Introduction

The growth of the Internet has changed how customers seek information before making any travel-related decisions, particularly concerning online hotel booking (Buhalis & Law, 2008). Travellers explore the internet to search for related information to finalise the hotel room they might prefer to book at the destination. This journey starts with searching for hotels available at the destination, prices, amenities, ratings, and reviews. Therefore, this highlights that travellers use the internet to search for relevant information related to hotel booking.

The role of customer satisfaction on the customers' purchase intention has been extensively studied in the literature on tourism and hospitality (Ali, 2016; Ryu et al., 2012). Various authors have widely studied customer satisfaction leading to purchase intention of the customer in distinct contexts like restaurants (Kim et al., 2013), luxury cruise travelling (Han & Hyun, 2018), hotel industry (Cheng et al., 2019), independent travellers' niche hotel booking (Wang et al., 2020) and hotel booking intentions (Akhoondnejad, 2015; Chan et al., 2017). The use of the digital medium has turned out to be a blessing for the tourism-related services industry (Ho & Lee, 2007; Pelsmacker et al., 2018). From a customer viewpoint, access to information is immediate while using the online platform, as the customer can make uninterrupted price comparisons based on their preferences and perceived value through the discounts provided in real-time, juxtaposing the various values, services, facilities, and prices (Gao & Bi, 2021). Additionally, the customers can go through the reviews and ratings, types of rooms available, hotel pictures, and the additional facilities provided by the hotel like a swimming pool, gymnasium, spa, coffee shop and restaurants (Park et al., 2017). It is crucial to consider online satisfaction and offline satisfaction, which can be beneficial to understanding the customer's overall satisfaction and purchase intention to book a room in a hotel. Scientific inquiry examining the specific role of online and offline satisfaction in hotel booking intentions has received little heed and remains a substantially un-investigated (Lee et al., 2020). Thus, a research gap emerged in studies on hotel booking that addressed online and offline satisfaction leading to hotel booking intention.

The remainder of the study is arranged as follows: the second section lays out the theoretical background on customer satisfaction and hotel booking intentions; the third section provides the research methodology using a systematic literature review; the fourth section incorporates the descriptive findings of data extracted and the results and discussion. In the end, the fifth section concludes with the theoretical and managerial implications and future research possibilities and limitations.

Literature Review

Customer Satisfaction and Hotel Booking Intentions

The concept of customer satisfaction has been widely explored in the fieldof marketing, especially with respect to hospitality and tourism studies(Sánchez-Rebull et al., 2018). Customer satisfaction is a notion that gauges the internal state of the customer's feelings with past experiences and the current state of mind while making a choice. It is also defined as the customer's overall experience comprising prepurchase, that is, need recognition and information search, purchase, and the post-purchase behaviour with a product or service provider (Carlson et al., 2019). Moreover, customer satisfaction in the hospitality and tourism industry is critical as it helps influence customers to purchase, repeat purchases, build customer loyalty, and provide service recommendations by spreading positive word-of-mouth to others (Pizam et al., 2016).

Past research also shows that the level of satisfaction in customers while using the online environment is relatively more as the online domain provides ease of use in providing necessary information to the customer (Melián-González & Bulchand-Gidumal, 2016).

For online satisfaction, the study incorporates the information system success model to measure user satisfaction parameters to online satisfaction in hotel booking intention (DeLone & McLean, 2003). Online satisfaction in the present study means the online experience of the individual customer from information search to the final online booking of the hotel. Moreover, for offline satisfaction, different values perceived by the customer when searching and booking hotels were taken into consideration. The offline satisfaction in the present study means the different values perceived by the customer while booking the hotel online. The determinants of offline satisfaction by way of perceived value while booking a hotel online has been pointed out by various authors. Perceived value is used in different contexts like in the homestay industry (Zhao et al., 2020), foodservice industry (Kim et al., 2018), guesthouse booking (Waheed & Hassan, 2016) and online hotel booking (Confente & Vigolo, 2018). A study conducted by Shankaret al. (2003) ascertained that offline satisfaction positively influences booking intention. Offline satisfaction can be defined as the customer's perception (perceived value) towards the kind of services rendered and supplied by the hotel (Zhao et al., 2020). Thus, the present study broadly focuses on the following research questions:

1. What factors of online satisfaction influence hotel booking intentions?
2. What factors of offline satisfaction influence hotel booking intentions?

Over the past few years, the advancement in digital media has brought opportunities as well as challenges for hotel booking. Nowadays, most hotels have already developed an online presence to constructively engage with customers by providing crucial information through which a customer can generate online satisfaction (Law, 2019; Wong & Law, 2005) and perceive the value as well (Ozturk et al., 2016). Thus, hotels have started engaging in digital media to enhance their exposure to a broader segment of the targeted market and give customers a more realistic experience (Pelsmacker et al., 2018).

Therefore, the present study aims to map the current state of field research, identifying emerging areas of online satisfaction, offline satisfaction, and booking intentions. Moreover, this study focuses on filling the void by producing a systematic literature review of hotel booking studies in hospitality and tourism to highlight the antecedents and encourage future developments in related research (Kwok et al., 2017).

Methodology

Journal Selection

Recognizing and identifying the prominent journals in the tourism and hospitality field was challenging. Several academicians suggest that more than a hundred journals have published articles related to this field (Ma & Law, 2009). However, there exists no ordinary list of ranked tourism and hospitality journals recognised by universities and researchers (Law et al., 2010). Lately, numerous Hospitality, Sports, Leisure and Tourism-associated journals have been encompassed in the Thomson Reuters Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI).

The 2023 SJR list comprises 123 journals from tourism, sports, leisure and hospitality management. The researcher included only WoS (Web of Science) journals, which were reduced to 82. Sports journals were omitted to rank to stay focused on the primary subject. After cautiously scrutinizing the aims and scope of these journals, some journals were removed since they were not covering the area of the topic under review, like the Journal of Service Management, Cities, and others for not falling in the category of peer-reviewed journals. The journal's impact factor and H index were considered while selecting an article. Finally, the top 10 journals focusing on determinants of travel purchase intentions or satisfaction were eventually selected.

The top 10 journals included in this study were the journals that were chosen from the hospitality and tourism journal ranks listed in the SJR (Scimago Journal and Country Rank), as shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Rankings of Hospitality and Tourism Journals (Data Captured on June 27, 2023).

Research Paper Selection

The literature identifies different online and offline satisfaction indicators while booking a hotel. The literature review includes only full-length peer-reviewed articles that have conducted a study in the area of hotel booking. A structured approach based on Snyder (2019) recommendation was followed to conduct the study. Leading research articles published in journals were reviewed while ignoring the conference proceedings.

To ensure that other related materials published in peer-reviewed journals were also included in this literature review. The renowned online databases used for academic journals like Scopus (http://www.scopus.com), Science Direct (http://www.sciencedirect.com) and Emerald Insight (https://www.emerald.com/insight), along with Google Scholar (http://www.scholar.google.com) were also explored to find out the other suitable published articles. The databases mentionedabove are considered the leading and most widespread databases (Sun et al., 2017). The keywords used for the search comprised diverse word combinations related to hotel booking intentions, such as 'online hotel satisfaction', 'offline hotel satisfaction' and 'intention to the book'. For final inclusion, the complete text of articles that might be pertinent was examined (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. A PRISMA Flow Chart Depicting How Papers Were Selected.

The researchers independently assessed titles and abstracts using the aforementioned standards to decide which articles qualified for inclusion in the study.For final inclusion, the complete text of articles that might be pertinent was examined.

Descriptive Findings

Characteristics of Included Studies

A comprehensive analysis of 62 research articles aim in presenting descriptive findings to map research area development in terms of documents by year, the number of documents sources, and documents by country.

Figure 2 represents the documents published between the period 2000 and 2023. The research published on hotel booking intention has rapidly increased in the last six years. The full published articles in this area were in 2020, where nine articles were published. In recent years, the rise in research intensity reflects a strong positive trend in the overall number of publications and suggests an increasing recognition and interest in the topic.

Figure 2. The Number of Articles by Publication Year Between 2000 and 2023.

In terms of approach, we discovered that there was primarily quantitative research (n = 37). However, the distribution of findings between qualitative and mixed methods studies is extremely balanced, with 15 results from mixed methods studies and 10 results from qualitative studies, respectively.

Figure 3 represents the dispersion of publications across highly ranked journals reflecting the research done on hotel booking intentions between 2000 and 2023. Nearly 27% of the articles appearing in the International Journal of Hospitality Management related to booking intentions have emerged, indicating that this journal is becoming the subject of the study of booking intentions in the hospitality industry.

Figure 3. Number of Published Articles per Journal.

Analysis of regional distribution in research shows that The United States of America is the most prolific publishing source. Figure 4 depicts a Pareto distribution showing the country-wise number of publications as calculated by the position of the author's institution. Five nations, including The United States of America, South Korea, Taiwan, China and Malaysia, account for more than 54% of the published articles on hotel booking intentions. The results suggest an increase in the regional dispersion of research across various countries, as new researchers from multiple countries are attracted to the subject.

Figure 4. Geographical Distribution of Research.

Results

Determinants of Online Satisfaction

Online satisfaction in the present study is based on the model presented by DeLone and McLean (2003), based on satisfaction while using the online environment. In the context of online customer satisfaction, various authors have highlighted and identified the critical dimensions to measure the level of online satisfaction. Online satisfaction has been studied in different contexts, such as the hospitality and tourism (Pizam et al., 2016), hotel (Shaikh & Khan, 2013), university students' travel behaviour (Gallarza & Saura, 2006) and online hotel booking (Ullah et al., 2019). Amongst which a variety of studies have been proven to be highly significant in assessing the antecedents of online satisfaction.

System Quality

System quality refers to the desirable characteristics and features of an e-commerce system, like ease of use, system availability, system reliability, system usability and adaptability (DeLone & McLean, 2003). In the hotel booking context, system quality means the system used to fulfil customers' needs by providing good system quality while using an online booking platform (Wen, 2012). System quality plays an important role when customers want to book a room in a hotel using the Internet. Customers utilise the various available functions of the websites, like inquiries about the hotel, hotel location, facilities provided by the hotel, booking status, and the available payment option. If the hotel site offers excellent system quality, the level of satisfaction of the customers using the Internet to book a hotel is increased (Gao et al., 2017; Xu et al., 2013).

System quality has been examined in various contexts by different authors like online shopping intentions (Cho & Sagynov, 2015), internet shopping (Shin et al., 2013), ride-hailing service (Phuong & Trang, 2018), online travel ticket booking websites (Noronha & Rao, 2017) and online booking intentions (Wang et al., 2015). According to the Information System Model, an information technology system's most critical success attribute is the system quality that influences user satisfaction and, eventually, the intention to use (Dreheeb et al., 2016).

Information Quality

Information quality refers to an individual user's experience with the quality of the information shown on a hotel website (Shah & Attiq, 2016). Information quality is assessed on two basic criteria, namely content adequacy and content usefulness; the former is associated with the consistency, capability, relevance, timeliness, and completeness of the information displayed (Gürkut & Nat, 2018), while the latter includes informativeness and valuableness of the information provided (Park & Gretzel, 2007). Information systems are designed to allow users to get the necessary, relevant, and accurate information, as it is a crucial success aspect while investigating the overall information system success (DeLone & McLean, 2003).

Information quality has been examined in various contexts to determine the satisfaction of the customer like in the e-travel service quality (Ho & Lee, 2007), repurchase intention on the Internet (Shin et al., 2013), rural lodging establishments (Melo et al., 2017), customer satisfaction and repurchase intention (Choi & Kim, 2013), and service quality perception (Ismoyo et al., 2017). Information quality plays a vital role while booking a hotel using the internet. The customer checks out specific hotel information, including the hotel's price, star rating of thehotel, reviews posted by other customers, and ratings given by the other customer.After searching for all relevant information, customers subsequently book ahotel. While using the internet for booking a room in a hotel, if the informationa customer gets is of high quality, the customer's online satisfaction will correspondingly be high (Emir et al., 2016).

Service Quality

In order to measure the service quality of online hotel booking websites. A seven-criteria model was proposed by Kaynama and Black (2000), which includes navigation to the website, content available on the website, presentation/design, accessibility, background information, responsiveness, and customisation. These parameters were explicitly considered because of their similar nature with the five dimensions of the SERVQUAL model proposed by Parasuraman et al. (1985). The 'reliability' dimension was changed to content available on the website to be assumed as the promised services. The dimension of 'assurance' is converted into the 'background'. The dimension of 'Tangibility' is demonstrated in the service attributes of online hotel booking for 'accessibility', 'navigation' and 'presentation/design'. The provision of personal attention to customers described by the 'empathy' dimension was fixed in the 'customisation' by the website. The 'responsiveness' dimension is reserved with the same name (Kaynama & Black, 2000).

A study conducted by Nusair and Kandampully (2008) explored the possible attributes of customer satisfaction with respect to travel websites. The result shows that a multi-dimensional construct, that is, service quality has a pivotal contribution to customer satisfaction. Additionally, they found the constructs of the website interface, which consider the website’s appearance, the speed of website loading, easy access, website interactivity, website navigation, and security. Based on the mentioned service attribute, they were mostly connected to the website's functions.

The literature review on the parameters of online satisfaction while booking a hotel is given in Table 2.

Table 2. Empirical Research Investigating Online Satisfaction.

Determinants of Offline Satisfaction

Offline satisfaction in the present study is by way of the customer's perceived value while booking a hotel online. Zeithaml, (1988) proposed a commonly accepted definition of value. The author argued that, though there are various expressions of the value of a consumer, still perceived value can be represented in one broad definition as the consumer's comprehensive assessment of the utility of a product or service based on perceptions of what is received and what is given to the consumers. Empirical research was conducted to measure the customer's perceived value in the hotel environment; the result shows that individual hotels deliver notably different levels of customer satisfaction through value. The hotel’s perceived value affects the customer satisfaction (Bi et al., 2020). Previous studies have paid increasing attention to the significance of perceived value on the tourist satisfaction (Changet al., 2014), purchase intentions (Wu et al., 2018), and intention to hotel booking (Thielemann et al., 2018). In a study conducted by Keshavarz and Jamshidi (2018), service quality and perceived value were the most critical drivers of customer satisfaction and tourist loyalty (Keshavarz & Jamshidi, 2018).

Several studies on tourism have examined factors like the functional value (Lee et al., 2011), emotional value (Sánchez et al., 2006), social value (Confente & Vigolo, 2018), and monetary value (Chen et al., 2016) that has an impact on the offline satisfaction of the customer (Zhu & Chen, 2012).

Functional Value

Functional value can be defined as 'the perceived utility acquired from an alternative's capacity for functional or utilitarian performance' (Sheth et al., 1991). According to consumption value theory, the functional aspect of value refers to individuals' rational and economic evaluation that reflects the quality of using a service (Berry et al., 2002). It is the inherent capability of the offering to satisfy the customers, along with the benefits related to owning the offering (Cheng et al., 2019).

In the present study, functional value can be summarised as the customer's viewpoint that hotel booking is the source of generating value. The functional value is signified as the perceived experience the consumers acquire through the attributes and functions of the services offered by the hotel. In a study conducted by Du et al. (2020), 'room', 'convenience', 'location', 'geography', 'comfort' and 'cost-effective' were the high-frequency words relate to functional value. In the same study, variables that influence customer satisfaction primarily comprisethe hotel's geographical location, room size and comfort, the availability of transportation, hotel infrastructure, and the overall decoration of the hotel adds up to the perceived functional value (Du et al., 2020).

Various studies have empirically proved that perceived functional value strongly influences users' behavioural intentions to use hotel booking services. Therefore, the hotel’s function value significantly affects users' behavioural intention to go for hotel booking (Ahn & Back, 2019; Lee et al., 2011).

Emotional Value

Emotional value is the utility obtained from the affective states or feelings that a product or service brings out (Sweeneya & Soutar, 2001). Emotional value positively influences experiential satisfaction and behavioural intentions in the tourism industry (Wu et al., 2018). In the context of hotel booking intentions, emotional value is the perceived value derived by a customer in distinction to the affective state that the hotel will generate while using the services (Lee et al., 2011). When the perceived value of the services satisfies customers' psychological or mental needs, customers' emotional value tends to be higher, leading to a higher offline satisfaction (Chang, 2008; Lee et al., 2020). Emotional value is one of the factors which can be used as a determinant to measure the offline satisfactionof the customer. Therefore, the hotel’s perceived emotional value significantly influences users' behavioural intention to book a hotel.

Social Value

Social value refers to the perceived utility linked with the customer's geographical, demographic, financial, political, ethnic and cultural scopes following the attributes of the product or service in social groups (Sheth et al., 1991). Social value signifies the utility gained from the product or service to improve the collective reputation of group or community, in compliance with the preferences of others (Chen et al., 2016). This concept suggests that a product or service can be valuable not just for its direct benefits, but also for the positive impact it can have on the wider social context. It is the value resulting from the ability of the product or the service to increase the social status of the customer (Menard, 2016).

In the context of hotel booking intentions, social value is considered the perceived social approval and impression a customer will generate while using the hotel services. While booking a room in a hotel, if a customer gets a sense of an increased self-identification, it increases the offline satisfaction of the customer (Waheed & Hassan, 2016). Therefore, perceived social value can be a determining factor for offline satisfaction.

Monetary Value

The monetary value represents the value perceived by the consumers where the price level provided by the hotel are regarded as reasonable and fair as against the competitive offerings of the other hotels (Ladeira et al., 2016). Monetary value shows the economic benefits derived to the customer while using the hotel services (Lee & Phau, 2018). The price offered has a significant functional value in the tourism industry (Chiang & Jang, 2006).

In the context of hotel booking intentions, when a customer spends money, time and effort to book a hotel, customers reflect the economic value received.If the hotel services can give a higher monetary value to the customers, the high monetary value will eventually increase offline satisfaction (Emir et al., 2016). Therefore, monetary value can be considered as a factor influencing the offline satisfaction of the customers.

The literature review on the parameters of offline satisfaction while booking a hotel is given in Table 3.

Table 3. Empirical Research Investigating Offline Satisfaction.

Conclusion and Managerial Implications

This article has addressed the research question that aimed to explore the current state of knowledge and awareness of the satisfaction and booking intentions of customers who book hotels online. Using a systematic literature review technique, this article reviewed 62 booking intention articles to identify the contexts where satisfaction and booking intentions have been examined from 2000 to 2023. The current research offers a timely and practical overview of essential satisfaction and hotel booking intentions theories. The applicability of the present study is for academics in line with the growing importance of digital platforms in the hospitality and tourism industry to improve customer satisfaction and find new possibilities for co-creation and innovation. The researchers found that the number of studies on hotel booking intention has significantly increased since 2014. Authors from the USA, Taiwan, China, and South Korea contributed to most of the studies on hotel booking intention conducted from 2000 to 2023. The result shows that the antecedent of online satisfaction is the information quality, system quality, and service quality. The independent variables that influence offline satisfaction are emotional value, functional value, monetary value and social value. Consequently, Figure 5 illustrates the integrated proposed research model for hotel booking intention, incorporating both online and offline satisfaction factors.

 Figure  5. Proposed Model.

From an academic point of view, the systematic literature review has disseminated a conceptual model, a modest evolution of factors influencing hotel booking intention, and an increased interest in this research field. Optimistically, by giving new insights into how hotel booking intentions have developed, the present study provides an opportunity to enhance this field further.

Additionally, the present research can have real value for practitioners and academics by exploring the state of academic research on hotel booking intentionby way of satisfaction with online hotel booking and providing potential further research developments. The present study integrates the contexts that have been discussed in the existing hospitality and tourism literature. The articles consideredfor review were expected to signify the current status of research on booking intentions. They are published in the top 10 major tourism and hospitality journals that havebeen extensively cited in the field. Therefore, in the following section, we come up with the theoretical implications followed by a research agenda for further research possibilities, managerial implications and finally, the limitations of the research.

Managerial Implications

The results mentioned in the previous section can be insightful for hotel managers, as they need extensive consumer knowledge to relate to the offerings, and satisfaction while booking online offers powerful insights to support them in accomplishing this goal. Hotel managers can exploit it and formulate a digital marketing strategy to target potential customers.

All the factors influencing the hotel booking intention suggest managerial implications and help hotel managers to take an active part in creating a digital presence for their hotel. Results have showcased hotels’ importance in maintaining a digital presence that meets customers' desires and allows booking smoothly. Consequently, if hotel managers aim to optimise their hotel's digital media presence, they have to keep an eye on the evolution of rapidly changing technologies tostay in touch with customers.

It is highly advisable for managers of the hotels to categorically define the content of information available on the website by paying more attention to the facilities provided. Finally, they should present their hotel on digital platforms using the best-suited visual and tactile sensory means to effectively communicate the different values around their hotels.

Limitations and Future Scope

Final, this study has some limitations. To begin with, it has a limited scope, which only covers the period from 2000 to 2023. Second, the study merely selected and reviewed satisfaction (online and offline) and booking intentions research articles published in peer-reviewed journals only. Other sources like printed books, research thesis, industrial reports and articles in conference proceedings were excluded for review purposes. Studies in the future may ponder this drawback, and they may cover all these sources to get more published data. Third, this article included only 10 selected journals recognised with the Scopus Cite Score metrics in 2022. Studies in the future may look at some other databases and enhance the scope of their research. Lastly, this study focused on articles published in the tourism and hospitality literature. Studies in the future are directed to use other research, such as marketing and consumer behaviour, which is also focused on understanding and predicting consumer behavioural intentions and their booking intentions.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Khalil Ahmad  https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8951-2640