Purpose – This paper aims to report the findings of an empirical research focusing on Hong Kong online users’ intention to book online tourism products with latest figures. Focusing on the technology acceptance model (TAM), this case study extends the recent research with providing insight regarding the online users’ perceptions of TAM dimensions and how these dimensions are perceived among different demographic groups and Internet usage characteristics with latest figures in Hong Kong, a major tourism destination in Asia with many world-class hotels. Design/methodology/approach – A total of 213 Hong Kong online users were surveyed in March and April 2013 in Hong Kong business districts. Findings – Findings reveal that most respondents who use the Internet for booking online travel products are young, and people above a certain age are not likely to favor booking tourism products online. They are more likely to stick to traditional personal service. Perceived usefulness of the Internet is found more influential than its ease of use in forming a usage intention, and ease of use is perceived more important by jobseekers, student and employees than the other profession groups. In addition, respondents who use the Internet every day and did purchase online tourism product perceived usefulness more important than ease of use. Research limitations/implications – The generalization of this research is limited by its sample size and number of questions. Originality/value – The study gives a new perspective by linking TAM with intention to book online in Hong Kong. The paper would be of interest to the Web site planners or online tourism practitioners to consider Web site usefulness as much as its ease of its use, as both usefulness and ease of use of tourism Web sites are strong predictors of intention to book online.

International audience

This paper evaluates the main developments of revenue management (RM) over the past decade and discusses RM challenges and research prospects. It examines nine notable emerging themes: total hotel RM, big data analytics, distribution, rate integrity, RM and marketing strategies alignment, social media impacts on RM, RM system, applications of RM in nontraditional service sectors, and RM education and training. We argue that these developments have far-reaching implications for real-world RM practice and anticipate that the topic areas will continue to be popular for hospitality and tourism research in the foreseeable future.

Despite the unabated pace of globalisation and the incessant flow of tourists to multiple tourist destinations, there is little attention paid by tourist operators and hospitality managers to the segmentation of holiday makers based on their distinctive spending habits for revenue maximization. Segmenting holiday makers according to their levels of expenditure is an important factor in developing comprehensive marketing strategies since travellers who decide to spend a vacation in the same area and in the same period might spend their money in very different ways. This paper uses the CHAID technique to examine direct as well as daily tourist expenditures of holiday makers in Hong Kong to define market segments (particularly, the big spenders). The results obtained confirm that CHAID is a relatively flexible technique to use and can be employed as a precursor to a more parametric approach.

International audience

This article provides researchers and practitioners with a better understanding of how consumers behave within a cross-cultural context. Literature often focuses on culture per se, but to understand consumer behavior better in a cross-cultural context, some studies have considered variables other than the key component elements of culture, encompassing families friends, society, etc. This research focuses on two slightly different variables: the perception of time and exploratory buying behavior. Within this context the first section of the paper validates the Time Style Scale and the Exploratory Buying Behavior Scale within a cross-cultural context. Results show that the Temporal Styles Scale (Usunier and Valette-Florence, 1994) is validated when using the entire dataset as well as data from an English version of the instrument. However, data collected from the Chinese version of the questionnaire does not fit the model well. The Exploratory Buying Behavior Scale (Baumgartner and Steenkamp, 1996) can be reduced to four exploratory acquisition of products (EAP) and three exploratory information seeking (EIS) items. Data collected from both language versions are considered as fitting the model adequately. The second section of the research examines the relation between elements of culture, time orientation, exploratory buying behavior, and consumer behavior. Results of a canonical analysis show that the group of variables associated with culture are best at discriminating the phenomenon. However, as far as the variables are concerned, the exploratory product-acquisition factor has a more important role than some variables associated with culture.

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