Despite the rise of online travel booking services, it seems that traditional travel agencies remain an intractable part in the process of making travel arrangements for most travelers. Nevertheless, the question remains as to what triggers travelers' satisfaction with travel agencies. In order to explore this, we focused on Serbian travel agencies and researched the impact of the five individual SERVQUAL dimensions on travelers' satisfaction. Results revealed that four SERVQUAL dimensions (reliability, responsiveness, empathy and tangibility) had a significant influence on customer satisfaction. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

In the conditions of the dynamic development of information and communications technology, the traditional way of establishing communication among consumers has significantly changed. As one of several extremely important marketing instruments, word-of-mouth communication has been assuming a new dimension via digital forms of communicating. Having in mind the significance of social media for the formation of consumer attitudes and intentions concerning the purchasing process, the paper is aimed at obtaining relevant findings on the effect of electronic word-of-mouth communication on consumer behavior. More precisely, by using a correlation and multiple regression analysis, whether the quantity, quality and timeliness of information, and the source credibility of electronic word-of-mouth communication affect consumer trust in the area of a wellness offer was examined. A simple regression analysis was applied in order to determine whether consumer trust contributed to purchase intention. The results of the conducted empirical research show that there is a statistically significant impact of electronic word-of-mouth communication on consumer trust and that consumer trust positively affects purchase intention when choosing a wellness package in the Republic of Serbia is concerned.

Due to the increasing process of globalization, consumers’ attitudes and beliefs are formed under the influence of numerous factors, which are not being considered to a large degree when it comes to doing business on a national level, but which may have significant implications on evaluation of international and global aspects of company’s operation. One of these factors is the country of origin of products. Although there is a large number of papers in the field of international marketing which investigate issues of the relation of consumers’ loyalty and country of origin of products, the originality of this research arises from the fact that, this paper examines the influence of the country of origin of the products on consumers’ loyalty, not directly, but observed via specific characteristics of the product, such as quality, design and prestige. Using a regression analysis, it examines the effect of the country of origin of a product on the perception of product’s quality, design and prestige, as well as the extent to which these three variables affect consumers’ loyalty. The importance of implemented empirical research, unlike others done in Serbia, is reflected in analyzing unified influence of individual variables. It has been noticed that major influence on consumers’ behaviour has prestige related to consumption of products from certain countries, following design, while the impact of product’s quality was minimal. By applying the empirical model research, it has been confirmed that all defined variables significantly determine consumer’s loyalty when it comes to country of origin. By applying one-factor analysis of a variance, it examines whether there is a statistically significant effect of the defined variables on the loyalty, when it comes to different categories of the respondents.

Članci/Papers44 Prethodno saopštenje, UDK 658.8:004 fastest growing areas is the development of information and communication technologies. Implications of this process can be seen in almost all areas, among which there are also marketing theory and practice. For many companies the use of digital marketing concept is actually the basis of making a difference on the competitive market. Adequate activity planning of the presence in the digital media and placing of interesting contents, hugely facilitates timely communication with customers. Having in mind that the modern consumer is exposed to a considerable amount of daily available information, creators of marketing strategies are faced with the challenge of establishing and maintaining long-term relationships. This paper also highlights the importance of marketing metrics in this field, successful understanding of which contributes to proper evaluation of marketing campaigns and creates possibilities for making progress and improvement of the marketing position of the company.

The dynamics of the development of tourism sector is reflected, among other things, in the fact that an increasing number of tourists choose an offer based on online reviews. Although it is true that due to the intensive development of communication via the Internet, online reviews are one of the dominant sources of information, their level of perceived usefulness may differ. The aim of the research is to examine the extent to which textual comments, photos and ratings of tourist offers determine the usefulness of online reviews. In order to analyze the results, we used exploratory factor analysis. Moreover, by using regression analysis, it was confirmed that usefulness affects the level of trust in online reviews, as well as that trust has implications for the intention to purchase a tourist offer. Finally, we came to conclusions that may have numerous implications for the decisions of marketing managers in the field of tourism.