Abstract:

The e-commerce industry is rapidly growing. In recent years, there has been a dynamic increase in the number of people searching for and purchasing products using the Internet in some countries. Travel service companies have also taken advantage of the internet. Currently, booking accommodation using online portals constitutes a significant percentage of global tourism service sales. The increasing interest of consumers in this form of accommodation booking has led to a systematic increase in the number of internet intermediaries in the tourism industry. Online intermediaries in the tourism industry provide various options, including comparing hotels, tourism products, travel destinations, brands, prices, and amenities that are essential for consumers. The study conducted for this article aimed to evaluate the significant factors during the booking of accommodation using accommodation booking portals. The study aimed to identify which factors are essential when booking accommodation using online accommodation booking portals, as well as to examine how respondents evaluate the selected portals in terms of these factors. To determine the factors that influenced the choice of particular portals for booking accommodation and how respondents evaluated these factors on those portals, quantitative methods, and specifically an online survey questionnaire, were used. The results show that Booking.com is the best-perceived portal for booking accommodation according to respondents. All the discussed features were rated the highest by respondents. The other three portals mentioned by respondents that they use significantly differed from the Booking.com portal.