com misleidt klanten”, 2014). By using the statement ‘We only have one room left’, the company would imply that this is the last available room of the hotel, while it actually meant that it was the last available room on the Booking.com website. Booking.com was not completely clear and transparent in providing the information about availability of the rooms (“Booking.com does mislead”, 2014), which led to dissatisfaction among customers of the website. The customers perceived the information as a way to push them to complete their booking and to manipulate their decision-making process, before the rooms were sold out (Oomen, 2014). In July 2014 Booking.com said it would adapt the information on the website, and changed ‘We only have one room left’ to ‘Only one room left on our site’ (Fox, 2014).
The aim of this study is to gain more insight into how promotional cues influence consumers’ booking intentions when visiting websites of online travel agents such as Booking.com and if need for uniqueness, cultural background and source credibility can moderate this relationship. Besides making use of the scarcity cue by stating ‘Only one room left on our site’, Booking.com also uses popularity cues (‘Booked 25 times in the last 24 hours’). Previous research suggests that scarcity cues as well as popularity cues can have a positive effect on purchase intentions (Gierl & Huettl, 2010; Steinhart, Mazursky & Kamins, 2013), but to date little research has been done where these two promotional cues are compared and related to online booking intentions.
The concept of scarcity has always been a reason for people to take action (Wu, Lu, Wu & Fu, 2012), and nowadays scarcity signals can be seen as an important marketing tool (Gierl & Huettl, 2010). Ku, Kuo and Kuo (2012) found that when a product becomes scarce, people expect it to be a good product. Better product evaluations can increase purchase intentions, and thus in the case of Booking.com can increase sales and profit (Sparks & Browning, 2011). From a practical point of view, hotel-comparison website could positively influence the perceived value of specific hotels by manipulating the perceived scarcity. The question remains whether visitors of Booking.com are indeed positively influenced by the scarcity cues of hotel rooms, or if there are other factors that influence their booking intentions? As Wu and Lee (2016) describe in their study, another related but different concept to scarcity, is the one of popularity. Whereas the core of scarcity is focused on the shortage of a product, popularity focuses on the high number of people that are interested in
the product. Verhallen (1982) found that when a product is not available anymore due to high popularity, this could increase purchase intentions.
Although the two promotional concepts of scarcity and popularity seem quite similar, there is not much known about whether these two promotional cues affect consumers’ booking intentions in different ways. Insight into the effects of these promotional cues on booking intentions can result in more effective advertising for Booking.com. As mentioned earlier, Booking.com currently uses both the scarcity and the popularity principle to stimulate visitors of the site to complete a booking. Seen from a marketing perspective, showing both promotional cues at the same time is not very common, because both represent conflicting naive theories (Wu & Lee, 2016). When a product is popular, normally this indicates that it is highly available and not that exclusive. For scarce products it works the other way around: these products are rather being judged as limited edition or low in stock (Gierl & Huettl, 2010). This study will expose consumers to both promotional cues at the same time and investigate whether hotel room advertisements accompanied by a scarcity or popularity generate higher booking intentions compared to the advertisement without a promotional cue.
An interesting question is whether the effect of these two promotional cues can vary among different consumers. If this would be the case, companies such as Booking.com could make personalized advertisements with scarcity or popularity cues for specific customers in order to influence their consumer decision-making process. For example, some people have a strong desire to own limited and exclusive products to differentiate themselves from others. This need for uniqueness can result in an increased attraction to scarce products (Lynn, 1991). In addition, Pornpitakpan (2004) and Wu and Lee (20116) argue that someone's cultural background could also moderate the effect of the promotional cues. For example, individualistic Western cultures are in general more influenced by scarcity cues (Briley & Aaker, 2006), whereas collectivistic Eastern cultures are more easily persuaded by the opinion of the majority (Zhang, Lowry, Zhou & Fu, 2007). It can thus be expected that popularity cues, which emphasize the social approval of a product, have a stronger influence on the booking intentions of collectivistic people compared to individualistic people. This research will look into whether need for uniqueness and cultural background moderate the relationship between promotional cues and booking intentions.
Another important concept which could moderate the relationship between promotional cues and booking intentions, is the perceived credibility of Booking.com. Perceived source credibility is the trust someone has in the source and to which degree they
(2004) showed that when the goal is to change attitudes or behavior, a high-credible source is more convincing that a low-credible source. This would mean that when consumers perceive Booking.com as a credible source, they are more motivated to trust the promotional cues that accompany the hotel room advertisement (Bambauer-Sachse & Mangold, 2013). The question remains whether promotional cues still influence booking intentions, even if the information provided by Booking.com is perceived as not credible? This leads to the following research question: What is the effect of popularity and scarcity cues at
hotel-comparison websites on consumers’ booking intentions, and how do need for uniqueness, cultural background and perceived source credibility moderate this relationship?
2. Theoretical framework and hypotheses
2.1 The effects of promotional cues on booking intention
In today’s market-based economy, it has become normal for consumers to depend on information provided by advertisements when making purchase decisions (Belch & Belch, 2015). Research has demonstrated that promotional cues such as scarcity and popularity signals can be used as an effective marketing tool to positively influence product evaluations and thus the consumer decision-making process (Koch & Benlian, 2015; Ku et al., 2012; Sparks & Browning, 2011). The basic model of consumer decision-making consists of the five stages of problem recognition, information search, alternative evaluation, purchase decision and post-purchase evaluation (Belch & Belch, 2015). During the alternative evaluation stage, consumers compare and evaluate the different products or services they have selected to fulfill their needs, to eventually form a purchase intention. Influencing consumers’ booking intentions by means of promotional messages such as scarcity and popularity cues happens in this stage. The scarcity and popularity cues can be applied to the context of online booking intentions as follows. Visitors of websites such as Booking.com are exposed to several hotel room advertisements when they are searching for a place to stay. Some of these advertisements are accompanied by cues such as “Only 5 rooms left on our site!” or “Booked 15 times in the last in the last 24 hours”. Both cues imply that at least some other consumers have already chosen for the specific hotel room. Simply displaying these cues next to the advertisement can already increase consumers booking intentions (Mitchell & Khazanchi, 2010). This is because consumers like to rely on the advices and opinions of others when making a purchase decision (Sparks & Browning, 2011). A more well-known and studied concept to influence online purchase decisions via the opinions of other consumers, is through electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). Several studies have shown how
positive and negative eWOM can affect product evaluations and purchase intentions (Ladhari & Michaud, 2015; Mauri & Minazzi, 2013; Sparks & Browning, 2011), but all were only related to other customers’ reviews. The promotional cues used by Booking.com are, unlike eWOM, not related to one specific person but to a group of unknown others. Nevertheless, the scarcity and popularity cues that accompany hotel room advertisements can also be seen as indirect reviews of the hotel. Suggesting that a product is scarce or popular can promote positive expectations of the product, which in turn could stimulate purchase intentions and copying of the buying behavior of other consumers (Ju & Ahn, 2016).
The underlying theory that can explain why scarce goods are more attractive to consumers than ‘normal’ or non-scarce goods is the commodity theory by Brock (1968). The main idea of the commodity theory is that “any commodity will be valued to the extent that it is unavailable” (p. 246). This means that when a commodity – which can be a product, information or physical or mental state – becomes scare, consumers exaggerate their evaluation of it compared to non-scarce goods and their desire to possess it increases (Brock & Mazzocco, 2004). There are two motivational mechanisms that can clarify this process. First, people like to distinct themselves form others by owning unique products (Snyder & Fromkin, 1980). Scarce or exclusive products are often only available in small amounts, so by possessing these products people can show their uniqueness and differentiate themself from others. Secondly, according to reactance theory (Brehm, 1966), consumers can experience the scarcity of products as a restriction on their freedom of choice. This state of motivational arousal can lead to a more positive evaluation of the scarce product, a stronger desire to own it and stimulate involvement (Ju & Ahn, 2016; Steinhart et al., 2013). Thus, by stating out how few rooms are still available, Booking.com could trigger the booking intention of their visitors for a specific hotel room advertisement.
Regarding the effectiveness of popularity cues, theory of reasoned action and theory of planned behavior both describe the importance of subjective norms on people’s behavioral intentions and therefore behavioral actions (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975; Ajzen, 1985). A subjective norm is the pressure someone experiences regarding the performance (or not performing) of the behavior in question (Fishbein & Cappella, 2006). An element of these subjective norms are descriptive norms, which include the idea an individual has about whether others perform a certain behavior. Descriptive norms can stimulate behavioral actions in two ways. The first way is through normative social influence: giving insight into what the ‘normal’ and proper behavior is or would be (White, Smith, Terry, Greenslade &
information provided by others as evidence about reality to determine what behavioral action is most beneficial (Cohen & Golden, 1972; Deutsch & Gerard, 1955). In the case of Booking.com, both types of social influencing are present. The popularity cue is an example of a normative descriptive norm, as it describes how many others already booked the hotel room in question. The scarcity cue on the other hand overlaps with informational social influence, as it gives a signal of quality by stating that there are only a few more rooms available.
Verhallen (1982) found that both promotional cues could positively influence evaluations of a product and purchase intentions. Wu and Lee (2016) compared the effectiveness of popularity and scarcity cues on self- versus other-buying behavior. Their research showed that scarcity cues had a positive effect on purchase intentions for oneself and popularity cues on purchase intentions for others. Scarcity cues triggers a need for uniqueness consumers like to have when buying something for themselves, whereas popularity cues reduce the perceived risk of buying something for someone else as it highlights the approval of others (Verhallen, 1982; Wu & Lee, 2016). A comment that can be made about the study of Wu and Lee (2016), is that it only compares scarcity and popularity cues for buying a low involvement product (e.g. a bottle of wine) specifically for oneself or for a colleague. Regarding hotel booking intentions, is it often the case that a consumer is quite involved with the product (Ladhari & Michaud, 2015) and books the hotel room not only for him- or herself but also for the travel companion.
Previous research on influencing hotel booking intentions by Sparks and Browning (2011) found that consumers are influenced by the valence (positive or negative) and the quantity of online reviews, but demand (scarce or popular) of the hotel was not included in their study. This effect of valence was also found by Ladhari and Michaud (2015), but they too did not include the effect of promotional cues. Although these and other studies recommend the usage of easy-to-process information (Mauri & Minazzi, 2013; Phua & Ahn, 2014), this study will be the first one to compare both cues in the field of hotel booking intentions and extend the knowledge of the effects of promotional cues on consumers’ booking intentions. Because Booking.com uses advertisements with and without promotional cues, the following hypothesis is proposed:
H1. Hotel room advertisements accompanied by a scarcity cue (H1a) or popularity cue
(H1b) will generate higher booking intentions compared to the hotel room advertisement without promotional cue.
2.2 The effects of need for uniqueness on booking intention
As briefly mentioned before, people like to distinct themself from others by owning unique products (Snyder & Fromkin, 1980; Wu & Lee, 2016). Need for uniqueness theory can be used to explain the different effect of scarcity and popularity cues on consumers’ behavior (Cheema & Kaikati, 2010; Snyder, 1992). Need for uniqueness is the desire to own and/or utilize exclusive products and services and perceive one as unique, in order to distinguish from other people in society (Cheema & Kaikati, 2010; Koch, & Benlian, 2015). The meta-analysis by Lynn (1991) showed that when participants had a high need for uniqueness, they were more sensitive to scarce commodities. Thus, the possession of scarce products can create a feeling of uniqueness (Fromkin, 1970; Gierl & Huettl, 2010; Koch & Benlian, 2015; Tian, Bearden & Hunter, 2001; Wu et al., 2012), which can explain why scarcity cues are more effective for people with a high need for uniqueness. Prior research has mainly focused on the attraction to scarce products for people with a high need for uniqueness, but little is known on how this can affect purchase intentions. The following hypothesis was formulated in order to fulfill the gap in knowledge on how need for uniqueness can moderate the effect of scarcity cues on booking intentions:
H2. Hotel room advertisements accompanied by a scarcity cue will generate higher
booking intentions compared to advertisements accompanied by a popularity cue or advertisements without promotional cue when a person’s need for uniqueness is high.
2.3 The effects of cultural background
Triandis (1995) described in his work that in general cultures are inclined to be more individualistic or more collectivistic. These two dimensions describe to what extent a culture, or seen from a within-culture perspective a person, is focused on either the self or the collective (Ng & Van Dyne, 2001). In relation to influencing online booking intentions with scarcity and popularity cues, cultural background can be seen as a possible moderator. The core elements of collectivism are being interdependent with others, conformity pressure to the majority and feeling a certain duty to the collective (Husted & Allen, 2008; Ng & Van Dyne, 2001). Opposite to this are the main elements of individualism such as the focus on autonomy, and being independent and unique (Ng & Van Dyne, 2001; Oyserman, Coon & Kemmelmeier, 2002). In line with need for uniqueness theory, people with a more individualistic cultural background are more attracted to scarce products to fulfill their need
H3a. Hotel room advertisements accompanied by a scarcity cue will generate higher
booking intentions for consumers who score high on individualism compared to consumers who score low on individualism.
Whereas the scarcity cues are expected to have a positive influence on the booking intentions of people with a more individualistic cultural background, it is likely that popularity cues have a positive influence on the booking intention of people with a more collectivistic cultural background. Because people with a collectivistic cultural background attach more value to the opinions of others (Zhang et al., 2007), it is expected that the popularity cue, rather than the scarcity cue, will give them the sign of social approval they want during the decision-making process (Triandis & Gelfland, 1998). They feel more obliged to share beliefs and go along with the opinion of others (Husted & Allen, 2008; Oyserman et al., 2002), which leads to the following hypothesis:
H3b. Hotel room advertisements accompanied by a popularity cue will generate higher
booking intentions for consumers who score high on collectivism compared to consumers who score low on collectivism.
2.4 The effects of perceived source credibility
Source credibility is often positively related to what extent consumers perceive provided information as trustworthy (Park, Lee & Han, 2007). The more credible a source is assessed, the more likely consumers will judge the information as credible. Ladhari and Michaud (2015) confirmed this statement and found that the perceived credibility of a source can indeed affect the (persuasive) influence of a message. When a message falls short in credibility, the persuasive intent of the message will most likely fail (Brown, Broderick & Lee, 2007). This leads to the final hypothesis of this study. Figure 1 provides an overview of the hypotheses of this study based on literature.
H4. When Booking.com is not perceived as a credible source, the scarcity and popularity
Figure 1 Research framework.
3. Method
3.1 Participants and design
For this study a 3 (promotional cue: scarcity, popularity or no cue) × 2 (need for uniqueness: high or low) × 2 (individualism: high or low) × 2 (collectivism: high or low) × 2 (perceived source credibility: high or low) within-subjects design was used. The minimum age of the participants had to be 18 years old, because this is often the age customers of hotel comparison website such as Booking.com need to be in order to be able to book a room. Participants were obtained via convenience sampling and in total 151 respondents agreed to participate in this study, of which 24 had to be removed from the sample because of missing data. The mean age of the remaining 127 participants was 35,1 years old (SD = 12.96) and 61,4% was female (37,8% male, 0,8% other). The majority of the participants were highly educated (49,6% bachelor’s degree, 26,8% master’s degree or higher). The link to the experiment was shared at social networking sites such as Facebook and Instagram and via email. After completion, participants were asked to share the link to the study with their personal connections.
The online experiment was conducted using Qualtrics. After agreeing with the conditions of the study, participants were asked about some demographic information. Next, participants had to answer a number of questions regarding their cultural background and knowledge of and experiences with Booking.com. After this, the participants were at random assigned to one of the two groups (manipulation vs. control). All participants were asked to imagine that they were planning on booking a city trip to Rome together with a friend via Booking.com. In the manipulation group, participants were exposed to three different hotel
room advertisements. Two of the hotel room advertisements were accompanied by a promotional cue (either scarcity or popularity). The control group consisted of three different hotel room advertisements, of which all three advertisements were not accompanied by a promotional cue (Table 1). The control group made it possible to check whether participants already had a preference for one of the three hotel advertisements the participants were exposed to. After exposure to the advertisements, the participants were asked about their booking intentions, need for uniqueness and whether or not they perceived Booking.com as a credible source.
Table 1
Schematic representation of the two conditions of the experiment.
Manipulation group Control group Advertisement 1: Hotel Cosmopolita Scarcity cue No cue Advertisement 2: Hotel Piazza Venezia Popularity cue No cue
Advertisement 3: Hotel dei Barbieri No cue No cue
3.2 Stimulus material
An online experiment with questionnaire was used to study the effects of scarcity and popularity cues on booking intention. The experimental factor that was manipulated for this research was the promotional cue that accompanied the hotel room advertisements. The hotel room advertisement was either accompanied by a scarcity cue, a popularity cue or no promotional cue (see Appendix A). The hotel room advertisements that were shown to the participants were collected form the Booking.com website. The pictures and name of the hotel have remained the same as the original advertisement; all other information was modified for the purpose of this research. It was decided to use existing advertisements instead of fictitious ones to create an experience most similar to reality for the study. All three hotel room advertisements involved a hotel in the center of Rome. The city of Rome was chosen as destination for the city trip because of its versatility and because it is already a popular destination for a city trip (Millington, 2017).
To make sure no other factors besides the promotional cues influenced booking intentions of the participants; some aspects of the hotel room advertisements were kept identical. Elements that differed between the advertisements were the name of the hotel, the picture that was shown and the caption of a promotional cue. Although the difference in name and picture could possibly influence booking intentions, providing the participants a
choice between three different hotels was of a greater value for this experiment. The manipulation of the material consisted of the promotional cue that accompanied the hotel room advertisement. The hotel room advertisement with the scarcity cue showed the message “In high demand – only 2 rooms left on our site!” The hotel room advertisement with the popularity cue showed the message “In high demand! Booked 25 times in the last 24 hours”. Both are cues Booking.com currently uses on their website.
3.3 Measured variables
Booking intention. The booking intentions for each hotel room was measured using the item
“After reading the advertisement about [hotel name] it is very likely that I would book a room at this hotel when traveling to Rome” (Sparks & Browning, 2011). Participant had to indicate their booking intention on a scale form 1 = Strongly disagree to 7 = Strongly agree for every hotel room advertisements. The higher the participant scored, the stronger his or her booking intention for that specific hotel room was. Next, they were asked to select which of the three hotels they would choose for their city trip.
Cultural background. In order to measure the participants’ cultural background, sixteen questions were asked that were part of the INDCOL scale by Singelis, Triandis, Bhawuk and Gelfand (1995) and the Culture Orientation scale by Triandis and Gelfland (1998). The INDCOL scale consists of 32 questions; sixteen questions measuring individualism and sixteen questions measuring collectivism. Both of the constructs were divided into two subcategories: horizontal and vertical individualism and collectivism. For this research the questions measuring horizontal individualism and collectivism were used, because these were most related to the subject of this study. Some of these questions can also be found in the Culture Orientation scale. Combining the two scales resulted in a more concise scale consisting of sixteen questions to measure individualism and collectivism. The constructs of individualism and collectivism did not exclude each other, meaning that participants could score high on individualism as well as on collectivism. Eight questions concerned the construct of individualism, the other eight questions concerned collectivism. An example question to measure individualism was: “I enjoy being unique and different from others in
many ways.” (Cronbach’s alpha = .67, M = 3.69, SD = 0.47). An example measuring
collectivism was: “To me, pleasure is spending time with others.” (Cronbach’s alpha = .66,
through to 5 = Describes me very well. See Appendix B for the complete list of cultural background items.
Need for uniqueness. Participants had to complete four question of the self-attributed need for
uniqueness scale (SANU) and seven questions of the desire for scarce products scale, both by Lynn and Harris (1997). To measure SANU, participants had to complete a sentence by choosing the word that described their personality best. An example question of SANU was
“I prefer being ___ different from other people.” With as possible answers 1 = No, 2 = Slightly, 3 = Moderately, 4 = Very and 5 = Extremely (Cronbach’s alpha = .83, M = 2.96, SD
= 0.72).
For the desire for scarce products scale, participants were asked to what extent they agreed with seven statements such as “I am very attracted to rare objects.” and “I am more
likely to buy a product if it is scarce.” Participants chose a number from a 5-point scale
ranging from 1 = Strongest disagreement to 5 = Strongest agreement, where a higher number corresponded with a stronger desire for scarce products (Cronbach’s alpha = .88, M = 3.14,
SD = 0.88). See Appendix C for the complete list of self-attributed need for uniqueness and
desire of scarce products items.
Perceived source credibility. The perceived source credibility of Booking.com was measured
using five adjectives based on the research by Ohanian (1990). Participants were asked to indicate on a 7-point semantic differential scale to what extent they thought the adjectives
Dependable/Undependable, Honest/Dishonest, Reliable/Unreliable, Sincere/Insincere and Trustworthy/Untrustworthy matched Booking.com. The five items together formed a reliable
scale (Cronbach’s alpha = .86, M = 4.46, SD = 1.02); all items were reversed coded whereby a higher score corresponded with a more credible perceived source.
Control variables. To be sure that booking intention was only influenced by the differences
in the advertisements, a number of control variables were measured. Participants were asked if they were familiar with Booking.com (Yes/No) and how often they used Booking.com (1 =
Never, 2 = Sometimes, 3 = Most of the time and 4 = Always). The majority of the participants
were familiar with the website (92,9%). Almost half of the participants had sometimes made use of Booking.com (49,6%) and more than a quarter most of the time (28,3%) when booking a hotel room. Demographic characteristics such as gender, age and educational level were also requested.
4. Results
4.1 Control variables
To confirm the random assignment of the participants to the two groups (manipulation vs. control), several one-way ANOVAs were performed. The manipulation group consisted of 75 participants and the control group of 52 participants. The analyses did not reveal any statistically significant differences in age and educational level, confirming the random assignment of the participants to the two groups. Pearson’s chi-square test was conducted to check for differences in gender between the two groups, showing no significant differences (Table 2).
An already existing preference for one of the hotel room advertisements, regardless of the promotional cues, was tested using paired-sample t-tests. The results showed that the type of hotel room advertisement did not significantly affect booking intentions. It could be concluded that the name and picture of the hotels had no significant influence on the booking intentions.
Table 2
Control variables.
Check type M SD df t F p χ2 95%-CI
Hotel dei Barbieri 4.33 1.67 Hotel Piazza Venezia 4.46 1.59 Hotel Cosmopolita 4.71 1.68 Pair 1 51 -0.51 .612 [-0.66, 0.39] Pair 2 51 -1.17 .247 [-1.04, 0.26] Pair 3 51 -1.03 .310 [-0.74, 0.24] Age 1, 125 0.50 .479 Education 1, 125 1.87 .174 Gender 2 .213 3.09
Note. Pair 1: Hotel dei Barbieri & Hotel Piazza Venezia, Pair 2: Hotel dei Barbieri & Hotel Cosmopolita and Pair 3: Hotel Piazza Venezia & Hotel Cosmopolita.
Although the groups did not differ at the control variables, extra analyses were conducted to check whether age, gender, level of education, familiarity with Booking.com and how often participants made use of Booking.com correlated with the dependent variable booking intention. Table 3 shows that for the manipulation group, booking intentions for Hotel Cosmopolita significantly correlated with gender and age and booking intentions for
Hotel Piazza Venezia also significantly correlated with age. For this reason, gender and age were included in further analyses.
Table 3
Correlation of the control variables and dependent variable.
Hotel dei Barbieri Hotel Piazza Venezia Hotel Cosmopolita
Gender .10 .23 .30**
Age .09 -.30** -.28*
Level of education .19 .14 -.05
Familiarity -.13 -.08 -.06
Level of usage .22 .16 .06
Note. All scores are Pearson’s correlation coefficients; * p <.05; ** p < .01.
4.2 Effects of promotional cues on booking intention
To test whether scarcity and popularity cues influenced consumers’ booking intentions, two paired-sample t-tests were performed. H1a and H1b predicted that the hotel room advertisements accompanied by a scarcity or popularity cue would generate higher booking intentions compared to the hotel room advertisement without promotional cue. The booking intentions in the manipulation group for the hotel room advertisement without promotional cue was 4.52 on a scale from one to seven. Although the booking intention for the hotel room advertisement accompanied by a popularity cue was higher (M = 4.63) compared to the advertisement without promotional cue, this difference was not significant. The hotel room advertisement accompanied by a scarcity cue also generated higher booking intentions compared to the advertisement without promotional cue (M = 4.85), but this difference was also not significant. See Table 4 for an overview of the results. Pearson’s chi-square test was conducted to test for differences in preference if the participants had to choose one of the hotel rooms, but there were no significant differences χ2 (2) = 0.56, p = .756. Thus, H1a and H1b predicting that hotel room advertisements accompanied by promotional cues would generate higher booking intentions compared to a hotel room advertisement without promotional cue could not be confirmed.
Table 4
The effect of promotional cues on booking intention.
Promotional cue M SD df t p 95%-CI Hotel dei Barbieri No cue 4.52 1.60
Hotel Piazza Venezia Popularity cue 4.63 1.70 Hotel Cosmopolita Scarcity cue 4.85 1.65
Pair 1 74 -0.41 .683 [-0.63, 0.41]
Pair 2 74 -1.28 .204 [-0.85, 0.18]
Note. Pair 1: Hotel dei Barbieri & Hotel Piazza Venezia and Pair 2: Hotel dei Barbieri & Hotel Cosmopolita.
4.3 Effects of need for uniqueness on booking intention
The second hypothesis concerned whether consumers with a high need for uniqueness were more attracted to the hotel room advertisement accompanied by a scarcity cue compared to the advertisement accompanied by a popularity cue or no promotional cue. By using a median split, the participants were categorized as either ‘high’ (n = 47) or ‘low’ (n = 28) in their self-attributed need for uniqueness. Repeated Measures ANOVA was conducted with booking intention as dependent variable. A 3 (promotional cue: scarcity, popularity or no cue) × 2 (self-attributed need for uniqueness: high or low) within-subjects design was used. There was no significant main effect of self-attributed need for uniqueness on booking intention and also no significant interaction between promotional cue and self-attributed need for uniqueness was found (Figure 2). See Table 5 for a complete overview of the results. Pearson’s chi-square test was conducted to test for differences in preference if the participants had to choose one of the hotel rooms, but there were no significant differences between a high or low need for uniqueness and hotel choice χ2 (2) = 0.43, p = .805.
Another Repeated Measures ANOVA was conducted to test for the effect of the desire for scarce products, resulting in a 3 (promotional cue: scarcity, popularity or no cue) × 2 (desire for scarce products: high or low) within-subjects design. There was no significant main effect of desire for scarce products on booking intentions. There was also no significant interaction between promotional cue and desire for scarce products (Table 5). Pearson’s chi-square test was conducted to test for differences in preference if the participants had to choose one of the hotel rooms, but there were no significant differences between a high or low desire for scarce products and hotel choice χ2 (2) = 1.81, p = .405. Thus, H2 was not supported (see Figure 3 and Table 5).
Figure 2 Promotional cue × SANU and Promotional cue × Desire for scarce products effect for booking intentions.
4.4 Effects of cultural background on booking intention
To test the influence of cultural background on the relationship between promotional cues and booking intentions, a 3 (promotional cue: scarcity, popularity or no cue) × 2 (individualism: high or low) and a 3 (promotional cue: scarcity, popularity or no cue) × 2 (collectivism: high or low) Repeated Measures ANOVA within-subjects design was used. By means of a median split, participants were divided into ‘high’ (n = 45) or ‘low’ (n = 30) for the construct of individualism and into ‘high’ (n = 48) or ‘low’ (n = 27) for the construct of collectivism. No significant main effect of having a more individualistic cultural background on booking intention was found. There was also no significant interaction between promotional cue and an individualistic cultural background (Table 5). Pearson’s chi-square test was conducted to test for differences in preference if the participants had to choose one of the hotel rooms, but there were no significant differences between a high or low individualistic cultural background and hotel choice χ2 (2) = 1.33, p = .514.
There was no significant main effect of having a more collectivistic cultural background, and no significant interaction between promotional cue and a collectivistic cultural background on booking intention was found (Table 5). Pearson’s chi-square test was conducted to test for differences in preference if the participants had to choose one of the hotel rooms, but there were no significant differences between a high or low collectivistic cultural background and hotel choice χ2 (2) = 3.77, p = .152. Regarding H3a and H3b, cultural background did not influence the effect of promotional cues on booking intentions; both hypotheses could not be supported.
4 4,2 4,4 4,6 4,8 5 5,2 Low High B o o k ing inte ntio n SANU 4 4,2 4,4 4,6 4,8 5 5,2 Low High B o o k ing inte ntio n
Desire for scarce products
No cue Popularity cue Scarcity cue
Figure 3 Promotional cue × Individualism and Promotional cue × Collectivism effect for booking intentions.
4.5 Effects of perceived source credibility on booking intention
To test the influence of perceived source credibility on the effect of promotional cues on booking intention, a 3 (promotional cue: scarcity, popularity or no cue) × 2 (perceived source credibility: high or low) Repeated Measures ANOVA within-subjects design was used. By means of a median split, participants were divided into ‘high’ (n = 36) or ‘low’ (n = 39) for the construct of perceived source credibility. There was a significant main effect of perceived source credibility on booking intention. Participants who perceived Booking.com as a credible source had higher booking intentions compared to participants who perceived Booking.com as a non-credible source (Mlow = 4.33, Mhigh = 5.03; F(1, 73) = 8.71, p = .004).
No significant interaction was found between promotional cue and perceived source credibility was found (Table 5).
Pearson’s chi-square test was conducted to test for differences in preference if the participants had to choose one of the hotel rooms, but there were no significant differences between a high or low perceived source credibility and hotel choice χ2 (2) = 3.28, p = .194. Thus, H4 predicting that when Booking.com was not perceived as a credible source promotional cues would have no, or a negative effect on consumers’ booking intentions, could not be confirmed. Although consumers who perceived Booking.com as non-credible had lower booking intentions compared to consumers who perceived Booking.com as credible, no significant relation to the usage of promotional cues was found.
4 4,2 4,4 4,6 4,8 5 5,2 Low High B o o k ing inte ntio n Individualism 4 4,2 4,4 4,6 4,8 5 5,2 Low High B o o k ing inte ntio n Collectivism No cue Popularity cue Scarcity cue
Figure 4 Promotional cue × Perceived source credibility effect for booking intentions.
4.6 Effects of age and gender on booking intention
Correlation analyses revealed that age significantly correlated with two of the hotel room advertisements. Age was separated into two groups by means of a median split (median = 31); participants were divided into the group ‘young’ (n = 41) or ‘old’ (n = 34). Repeated Measures ANOVA showed that there was a significant main effect of age on booking intention (Myoung = 4.96, Mold = 4.32; F(1, 73) = 7.35, p = .008). This indicates that the
booking intentions for the hotel room advertisements differed for the two age groups.
Further analyses showed there was also a significant interaction effect between the promotional cue that was used and the age of the participants, F(2, 146) = 4.87, p = .009. Contrasts were performed comparing the hotel room advertisement with popularity cue (Hotel Piazza Venezia) and the hotel room advertisement with scarcity cue (Hotel Cosmopolita) to the hotel room advertisement without promotional cue (Hotel dei Barbieri) across younger and older participants. These revealed significant interactions when comparing the booking intentions of younger and older participants for Hotel Piazza Venezia compared to Hotel dei Barbieri, F(1, 73) = 5.79, p = .019, and for Hotel Cosmopolita compared to Hotel dei Barbieri, F(1, 73) = 8.07, p = .006. Figure 5 shows that the booking intentions of younger and older participants are quite similar for Hotel dei Barbieri, but younger participants had higher booking intentions compared to older participants for Hotel Piazza Venezia and Hotel Cosmopolita compared to Hotel dei Barbieri. Thus, both hotel room advertisements accompanied by a promotional cue generated higher booking intentions for younger participants compared to older participants. The hotel room advertisements accompanied by a promotional cue even generated lower booking intentions compared to the
4 4,2 4,4 4,6 4,8 5 5,2 5,4 5,6 Low High B o o k ing inte ntio n
Preceived source credibility
No cue Popularity cue Scarcity cue
advertisement without promotional cue for older participants. This suggests that when hotel room advertisements are accompanied by promotional cues compared to no promotional cue, this positively influences booking intentions of younger participants and negatively influences booking intention of older participants.
Figure 5 Promotional cue × Age and Promotional cue × Gender effect for booking intentions.
Table 5
Overview of main and interaction effects with booking intention as dependent variable.
df F p
Self-attributed need for uniqueness 1, 73 1.81 .182
Desire for scarce products 1, 73 0.52 .474
Individualism 1, 73 2.19 .143
Collectivism 1, 73 3.06 .085
Perceived source credibility 1, 73 8.71 .004
Promotional cue × Self-attributed need for uniqueness 2, 146 0.12 .889 Promotional cue × Desire for scarce products 2, 146 0.98 .387
Promotional cue × Individualism 2, 146 0.50 .610
Promotional cue × Collectivism 2, 146 1.07 .344
Promotional cue × Perceived source credibility 2, 146 1.31 .272
Age 1, 73 7.35 .008
Gender 1, 73 8.51 .005
Promotional cue × Age 2, 146 4.87 .009
4 4,2 4,4 4,6 4,8 5 5,2 5,4 5,6 Females Males B o o k ing inte ntio n Gender 4 4,2 4,4 4,6 4,8 5 5,2 5,4 5,6 Young Old B o o k ing inte ntio n Age group No cue Popularity cue Scarcity cue
A second Repeated Measures ANOVA was conducted to test for the effects of gender on booking intention. The analysis showed there was a significant main effect of gender on booking intentions. Female participants had higher booking intentions compared to male participants (Mfemale = 4.96, Mmale = 4.27; F(1, 73) = 8.41, p = .005). There was however no
significant interaction effect between promotional cue and gender (Table 5).
5. Discussion
The main purpose of this study was to gain insight into how promotional cues of hotel room advertisements on hotel comparison websites such as Booking.com could influence consumers’ booking intentions. Besides of only focusing on what type of promotional cue stimulated the highest booking intention, this study tried to develop an understanding of what factors could be of influence in the process of online booking intentions. Knowledge was extended on the moderating effect of need for uniqueness, cultural background, perceived source credibility, age and gender on this relationship.
5.1 Implications
In general, there was no significant preference for the hotel room advertisements accompanied by a promotional cue compared to the advertisement without promotional cue. No main or interaction effects of need for uniqueness and cultural background were found. A main effect of perceived source credibility on booking intentions was found, indicating that when consumers perceive Booking.com as credible, booking intentions were significantly higher compared to consumers who perceive Booking.com as non-credible. However, no significant interaction with the usage of promotional cues was found. Extra analysis showed that females in general have higher booking intentions compared to males; but the usages of promotional cues do not affect this relationship. At last, the study showed that booking intentions were also dependent on the age of the participants. Besides that younger participants in general have higher booking intentions compared to older participants, they are also more influenced by the promotional cues that accompanied the hotel room advertisements. Both the scarcity and the popularity cue generated higher booking intentions than the advertisements without promotional cue for younger participants compared to older participants. The usage of promotional cues even resulted in lower booking intentions for older participants compared to the hotel room advertisement without promotional cue.
From a practical standpoint, an important factor for Booking.com to keep in mind is that when they are perceived as a credible source, booking intentions are substantially higher
compared to when they are perceived as non-credible. Therefore it would be worth to gain more insight into which factors currently determine whether consumers judge Booking.com as credible. Regarding the visitors of the website, it might be interesting for Booking.com to find a way to attract more female visitors to their website. This group of the population already has higher booking intentions, regardless of the usage of promotional cues. To date there is little known about the effect of gender in the field of online booking intentions for hotel rooms (Hasan, 2010), this study contributes to the existing knowledge on this relationship. It might also be profitable for Booking.com to gain more insight into the age of the visitors of the website. Findings of this study show that younger participants do not only have higher booking intentions compared to older participants; they are also more influenced by the usage of promotional cues. In practice this indicates that if they would visit Booking.com, they will be more attracted and inclined to book a hotel room advertisements accompanied by a promotional cue. It seems that older consumers on the contrary are deterred by the usage of promotional cues. When Booking.com has more insight into the age of their visitors, they can personalize advertisements and show advertisements with promotional cues to younger visitors, but leave the promotional cues behind for older participants, in order to generate the highest booking intentions. By showing promotional cues for specific hotel room advertisements to older and younger visitors, it becomes possible to influence their booking intentions, which might not only be interesting for Booking.com but also for the hotels that collaborate with the company.
5.2 Limitations and future research
The current research contributes to the understanding of the influence of scarcity and popularity cues on consumers’ booking intentions. Nevertheless, this study has some limitations that need to be recognized and taken into consideration when interpreting the results. Participants of the experiment were asked to imagine that they were going to book a hotel room for a city trip to Rome and had to select their number one choice out of three options. Various comments can be made about the design of this research. First of all, though the participants were exposed to three advertisements that had a similar look of the advertisements on Booking.com, creating a complete copy of the original website as stimulus material for the experiment was not possible. Several elements of the hotel room advertisements had to be kept equal (such as pricing and facilities) and showing only three hotel room advertisements may have affected the experience of actually visiting
Booking.com. It may be useful for future research to develop a simulation of Booking.com with more elements to create a more complete experience of searching for a hotel.
While the experimental approach of this research led to new insights in the field of online booking intentions, it was also limited to the selected variables. For instance, it is not clear whether the participants did perceive the hotel room advertisements accompanied by promotional cues as more scarce or popular compared to the other hotel room advertisements. Similarly, it could be argued that the perception of scarcity and popularity also depends on the size of the hotel or the destination. These factors could explain why the hotel room advertisements accompanied by promotional cues did not generate higher booking intentions compared to the hotel room advertisement without promotional cue (Gierl & Huettl, 2010). Thus, future research could include extra questions concerning whether participants have seen the promotional cues and what they experienced after being exposed to them.
Against expectation, need for uniqueness did not positively influence the relationship between the use of a scarcity cue and booking intentions. Two explanations can be given for the absence of this effect. On the one hand, when people have a high need for uniqueness, a common and popular destination like Rome might not be very appealing for them to travel to. Having a high need for uniqueness could even result in a negative effect on booking intentions, because it is not a unique or exclusive destination. On the other hand, most studies on scarcity signals and need for uniqueness relate to conspicuous consumption goods; possessing products which evoke certain feelings (e.g. envy or respect) or to satisfy social desires (Gierl & Huettl, 2010; Koch & Benlian, 2015; Wu et al., 2012). Although it is possible to consider booking a specific hotel as a conspicuous good, more common in this category are products that can easily be noticed by the social environment. Therefore, an interesting question is whether a more exclusive destination would generate higher booking intentions for people with a high need for uniqueness and to what extent the social needs are being satisfied when choosing a more exclusive destination compared to a more common destination like Rome.
Interestingly, having a more individualistic or collectivistic cultural background was not related to the effect of promotional cues on booking intentions. It is possible that the scales that were used in this study to measure cultural background could be the reason for this. Although the items measuring individualism and collectivism formed two reliable scales, answers on both scales were clustered around the mean. This resulted in small differences between the participants who were categorized as either ‘high’ or ‘low’ in individualism and collectivism. For future research it may be worthwhile to investigate
whether a scale measuring cultural background on a more personal level results in different outcomes and affects the relation between the usage of promotional cues and booking intentions.
Finally, a lot of the hotels on Booking.com have a “free cancellation” policy, which makes it possible for customers of the website to book several hotels upfront and decide later which hotel it eventually will be without having to pay (a lot) extra for it. Because of this, the pressure of the scarcity cue will be less present. Hence, future research could examine to what extent this influences the perception of scarcity cues. While this research has provided new practical and theoretical knowledge on online hotel booking intentions, hopefully future research will take these concerns into consideration.
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Appendix A
Stimulus material
Figure 1 Hotel room advertisement without promotional cue.
Figure 2 Hotel room advertisement accompanied by a scarcity cue.
Appendix B
Questions measuring cultural background
Table 1
Individualism
I often do "my own thing".
One should live one's life independently of others.
I prefer to be direct and forthright when discussing with people. I like my privacy.
When I succeed, it is usually because of my abilities.
I enjoy being unique and different from others in many ways. I am a unique individual.
What happens to me is my own doing.
Collectivism
If a relative were in financial difficulty, I would help within my means. If a coworker gets a prize, I would feel proud.
The well being of my coworkers is important to me. I like sharing little things with my neighbors. I feel good when I cooperate with others.
My happiness depends very much on the happiness of those around me. To me, pleasure is spending time with others.
It is important to maintain harmony within my group.
Appendix C
Questions measuring need for uniqueness and desire for scarce products
Self-attributed need for uniqueness scale
1. I prefer being ___ different from other people.
1 = no, 2 = slightly, 3 = moderately, 4 = very or 5 = extremely 2. Being distinctive is ___ important to me.
1 = not at all, 2 = slightly, 3 = moderately, 4 = very or 5 = extremely 3. I ___ intentionally do things to make myself different from those around me.
1 = never, 2 = seldom, 3 = sometimes, 4 = often or 5 = always 4. I have a ___ need for uniqueness.
1 = weak, 2 = slight, 3 = moderate, 4 = strong or 5 = very strong
Desire for Scarce Products Scale
I am very attracted to rare objects.
I am more likely to buy a product if it is scarce. I prefer rare products over more common ones. I enjoy having products that are in limited supply. I find limited editions of products especially desirable. When I learn that a product is scarce, I want it more. I enjoy possessing rare objects.
Appendix D
Online experiment and questionnaire.
Survey flow
1. Information and informed consent 2. Demographics 3. Cultural background 4. Knowledge of Booking.com 5. Randomizer a. Manipulation group b. Control group 6. Need for uniqueness
- Start of Block: Information and informed consent -
Dear participant,
I would like to invite you to participate in this study, performed under the supervision of the Graduate School of Communication, part of the University of Amsterdam. The participation will cost you approximately 5 minutes. In the experimental study you will receive some questions about advertisements for hotel rooms. Because the research is performed under the responsibility of ASCoR, University of Amsterdam, you will be guaranteed that:
Your anonymity will be safeguarded and that your personal information will not be shared with third parties at any moment, unless you give permission.
You can quit the study or refuse to participate at any moment during the study. Afterwards, It is also possible to withdraw your consent to use your results or data for the study (within 7 days after your participation).
Participation in the study does not involve any significant risks or inconveniences, no deliberate deception takes place, and you will not be confronted with explicitly offensive material. Participating in this experiment is anonymous; it is not
possible to identify me as a participant, within the collected data. Privacy sensitive data such as address, e-mail address, phone number or name will not be collected within this experiment.
For more information about this research and the invitation to participate in this study feel free to contact the research student at any moment. Name, Xanthe Wijma, e-mail address xanthe.wijma@student.uva.nl. If you have any comments or complaints in response to your participation within this study, you can contact the designated member of the Ethics
Committee representing the Department of Communication Science, at the following address: ASCoR secretariat, Ethics Committee, University of Amsterdam, Postbus 15793, 1001 NG Amsterdam; 020‐ 525 3680; ascor‐ secr‐ fmg@uva.nl. All comments or complaints will be treated in the strictest confidence.
I hope you are informed sufficiently and thank you in advance for your participation in this research, which is of great value to me.
Kind regards, Xanthe Wijma
I understand the text presented above and agree to participate in this research study
- Start of Block: Demographics -
Please fill in these general questions: What is your gender?
Male Female Other What is your age?
______ Skip to end of survey if: “What is your age? < 18
What is the highest level of education you have completed? Primary school
High school
Vocational education Bachelor's degree
Master's degree (or higher)
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