BERLIN SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND LAW

Institute of Management Berlin (IMB)

Chinese and German consumer behavior

when purchasing air tickets online
Egor Bychkov
BSEL Matriculation No.: 385178

Masters Thesis
Master of Arts
Chinese-European Economics and Business Studies
Number of words: 14152

1st Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Yang Chen

2nd Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Joachim Scholz-Ligma

Berlin
30 May 2014

Abstract
With the advent of the era of information technology the number of Internet
users taking advantage of online shopping has been steadily growing. Such
tendency is also applicable to the travel industry and its big part online air ticket
bookings, which has rapidly adopted Internet technology and online services.
Having its enormous population and huge number of travellers shopping online,
Chinese online air ticket market presents great potential for domestic firms as well
as for foreign agents. In this study consumer behavior of Chinese and German air
ticket buyers is examined in a cross-cultural perspective. Based on the 5-stage
model of the buying decision process and Hofstedes dimensions of national
culture this research identifies differences and similarities between the Chinese
and the Germans in terms of their information search, purchase and post purchase
behavior. The findings reveal what sources of information are mostly used and
what attributes of online air ticket offer are mostly valued by air passengers from
these two countries. In addition, this study tests several hypotheses about
travellers perceptions of sales agents reputation and mobile devices usage and
draws some conclusions and implications for a foreign air ticket agent planning to
expand to Chinese market.

Keywords:

Consumer behavior, online shopping, online travel market, air

ticket booking, China, Germany, cross-cultural comparison

-2-

Table of contents
1. Introduction.......4
1.1 Research gap addressed, research question and strategic questions..5
1.2 Contribution and structure of the thesis.....7
2. Literature review...................................................................................7
2.1 Air ticket sales structure and main definitions...7
2.2 Chinas online travel market and air tickets sales......9
2.3 Consumer behavior during the online travel booking.....11
2.4 Online air tickets purchase behavior........14
2.5 Cultural aspects of online purchase behavior in China and across cultures....16
3. Study objectives and hypotheses....21
3.1 General objectives of the study........21
3.2 Research hypotheses........22
4. Data collection and results..26
4.1 Questionnaire structure and development....26
4.2 Samples and data collection.27
4.3 Survey results...28
4.3.1 Demographic data28
4.3.2 Travellers air ticket purchase experience...29
4.3.3 Hypotheses testing...33
5. Discussion and implications...34
6. Research limitations37
7. Conclusion..37
Bibliography39
Appendices..45
List of tables
Table 1: Research dimensions of online travel booking behavior....14
Table 2: Research dimensions of online air ticket booking intention..16
Table 3: Statements for the proposed hypotheses....26
Table 4: Respondents demographic profile.....29
Table 5: Respondents air ticket purchase experience......30
Table 6: Comparison of Chinese and German respondents attitudes towards air
ticket purchase.........34
List of figures
Figure 1: Simplified structure of air ticket sales.....9
Figure 2: Hofstedes dimensions of national culture for China....17
Figure 3: Comparison of Hofstedes dimensions of national culture for China and
Germany..21
Figure 4: Respondents area of residence.....28

-3-

1. Introduction
New era of information technology brought multiple advantages to the
mankind. In particular, the Internet allowed us to search for goods in stores right
from our apartments and find best offers in several clicks. More and more people
all over the world prefer to shop online and order all kinds of products on different
websites. Apart from consumer goods sales and e-tailing, online travelling sector
has been booming in recent years and the number of users booking their vacations
on the Web has been steadily growing. Historically, air tickets sales represented a
big part of the travel industry and their share is even more significant when
talking about online travelling.
According to the forecast of International Air Transport Association (IATA),
the annual number of airline passengers worldwide will reach 3,3 billion in 2014,
which makes it approximately 9 million people holding an air ticket and boarding
a plane every day all over the world. Over the last few years, digital environment
has significantly shaped the relationship between primary ticket sellers, i.e.
airlines, intermediaries (e.g. travel agencies or other ticket resellers) and their
customers air passengers. One of the consequences of that process is that online
electronic ticket booking started dominating as the main channel of shopping for
flights in the end of the 2000s (Chao et al., 2009: 176). To say more, that process
of transition towards e-ticketing is being fueled by the convenience, time saving
and cost efficiency of paperless air tickets. Those travellers, who are too busy to
purchase flight tickets via phone, in physical ticket offices or over the counter,
benefit from online bookings in the first place (Chao et al., 2009). Such shift
emphasizes the importance of the Internet for the future of travel and air ticket
industries, especially in developing countries.
Being the most populous country in the world and at the same time a rapidly
developing economy, China presents great potential as a consumer market. For the
online sales this is particularly promising due to the intensive development of the
Internet in China. According to the report of China Internet Network Information
Center (CNNIC) released in January 2014, the number of Internet users in China
increased by 9,5% in 2013, reaching 618 million. However, because of huge total
population, this number makes countrys Internet penetration rate only 45,8%,
which is a relatively moderate figure compared to those of many Western
countries (CNNIC, 2014). Nevertheless, China remains a country with the biggest
number of netizens that is projected to exceed 700 million in 2015 (Wonderful
-4-

Copenhagen R&D, 2013). The number of international air passengers among

them will also keep increasing and is expected to reach 100 million by the year
2016 (IATA, 2013). For the online travel market and air ticket sales it means that
more and more Chinese travellers will opt for online distribution channels.
The Chinese today head for other countries for educational, business or travel
and shopping purposes. The ability to satisfy all such needs of Chinese visitors
makes Europe an attractive destination for them. Therefore, European online air
ticket sellers could take advantage of growing demand for air tickets to foreign
destinations. However, in order to reach more Chinese passengers it is better to be
present and recognized in the Chinese segment of the Internet. But one should
remember that online behavior of Chinese ticket buyers may be different from that
of the westerners because of different cultural background and distinct attitudes
towards online ticket purchasing. And moreover, the size of the travel market in
China and social factors in its society should not be neglected. That is why before
devising a market entry strategy for China, it is crucial to comprehend the drivers
of Chinese travellers buying decisions.
1.1 Research gap addressed, research question and strategic questions
Today one can find plenty of academic works studying online consumer
behavior and online travel market. Due to the linkages of the research question of
this study to several different scientific areas, including consumer behavior online,
travel bookings and air ticket purchase as well as online buying behavior across
cultures, literature from each of these areas had been reviewed prior to the survey.
According to the object of the research, existing related literature can be classified
into the following categories: online consumer behavior and buyers attitudes
towards online shopping, cross-cultural comparison of such attitudes, antecedents
and determinants of online travel bookings and online air tickets purchase
behavior. However, limited research has been carried out to compare actual
consumer behavior across nations when purchasing air tickets on the Internet.
Thus, following the suggestions of Amaro and Duarte (2012) for inquiring into a
question of actual behavior in the context of travel bookings combined with the
recommendations of Beldona et al. (2005) for future evaluation of a single travel
product category, this paper intends to fill a small part of the described knowledge
gap.

-5-

Driven by the interest of a German air ticket agent to enter Chinas travel
market this research was undertaken to understand travellers purchase behavior
in China and Europe, with the latter represented by Germany. Understanding the
customer is viewed here as one of the first steps for further estimation of the
potential and prospects in a new market. Besides, such interest is also
accompanied by several practical questions. Being closer to and more familiar
with his domestic customers a German seller would like to know how Chinese
consumers search for air tickets online as opposed to other nations. What are the
preferences of people in China when they make a decision to book an air ticket
and are these preferences significantly different from those of the Germans? Will
a foreign air ticket agent have to overcome the psychic distance (Johanson and
Vahlne, 1977) between himself and ticket buyers from China when the latter are
too cautious about dealing with a foreign company? Altogether these strategic
questions led to the formulation of the research questions for this study:
How do Chinese consumers behave when they purchase air tickets online
compared to the Germans?
The focus of this paper is to observe, examine and analyze differences and
similarities in consumer behavior of Chinese and German travellers when
purchasing air tickets online. The reason for the interest in Chinese consumers lies
in future market potential and growth of this industry in China. As for Germany, it
was chosen as a representative of European society for several reasons. Firstly, as
it was reported by World Travel & Tourism council in the end of 2013, German
travel market is among the most developed travel markets in Europe with the total
value of $US 152 billion, including approximately $US 11 billion of online travel
market value. German Travel & Tourism industrys total impact on countrys
GDP accounted for 4,4% in 2013 and is expected to grow at the annual average
rate of 1,7% over the next decade (World Travel & Tourism Council, 2013a).
Secondly, Germany is the most populous country in the EU with the largest
number of potential travellers and air passengers in this region. In 2013 total
number of passengers landing at or taking off from German airports exceeded 200
million (the exact number is 201,6 million), adding 1,4 million as opposed to the
year 2012 (Deutscher Reiseverband, 2014). Finally, the importance of the research
related to the Chinese and German markets and business environment of these two
countries in a cross cultural perspective was determined by the specificity of MA
CEEBS program.
-6-

1.2 Contribution and structure of the thesis

Taking into account previous findings in the fields of online consumer
behavior in China and across nations and the determinants of consumers online
travel booking behavior, this paper aims at investigating what differences and
similarities exist in the perceptions of people in China and Germany when they
search and buy air tickets on the Internet. With the help of the model of consumer
behavior and the theory of national culture this study proposes and empirically
tests the hypotheses about air ticket booking attitudes of Chinese and German
travellers. In addition, it observes their preferences and choices related to the
attributes of online air ticket offers.
Based on its findings this research provides some practical advice and
strategic implications for foreign air ticket resellers and online ticket sales service
companies that plan to expand their business activity to the Chinese online travel
market. In academic sense this paper paves the way for further research into air
passengers behavior in a Chinese-European perspective. Its contribution can
serve as an example and an impetus for a deeper investigation into the described
range of questions.
The detailed review of relevant literature from different research areas along
with the overview of Chinas online travel market and air ticket sales structure are
presented in the next chapter. Following that, main objectives of the study are
described, including several hypotheses, which were formulated and backed up
with reasoning and arguments on the basis of the analysis of available existing
findings in the related areas. Subsequent chapters provide the information about
data collection process, survey results, their analysis, discussion and implications.
In the end concluding remarks and recommendations for future research are drawn.

2. Literature review

2.1 Air ticket sales structure and main definitions

To put it simple, air ticket booking is a process of purchasing a particular seat
on board of a particular flight by a particular air passenger. Thus, it can be stated
that the oversimplified structure of air ticket industry consists of two main parties:
a seller an airline - and a buyer - an air passenger. However, the detailed
structure is a bit more complicated.
-7-

Firstly, there is an obvious need to technically establish a correspondence

between an exact traveller and his or her flight seat. For this reason in the middle
of the 20th century airlines started to introduce Computer Reservation Systems
(CRS) information systems to store and retrieve information about air travel
(Klein, 2002: 220). Later CRS developed into Global Distribution Systems (GDS)
information systems that integrate access to multiple airlines and also
encompass other travel related services, including hotel reservations, car rentals
etc. (Iordache and Voiculet, 2010). Initially set up by airlines, such systems then
have gradually become important independent actors in the structure of air ticket
distribution and have been heavily used by travel agents as means of access to
tariffs and information on availability of transport and accommodation services
(Klein, 2002: 220).
Secondly, the described system implies that there is a variety of ways for a
traveller to purchase a ticket. To put it in a nutshell, nowadays the value chain of
air ticket sales consists of two main channels. Originally airlines can sell tickets to
passengers directly on their own websites from their proprietary CRS. But a much
greater number of them is distributed via the second channel - indirect B2B sales,
when intermediaries and resellers like wholesale platforms, online travel agencies
(OTAs) or traditional offline agencies purchase tickets from airlines in bigger
volume, and thus at lower prices, for future resale to final consumers. Both direct
and indirect sales are usually performed with the help of third-parties so-called
metasearch engines or similar sources that provide searching and price
comparison of a variety of available offers from airlines as well as from OTAs
and other resellers. In addition, OTAs and traditional agencies offer tickets by
themselves on the Internet or in offices. Figure 1 presents a simplified structure of
air ticket sales.

-8-

Figure 1: Simplified structure of air ticket sales

(adapted from Chea, 2006 and iResearch, 2013)

2.2 Chinas online travel market and air tickets sales

According to the findings of World Travel & Tourism Council in 2013 Travel
and Tourism industry in China generated a total impact of more than $US 800
billion of countrys GDP. This figure includes direct, indirect and induced impacts
and accounts for 9,3% of Chinas total GDP in 2013, which is larger than the
share of such sectors as automotive manufacturing, banking, communication
services and education (World Travel & Tourism Council, 2013b). During the
next decade total contribution of Travel & Tourism sector to GDP is forecasted to
grow at the average annual rate of 6,6%, leaving room for the development of all
sorts of travel related businesses. Considering Chinas increasing Internet
penetration rate and growing popularity of online travel booking, one can estimate
huge market potential for companies providing online travelling services.
Indeed, Chinas online travel gross merchandise volume (GMV) reached 220
billion RMB or approximately $US 37 billion in 2013, surging 29% as opposed to
2012 (iResearch, 2014). GMV indicates the total value of all travel products
booked and transacted online, including direct sales and sales of third-party agents.
The biggest part of Chinas online travel market is occupied by online air ticket
bookings. Despite the fact that since 2011 its share has been slightly decreasing, it
still constituted more than 60% of the total online travel market in 2013
(iResearch, 2014). Moreover, due to Chinas rapid economic development and
growing newly-rich middle class, which tends to travel and thus to fly more, it is
-9-

reasonable to expect air ticket industry to keep booming in the future. All in all,
along with the development of aviation industry in China and existing tendency of
this market towards maturity, the growth rate of air ticket sales is projected to
stabilize at around 12% per annum (iResearch, 2013: 11).
Total value of air tickets sales in China almost reached 300 billion RMB in
2013 with the average of almost 1 million tickets sold per day (iResearch, 2013).
Accordingly, the market share of online air tickets distribution amounted for 27%
in 2012 and was expected to further increase in 2013, exceeding 30% of total air
ticket sales, reports iResearch Consulting Group. Online channels are getting
extremely popular among Chinese travellers and are gradually taking over from
the offline channels. However, even though OTAs are eroding the market share of
traditional agencies, the latter still remain one of the major sources for air ticket
purchase. The streets of Chinese megalopolises are still abundant in offline travel
agencies offices, which makes one assume that many Chinese, especially of older
generation, still prefer to buy tickets offline and to delegate to office sales
managers the right of finding and choosing best offers.
In terms of structure of the online air ticket market, in 2012 about 60% of
tickets were provided by OTAs and the rest came from direct online sales
(iResearch, 2013). At the same time, third-party sales platforms keep dominating
over non third-party platforms as a major online sales channel for air tickets. Such
platforms provided more than 60% of online ticket sales in 2012 and this number
was expected to grow in 2013 (iResearch, 2013). Fierce competition between
expanding travel platforms, OTAs and direct online sales is projected to be one of
the main characteristics of this market in the next years.
Another trend noted by market researchers from iResearch Consulting Group
is a growing tendency of Chinese consumers to self-guided tours and outbound
vacation. Independent planning and booking of different components of a journey
by future travellers is expected to give additional impetus to the development of
online air ticket sales and other related services.
Finally, when talking about online sales another highlight of Chinas Internet
development an advent of mobile era marked by the rapid growth of mobile
Internet users - should not be neglected. By the end of 2013 more than 500 million
people in China accessed Internet via their mobile devices (ZDNet, 2014). This
number accounts for 80% of countrys total Internet users and has grown about 19%
as opposed to 2012 (CNNIC, 2014). In terms of online travel market it in the first
- 10 -

place implies a facilitated development of mobile travel applications apps and

additional importance of mobile strategies for the incumbents and new entrants
(iResearch, 2014: 21).

2.3 Online consumer behavior and online travel booking

Understanding customers motives, stimuli and incentives, which drive their
purchase decision, is a corner stone of success on the market and thus is one of the
main goals of marketing analysts. In order to understand customers behavior the
Five-Stage model of buying decision process has been developed. This model
disaggregates the process of purchasing into 5 steps, namely, problem recognition,
information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase decision and post
purchase behavior (Kotler and Keller, 2009: 207-214).
According to Kotler and Keller (2009), when buying a product, an individual
will not necessarily pass through all the stages of the model. Depending on the
complexity and availability of the product as well as on the proficiency and
exactingness of a particular consumer, one or several steps may be skipped.
Moreover, in each stage actual behavior of a buyer is determined by many factors.
Due to different cultural and social backgrounds, personal traits, motives and
attitudes different consumers have different needs triggered by different
circumstances. That is why they search for the information with different
thoroughness and intensity, pay attention to various attributes of the desired
product and take into account their specific preferences in purchase decision
process and post purchase behavior.
It is noteworthy that information technology has significantly influenced the
above described process. On the one hand, it has made some steps easier and has
given additional advantages to buyers by providing unlimited access to the
information and reducing their transaction costs, but on the other hand, it has
added risk and uncertainty in other stages (Muller et al., 2011).
Since the beginning of the 21st century, with the proliferation of the Internet
and increasing number of benefits and advantages of e-commerce, the tendency of
Internet users to shop online has been growing. Therefore, many studies have
been devoted to consumers perception of online shopping. Consumers
perception is based on their online shopping attitudes that refer to individuals
psychology and determine persons shopping behavior and willingness to buy
during the purchase decision process (Li and Zhang, 2002: 508).
- 11 -

Previously researchers endeavored to assess the importance and contribution

of various factors that make impact on consumers attitudes towards online
purchasing. According to the observations of Li and Zhang (2002) and Guo and
Noor (2011), in recent years the scholars have identified and summarized the
following antecedents of such attitudes: website quality and perceived usability,
security and privacy on the Internet, vendors credibility and reputation as well as
product characteristics and after sale services. Additionally, other academics
attached importance to personal and demographic features of online buyers,
among which such factors as educational and cultural background, Internet
knowledge and experience and daily amount of time spent online were listed.
Development of the Internet and online sales had its impact not only on
consumer goods market, but on other markets and industries, including travel
industry. Travellers nowadays take advantage of convenient and facilitated
information search on the Web and opt for online channels when planning and
booking their journeys. Considering consumers preference for higher quality and
lower prices, reduced search cost increases search depth and changes optimal
online search strategy (Zhang et al., 2007: 21). Due to these facts online travel
market and tourists behavior has drawn attention of various market researchers
(Peng et al., 2013: 1).
Amaro and Duarte (2012) point out in their review that, similar to the case of
purchasing of physical goods, such antecedents as personal and channel
characteristics have been studied in a travel shopping context. In this regard
attitudes towards online travel booking, determinants of the decision process for
purchasing travel on the Web and the relationship between those variables were
scrutinized. Existing literature on that score is miscellaneous, so before getting
engaged into this study it was necessary to sort out relevant factors from a broad
range of findings. For that purpose the paper of Peng et al. (2013) and its
summary were used. In their work Hongxia Peng and his co-authors systematize
existing findings in online travel shopping and group them in accordance with 3
aggregated stages of consumer behavior model.
In the first group findings related to information search behavior are revealed.
The importance of online travel search is also emphasized by Conyette (2012),
whose conceptual framework identifies search and planning behavior as a
significant predictor of further booking behavior. In particular, the framework
states that online travel booking intention is determined not only by attitudes
- 12 -

towards the Internet and online searching or functional, innovation and other
needs of travellers (Vogt and Fesenmaier, 1998), but also by beliefs about travel
websites and travel agents (Conyette, 2012: 8), which is important for this study.
Additionally, the authors foresee growing popularity of mobile devices and
suggest undertaking future research about their role in online travel searching.
The second group of findings summarized by Peng et al. (2013) presents the
determinants of online travel booking behavior in a purchase stage. Here for this
research it was important to understand that online booking intention rests upon
the characteristics of the website such as usefulness, convenience and security,
characteristics of online vendors, especially their reputation and prices, and
personal characteristics of consumer himself, including age, gender, educational
background and Internet experience. These features were chosen from a variety of
factors and taken into consideration for the research structure when creating a
questionnaire. Moreover, future importance of mobile travel bookings was
mentioned again in the described part of the summary (Peng et al., 2013: 281).
The last part of the described review deals with customers loyalty formation
after booking. For the survey of this study two main ideas were derived from this
group of findings. Firstly, apart from website and information quality perceived
value is important for customer satisfaction and possibility of repurchase,
especially in the case of air ticket bookings (Llach et al., 2013). Secondly, offline
service factors of online booking and their influence on loyalty formation have not
been broadly studied so far both in online travel industry in general and with
regard to airline tickets booking in particular (Peng et al., 2013: 282).
Table 1 provides a summary of online travel booking behavior research
dimensions.

- 13 -

Table 1: Research dimensions of online travel booking behavior

Stage
Information
searching
behavior

Booking
behavior

Post purchase
behavior

Online travel booking

Determinants and important factors
- Tourists functional and other needs
(Vogt and Fesenmaier, 1998)
- Beliefs about travel websites (Conyette,
2012)
- Beliefs about travel agents (Conyette,
2012)
- Internet characteristics: usefulness,
website quality, security, convenience
(Heung, 2003);
- Vendors characteristics: price, reputation
(Kim et al., 2006);
- Consumers characteristics: age, gender,
educational background, Internet
experience (Li and Buhalis, 2006);

Suggestions
- Role of mobile devices
in online travel search
(Conyette, 2012)

- Factors influencing
perceived value of online
bookings (Peng et al.,
2013);
- Travel booking
behavior with regard to
specific product
categories (Amaro and
Duarte, 2012);
- Future role of mobile
devices in online travel
booking (Peng et al.,
2013);
- Information quality (Li and Zhang, 2002); - Offline service factors
- Perceived value (Llach et al., 2013);
of online travel booking
(Peng et al., 2013)

2.4 Online air tickets purchase behavior

According to the review of Amaro and Duarte (2012), even though the studies
related to online travel industry are numerous, academic papers focusing on
specific travel product categories, and in particular air tickets, are less abundant in
quantity. Nevertheless, there are several works directly linked to current research.
First of all, Beldona et al. (2005) distinguish between high and low
complexity travel products and states that online shopping motivations of these
two categories are distinctively different. In a classification based on complexity
air tickets belong to low complexity travel products, have more tangible
parameters and thus are easier to evaluate (Beldona et al., 2005: 562). Importantly,
online booking motivations of this type of products are driven by transactional
objectives and customers desire to derive greater value. So accordingly, such
purchases are associated with lower price and effective rewards programs
(Beldona et al., 2005: 568).
The research conducted by Sam and Tahir (2009) examines website quality
factors as antecedents of online purchase intention of air tickets. The findings
reveal that website design, usability and information quality along with trust and
- 14 -

empathy can give additional advantage to airlines, air ticket sellers or service
providers and trigger customers online purchase intention (Sam and Tahir, 2009:
8). The notion of empathy implies personalization and individualized attention to
the customer. It intertwines with the dimension of trust and altogether enhances
the value and therefore strengthens buyers intention to purchase. Additionally, it
is proposed that trust and empathy play a mediating role between website
characteristics and final purchase intention (Sam and Tahir, 2009: 7).
Similar approach was chosen by Bukhari et al. (2013), who added to the
above mentioned factors several other constructs such as system quality, airline
reputation and price perception. The framework proposed by the authors identifies
and measures the relationship between these factors and consumers electronic
satisfaction and intention to buy tickets online from airlines websites.
Kim et al. (2005) and Kim et al. (2009) focus on one of the factors
influencing travellers behavior in purchasing airline tickets on the Internet
perceived risk. At first, the correlation between different dimensions of risk was
established and their impact on customers willingness to buy air tickets online
was analyzed (Kim et al., 2005). Later it was discovered that in overall risk of air
ticket purchase security dimension is the most important. In addition it was found
out that taking into consideration web vendors reputation and recommendations
from personal network are preferred as risk-reduction strategies when buying air
tickets online (Kim et al., 2009).
A more practical approach was undertaken by Toh et al. (2012). The surveys
were conducted in order to examine passengers perception of online air ticket
sales as well as factors affecting their actual behavior when making choices and
buying air tickets on the Web. Several findings of this paper deserve attention in
terms of their relation to this study. Firstly, the role of the Internet as a dominating
channel to search flights and favorable attitude of passengers towards online travel
agents were acknowledged (Toh et al., 2012: 83). Secondly, it was reported that,
logically, leisure travellers are more likely to book air tickets on the web than
business travellers, who most of the time rely on corporate travel planners (Toh et
al., 2012: 84). Expectedly, lower fares were revealed to be one of the main
motives driving passengers behavior. That is why due to the convenience of the
Internet for comparing flights on the basis of price ticket buyers opt for online
ticket sales channels. Interestingly, women were found out to be much more
aggressive low price seekers rather than men. All in all, the paper by Toh et al.
- 15 -

(2012) is one of the rare studies, which provides more practical than academic
insights and implications about this sector of the travel industry.
Another investigation providing grounds for this research was carried out by
Park et al. (2009). In their work the determinants of air passengers buying
behavior were analyzed in a cross-cultural context. The findings report that
travellers purchase behavior depends on their expectations, ticket price and
airline service quality and differs not only by airlines, but also across cultures, in
particular between Korean and Australian passengers.
The findings of papers related to online air ticket booking and travellers
intention to purchase tickets on the Internet are summarized in Table 2.

Table 2: Research dimensions of online air ticket booking intention

Drivers of online air ticket booking intention
Transactional
Trust and security
- Low ticket price
- Risk and its dimensions
(Beldona et al., 2005); (Kim et al., 2005);
(Toh et al., 2012);
(Park et al., 2009);
- Airline and sellers
-Convenience of
reputation
information search - Buyers perception (Bukhari et al., 2013);
(Toh et al., 2012); of price (Bukhari et
al., 2013);
- Airlines service factors
-Website usability
(Park et al., 2009);
(Sam and Tahir,
- Rewards
2009);
(Beldona et al., 2005); - Empathy
(Sam and Tahir, 2009);
Informational
- Information
quality (Sam and
Tahir, 2009);

Other
- Cultural
aspects
(Park et al.,
2009);
- Traits and
characteristics
of travellers
(Toh et al.,
2012);

2.5 Cultural aspects of online purchase behavior in China and across

nations
Nowadays being established in Chinese market along with having the
understanding of Chinese consumers traits has become an essential part of a
business strategy of many companies. When talking about the specificity of
Chinese consumers and their distinction from Western counterparts many authors
(Gong et al., 2012; Wu and Ozkan, 2010; Mazaheri et al., 2009) often appeal to
Hofstedes dimensions of national culture (Hofstede, 1991 and Hofstede, 2001).
Each of the dimensions, namely power distance, individualism, uncertainty
avoidance, masculinity and long-term orientation addresses different aspects of
- 16 -

culture. Power distance addresses the attitude towards inequality and measures the
acceptance of it in society. The dimension of individualism deals with the
interdependence among society members and relation between the individual and
the group. Uncertainty avoidance describes how the society deals with uncertainty
and ambiguous situations. Long-term orientation dimension helps to distinguish
between societies attaching more importance to the future and those promoting the
values related to the past and the present, including preservation of tradition and
respect for it. And masculinity has to do with dominant values and motivations in
society whether it is a desire to be the best or a concern about others and quality
of life. Later the framework was extended by adding the dimensions of
pragmatism and indulgence. According to the online Hofstede Centre, pragmatism
describes peoples attitude towards the fact that many things in life cannot be
completely explained and fully understood, whereas indulgence is based on
measuring the extent to which the society members control their impulses or
desires and to which their life is regulated by strict norms.
When applied to China and Chinese consumer behavior several dimensions
deserve particular attention. All the scores for all dimensions of Chinese culture
are presented in Figure 1. Here individualism vs. collectivism, long-term
orientation and pragmatism are important for the understanding of the drivers of
Chinese buyers behavior separately as well as compared to other countries.
China
118
87

80
66

20

Power
Distance

30

24

Individualism Masculinity Uncertainty Long-term Pragmatism Indulgence

Avoidance Orientation

Figure 2: Hofstedes dimensions of national culture for China [adapted from The
Hofstede Centre]

Scoring low in the dimension of individualism makes China a highly

collectivist culture, meaning that the role of a group is very important in Chinese
society (The Hofstede Centre, 2014). For the information search stage of the
- 17 -

consumer behavior model that means Chinese shoppers to a big extent rely on
their network and interpersonal communication in order to acquire information
(Mooij and Hofstede, 2011; Doran, 2000). Most often the Chinese seek for the
information among their acquaintances, friends and family members, easier accept
it from these sources and consider it in the first place when making a final
purchase decision (Doran, 2002; Luo, 2009).
Two other significant aspects are a very high score in long-term orientation
and a high level of pragmatism of Chinese society. According to the Hofstede
Centre, one of the important features of a pragmatic culture is the value attached
to being thrifty and not wasting ones money and other resources. That is why
price is revealed to be an important driver of Chinese consumer behavior during
the purchasing process and the stage of evaluating of existing alternatives (Li et
al., 1995). At the same time, in a long-term oriented collectivist culture the notion
of harmony is heavily emphasized (Mooij and Hofstede, 2011). Due to that price
may not necessarily be the main determinant for taking a buying decision.
Depending on the product, situation and demographic characteristics a Chinese
consumer can evaluate such attributes as sellers reputation, product quality and
functions or brand higher than the price (Lee, 2005: 60). Moreover, Mooij and
Hofstede point out that maintaining harmony influences complaining behavior of
the society members. People in such cultures are less likely to submit an official
complaint, if they are not satisfied with the service or product, but will distribute
this negative review in own personal network. It is also much more difficult to
win such customers back after their negative experience (Mooij and Hofstede,
2011: 189), which all in all elevates the role of sellers reputation and after sale
service.
During the last decade with the explosive growth of e-commerce in China
online market and online consumer behavior has been of particular interest for
consulting agencies (MEC China, 2011; KPMG, 2014) as well as for scholars (Li
and Buhalis, 2006; Guo, J. and Noor, 2011). Several consulting agencies focusing
on online business in China in their reports summarize the most typical traits of
Chinese consumers (Beg et al., 2013; DDMA, 2011). Some of these traits are
directly related to this study and stages of buying decision process examined by
this research. Firstly, Beg et al. (2013) point out that the Internet is the most
frequently used source of information for Chinese shoppers. Similar idea is
reflected in the observation of DDMA (2011) stating that online information has
- 18 -

great impact on final purchase decision of Chinese buyers and Internet users.
According to the findings of DDMA (2011), in China numerous online sources
are taken into consideration prior to the purchase and it is rare that one channel
prevails over the others. Depending on the product category, Chinese consumers
use various combinations of sources to collect the required information and place
different importance on different online channels (DDMA, 2011: 11). However,
the report of Beg et al. (2013) also confirms that information from other
consumers is often even more important and considerably shapes buying decisions
of the Chinese (Beg et al., 2013: 2). Finally, the summary stresses that customers
loyalty in china is often determined not by financial factors, but by companys
image and appeal, which makes it more and more difficult to maintain (Beg et al.,
2013: 4).
Apart from profound cultural studies and interest of consulting agencies,
Chinese consumer behavior and specifically online behavior and attitudes
attracted the attention of scholars. For instance, Guo and Noor (2011) examined
the factors, which influence the attitudes of Chinese consumers towards adopting
online shopping. In their study it was found out that such variables as sellers
reputation and marketing mix have a greater impact on the attitudes of Chinese
shoppers than perceived usability, security or privacy. The authors emphasize the
effect of product, price, promotion and place features on adopting online
purchasing in China. They also arguably state that after sale service or security of
online payment do not influence such adoption process and recommend online
vendors to focus on merchandizing as well as product quality, price and brand
characteristics (Guo and Noor, 2011: 30).
Li and Buhalis (2003) also attempted to identify the influential factors of
online shopping in China, but narrowed it down to travel products available on the
Web. In this paper they mainly focused on socio-demographic factors and such
perceptions of the Internet as complexity or compatibility, which altogether are
important for adopting online bookings of tourism products by those users, who
previously only looked and searched for travel information (Li and Buhalis, 2003).
Corresponding to the cross-cultural context of this research, existing works
have endeavored to study online behavior of different nations in comparison.
When comparing China to the Western World, scholars in their approach bring
into play Hofstedes dimensions as it is done in this paper.
- 19 -

To start with, Gong t al. (2012) examined the attitudes towards online
shopping in China and the US. Drawing on the theory of cultural dimensions the
authors identified significant differences in the perceptions of online purchase
process between these two countries. In particular, Chinese consumers, on the one
hand, tend to see buying goods on the Internet as a more complex, but on the other
hand, as a more advantageous and less risky way of shopping than their American
counterparts (Gong et al., 2012: 32).However, several other studies reveal that the
correlation between a positive attitude towards online transaction and actual
intention to transact is weaker in collectivist societies like China than in
individualist cultures (Chan and Lau, 2001; Tan et al., 2010). Therefore, online
sellers should find the right message and clearly appeal to the consumers in China
in order to transform this positive perception of online channels and transactions
into a real intention to buy online (Tan et al., 2010: 12).
Another study aimed at a comparison of consumers from China and Western
Europe confirms the findings about the information search process, which were
mentioned above. Vuylsteke et al. (2009) showed that the Chinese use the Internet
as a source of information before purchasing more frequently than the Europeans,
but not necessarily treat online information as a determining factor for the final
buying decision. Interestingly, these scholars in their research investigated in what
way shoppers in China use search engines and revealed that they rarely browse
other pages after the first one (Vuylsteke et al., 2009: 18).
This research focuses on online consumer behavior of Chinese consumers
opposed to that of their German counterparts. Main prerequisites for such
comparison stem from cultural Hofstedes dimensions of national culture. Figure
2 provides a diagram comparing the scores for each dimension for China and
Germany [adapted from http://geert-hofstede.com].

- 20 -

China

Germany
118
87 83

80
67

66 66

35
20

Power
Distance

65
40

30

26

24

Individualism Masculinity Uncertainty Long-term Pragmatism Indulgence

Avoidance Orientation

Figure 3: Comparison of Hofstedes dimensions of national culture for China

and Germany [adapted from The Hofstede Centre]
The diagram shows that German and Chinese cultures significantly differ in
most of the dimensions except for masculinity and pragmatism. In this research
main focus will be on individualism, long-term orientation and pragmatism, which
relate to different stages of travellers air ticket purchase behavior examined in the
subsequent chapters. Differences in the dimensions of individualism and longterm orientation and similarities in the dimension of pragmatism imply that one
can anticipate both distinct and similar aspects of behavior and preferences of
consumers from these two countries.

3. Study objectives and hypotheses

3.1 General objectives of the study
Based on the observation of the findings of existing academic works this
study attempts to examine in a cross cultural context consumer behavior of
Chinese and German travellers when purchasing air tickets online. For that
purpose one part of the survey was devoted to travellers actual behavior and
experience of air tickets booking. In particular, their preferences in several stages
of buying process were examined.
Following the methodology of the study by Toh et al. (2012), the first
objective of the research was to understand how Chinese and German travellers
act in the information search stage. Main interest was to find out how deep and
profound the search process is - which and how many sources of information they
use to find the best offer before finally booking a flight. Moreover, one of the
- 21 -

goals was to check if any of the sources (metasearch engines, online and offline
travel agencies, official websites of airlines or even personal network) dominate
and in which combinations they are used in both countries.
Secondly, it was important to examine which attributes of air ticket offers
people from these two countries take into account before making a decision to
purchase from a particular vendor. Taking into account the observation of the
results of previous studies provided in Table 2, this research in the first place
focused on informational, transactional and trust and security aspects of decision
determinants. Also buyers perception of each attribute was examined from the
point of view of its relative importance compared to other attributes.
Finally, consumer behavior in the post purchase stage was studied in order to
discover which factors may attract a traveller to purchase from the same vendor
more frequently. It mainly implied rewards, bonus programs and other factors that
may be used to maintain customers loyalty. In addition, one of the questions of
interest was how online air ticket buyers perceive new search services, whether
they welcome new search options and are ready to adopt them.
3.2 Research hypotheses
Another part of the research was aimed at discovering air travellers
perceptions and attitudes towards information search, vendors credibility and
mobile devices as means of online ticket purchase. Thorough review of existing
market reports, academic findings and cultural dimensions and characteristics led
to the proposal of several hypotheses backed up with arguments and described
below.
The stage of online information search is scrutinized in terms of search depth
and the number of sources used. On the one hand, both German and Chinese
cultures are characterized by a highly pragmatic orientation as it was mentioned
above. According to Hofstede, in such societies people approve of thrift and have
strong propensity to save (The Hofstede centre). In Germany these values have
been strong historically since the pre-industrial age and thorough evaluation
before purchasing is often associated with the consumers from this country. And
as for the Chinese, there is an old saying stating that in order not to worry about
not knowing much about the variety of goods one should just compare them and
find out which is better. Moreover, the proliferation of the Internet and its
convenience has had a significant impact on consumer behavior in China. Firstly,
- 22 -

the findings of Gong et al. (2012) confirm Chinese online consumers perceive
online shopping to be more useful and advantageous than do people from western
countries. Secondly, online activity of Chinese buyers has been noticed because of
their inclination to gather information not only from official brand websites, but
also from social media, blogs, forums, online reports etc. before making a
decision (DDMA, 2011).
On the other hand, thorough search prior to purchasing in China to a big
extent relies on recommendations received through the personal network (Doran,
2002; Luo, 2009). Living in a highly collectivist society, Chinese consumers often
prefer personal sources of information to market ones in terms of trust and
credibility (Doran, 2000). On the contrary, coming from a truly individualistic
culture, a German buyer would rely on his own knowledge and experience
obtained from external sources. In order to get this knowledge and to form a more
objective picture it seems logical to undertake a more careful search. In addition,
another dimension of the perception of online shopping may prevent the Chinese
from checking more websites before booking the air ticket. Some of the findings
of Gong et al. (2012) reveal that the Chinese perceive online shopping to be more
complicated than do their western counterparts. Therefore, this may influence the
views of Chinese travellers on the Internet usage for air ticket booking purposes
and their information search behavior.
All in all, based on these two conflicting argumentations the following
hypotheses were proposed:
H1a: Chinese and German travellers use equally large number of sources
when searching for air tickets online
or conversely,
H1b: Chinese travellers use fewer sources for comparison when searching
for air tickets online than do German travellers.
The next concern of this research has to do with travellers perception of the
ticket seller and his credibility. In terms of air ticket booking this aspect is
somewhat specific, especially when metasearch engine is used to find the best
flight fares. As it was mentioned above, search sources provide a comparison of
ticket offers and prices from a variety of different agents. When ready to purchase,
travellers are then redirected to the website of a particular partner of the
metasearch service company, where they are required to fill in all the booking
information and payment details. At the same time, some engines now extend
- 23 -

their functions and take care of customers payment and booking as well, using
redirecting only if the ticket is to be purchased directly from the airline. The
passenger does not leave search engines website and deals with it regarding all
the questions of his air ticket booking through the same interface. For the user it
seems that only one company is involved in the entire process of the purchase.
Even though final ticket selling companys logo, name and contact details
normally do appear next to the standard online booking and payment form, it is
search service provider who sends booking confirmation and serves as an
intermediary and a guarantor of the money transfer. Probably, not all the travellers
are aware of such principles of work of the online channels they use. And that is
why it is reasonable to suppose that not all of those, who book tickets with search
engines, pay attention to the name of the final seller.
Chinese Qunar is an example of a flight fares search website that has
additional functions, which has just been described. According to the statistics
provided by China Internet Watch, Qunar is by the most popular online air tickets
booking portal in China. This is as true for bookings via its website as it is for
mobile applications (China Internet Watch, 2014). Hence, one may assume that
the name of the final air ticket seller or agent is less important for Chinese
travellers, as soon as this agent cooperates with Qunar and his price is low. If such
assumption is correct, reaching Chinese travellers through cooperation with Qunar
will seem to be one of the first options for a foreign air ticket agent, especially if
he can offer lower fares.
At the end of the day these ideas and reasoning developed into the second
hypothesis:
H2: Chinese travellers are less concerned about the name and reputation of
ticket vendor than German travellers.
Following the suggestions for further research focused on the future role of
mobile devices in online travel bookings, the third hypothesis was proposed in
order to examine travellers perception of air tickets booking via mobile devices.
When formulating the hypothesis the following data were taken into account: the
percentage of consumers who shop for travel on their desktops or laptops and that
of travellers who do it via smartphones or tablet PCs. As it is reported by
PhoCusWright (2013), 77% of travellers typically booked travel products on their
desktops and laptops in 2013 in Germany, which is 6% more than in 2012. At the
- 24 -

same time passengers booking travel via mobile devices accounted for 23% with
12% doing it via smartphones and 11% via tablet PCs.
For the Chinese online travel market iClick (2013) provided comparative
statistics on devices usage for browsing and booking. Typical Chinese online
travel consumers used desktops or laptops for browsing travel products in 73% of
the cases in 2013, while 19% of them resorted to smartphones and 8% to PC
tablets. However, when actually making a reservation, 92% of travellers used their
desktops with the share of mobile devices usage plummeting to 2,3% for
smartphones and 5,7% for tablets. Such proportion makes it reasonable to assume
that Chinese users still do not feel comfortable and secure to enter payment details
while they are on the go. So, even though the number of mobile Internet users in
China keeps growing, the last hypothesis states:
H3: Chinese travellers perceive booking air tickets via mobile devices to be
riskier than do German travellers.
To collect the data on attitudes of Chinese and German travellers and to test
the hypotheses several statements adapted from other studies were used.
Regarding the information search stage and hypotheses H1a and H1b, the
respondents were offered two antithetical statements about the number of websites
visited prior to air ticket booking. To test the hypothesis H2 again 2 statements
were designed to assess travellers concern about the final ticket seller and their
price-consciousness. The last statement required the interviewees to express their
opinion about the security of air ticket booking using mobile devices. Full
statements are presented in Table 3 along with the references to related academic
works.

- 25 -

Table 3: Statements for the proposed hypotheses

Hypothesis

Statements
IS1: I prefer to visit at least 3 or more
different websites to compare offers of
Information search (IS) air ticket and to take advantage of low
(number of sources used) prices.
IS2: I feel that visiting more than 2
different websites to compare offers of
air tickets is not worthwhile.
TVR1: If air ticket price is attractive,
Reputation of ticket
final sellers name and credibility are not
vendor (TVR)
(concern about final
that important.
ticket vendors
TVR2: I always check the name of the
reputation and
vendor before purchasing air tickets.
credibility)
Mobile devices (MD) MD1: I dont feel safe to pay for air
(risk when booking via tickets via my phone or tablet PC.
smartphones or tablets)

References
(Gupta et al.,
2004)

(Garnik, 2006)

(Li and Buhalis,

2006)

4. Data collection and results

4.1 Questionnaire structure and development
The questionnaire used for data collection was divided into 3 parts. Part A
was aimed at collecting personal and demographic information about the
respondents such as gender, age, location the participants come from, current
occupation, level of education and average monthly income.
Part B intended to observe and assess online air ticket purchase experience of
the respondents. In the beginning of this part the interviewees were asked how
often they have purchased air tickets during the last year. Apart from that, it
included five more questions related to main stages of online ticket booking,
namely information search, evaluation of offered attributes in order to make a
purchase decision and post purchase behavior and motivations. Multiple answers
were allowed for two of the six questions in this part.
The last part C was designed to examine travellers attitudes and to test the
proposed hypotheses. The participants were required to rate their perception of
several aspects of online ticket purchasing by expressing the opinion about five
statements. For the purpose of measurement a five-point Likert scale from 1
=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree was added to each statement. In order
to eliminate any misunderstanding about the notion of final air ticket seller, in
this part the respondents were provided with a brief description of sales channels
- 26 -

and operational principles of metasearch engines. The statements were adapted

from other studies and are available in Appendix I along with the full text of the
questionnaire.
The questionnaire was first created in English and then translated into
Chinese and German for each group of interviewees respectively to avoid
misunderstandings. After the translation the questionnaire for each country was
pre-tested by German and Chinese classmates and then the final version was
approved for actual data collection.
Both Chinese and German versions as well as the original questionnaire in
English are enclosed in Appendix I.

4.2 Samples and data collection

Both parts of the survey were conducted simultaneously in March and April
2014 in China and Germany. The Chinese part of the survey was carried out in
Chengdu - the capital of Sichuan province in China. To reach a bigger number of
travellers and to get more relevant responses the survey was partially conducted in
Shuangliu International Airport of Chengdu. Other participants were found among
university and language school students and teachers, work colleagues and other
acquaintances. In China a paper version of the questionnaire was distributed.
In Germany a web based questionnaire was used and this part of the survey
was mainly carried out in Berlin. German respondents received a link by e-mail,
clicking on which led them to http://www.smartsurvey.co.uk an online survey
service website, where they were asked to fill in a questionnaire. Apart from the
employees of a Berlin company providing online ticket sales services, several
students and acquaintances were invited to take part in this research. Participation
in the survey in both countries was on voluntary basis with all the respondents
screened to be at least 18 years old and ensured of their anonymity.
A total sum of 115 answered questionnaires was collected with 57 and 58 for
the German and the Chinese parts respectively. However for the final analysis
only 45 German and 49 Chinese questionnaires were used. The remaining 21
questionnaires were considered to be irrelevant and rejected due to the fact that
those respondents have not purchased air tickets online even once during the last
year.

- 27 -

4.3 Survey results

4.3.1 Demographic data
Due to the fact that the survey in China was conducted in the capital of
Sichuan province, most of the respondents specified Sichuan as there are of
residence. Such answer was given by 63,3% of the Chinese air ticket buyers.
Among other locations Beijing, Chongqing and Yunnan with 6,2% each were
mentioned most frequently. As for the German buyers, most of them (84,4%)
come from Berlin. Figure 2 provides detailed information about the area of
residence of the interviewees in both samples.

Other
provinces
18,4%

6,1%
Beijing
6,1%

German sample

Bavaria
4,4%

Yunnan
6,1%
Chongqin
g

Other
lands
11,1%

Chinese sample

Sichuan
63,3%

N.
RhineWestfali
a
6,7%

Berlin
77,8%

Figure 4: Respondents area of residence

In the German sample 53,3% of the participants were male and 46,7% female,
whereas for the Chinese part it was 36,7% and 63,3% respectively. Young people
at the age between 18 and 30 years prevail in both samples. They account for
71,4% among Chinese travellers and 64,4% among Germans. None of the people
above 60 years old took part in the survey in China.
In terms of the level of education most of the respondents in both parts of the
survey hold at least a bachelor or a higher degree. However, only about a half of
all the German interviewees were employed at the time when the survey was
carried out while the other half mainly consisted of students. In China most of the
pollees were working people with only 16,3% of students in a total number of
participants. Average monthly income of more than 60% of the Chinese travellers
lay in a range from 3000 to 10000 RMB. In Germany 44,4% of the respondents
had an unstable income or earned less than 1000 Euro per month. Monthly income
of the rest was mainly in between 1000 and 3000 Euro.
Full demographic data for both samples are provided in Table 4.

- 28 -

Table 4: Respondents demographic profile

Chinese air ticket
buyers
(%, n=49)
Gender
Men
36,7
Women
63,3
Age
18-30
71,4
31-40
18,4
41-50
8,2
51-60
2,0
60+
Education
High-school
2,0
Bachelor degree
55,2
Master degree
36,7
Ph.D.
2,0
Other
4,1
Occupation
Student
16,3
Employee in a private company
40,8
Employee in a SOE
10,2
Entrepreneur
4,1
Unemployed
Other
28,6**
Average monthly income
Less than 3000RMB / 1000EUR
6,1
3000-5000RMB / 1000-3000EUR
42,9
5001-10000RMB / 3001-5000 EUR
20,4
More than 10000RMB / 5000 EUR
10,2
Unstable income
20,4
*including Diploma (6,6%)
**including educational institutions personnel (20,4%)

German air ticket

buyers
(%, n=45)
53,3
46,7
64,4
26,8
2,2
2,2
4,4
26,6
40,0
20,0
13,4*
42,2
26,6
6,7
17,8
4,4
2,3
22,2
42,2
8,9
4,3
22,2

4.3.2 Travellers air ticket purchase experience

As it was mentioned above, all the respondents were screened on the basis of
how frequently they book air tickets online. According to the data from all the
usable questionnaires, more than 70% of Chinese interviewees had booked tickets
at least 3 times during the last before the survey was conducted and more than 40%
had done it more than 5 times within the same period of time. As for the German
counterparts, only 44,4% of them had booked tickets 3 times or more, while 55,6%
had done it once or twice. Overall results for all the questions are presented in
Table 5.

- 29 -

Table 5: Respondents air ticket purchase experience

Chinese air ticket
German air ticket
buyers (%, n=49)
buyers (%, n=45)
Ticket purchase occasions during the last year
1-2
28,6
55,6
3-5
30,6
28,9
More than 5
40,8
15,5
Sources of information*
Metasearch engines
69,4
64,4
Online travel agencies
42,9
33,3
Air companies websites
44,9
66,7
Traditional offline travel agencies
8,2
8,9
Personal network
16,3
13,3
Other
4,1
4,4
Number of sources used
One metasearch engine
26,5
31,1
One travel agency
8,2
Air companys websites
12,2
17,8
One metasearch engine and several
26,5
13,3
other websites
Several metasearch engines and
24,5
37,8
several other websites
Other
2,0
Evaluation of attributes
Total
Overall
Total
Overall
score
rank
score
rank
Air ticket price
292
2
266
1
Ticket availability
297
1
254
2
Name of the airline
206
4
182
4
Vendors name and credibility
221
3
185
3
Payment method
127
6
138
5
After sale service
145
5
136
6
Rewards and benefits
84
7
99
7
Attractiveness of the rewards
Frequent flier miles
18,4
28,9
Cumulative discount after purchase
26,5
40,0
Special offers for frequent fliers
28,6
17,8
Gifts after spending a specific sum
8,2
17,8
of money
None of the above - only ticket
49,0
44,4
price matters
Own variant
8,2
Willingness to use new air ticket search options
Yes, would use to buy
14,3
4,4
Yes, would use to compare
32,7
37,8
No, satisfied with own sources
20,4
13,3
No, have no time
10,2
4,4
Would test first, then will decide
22,4
35,6
Other
4,4
*several answers were allowed
- 30 -

The second question in this part of the test inquired about the sources of
information travellers normally use when looking for an air ticket online. For this
question it was allowed to give several answers. The results reveal that, not
surprisingly, respondents very often resort to the help of metasearch engines in the
information search stage of air ticket booking process. This answer was chosen by
69,4% (the most popular) of the interviewees in China and 64,4% (the second
most popular) in Germany. Among German survey participants the most popular
sources of information for air ticket purchase are websites of airline companies this option was ticked in 66,7% of all questionnaires. However, in China air
companies with 44,9% are far behind metasearch engines and almost as popular as
online travel agencies (42,9%).
In addition, in this question people were asked to specify which websites
exactly they use in a chosen category. In the Chinese part of the survey qunar.com
was mentioned more often than any other search engine - in 38,8% of the cases.
Such portals as taobao.cn, baidu.cn and skyscanner.com each appeared in 6,1% of
the answers. Among the travel agencies ctrip.cn is dominating with 20,4% of the
participants using it to buy tickets. German participants specified skyscanner.com
and swodoo.com as frequently visited search engines, while expedia.com and
fluege.de were mentioned among travel agencies.
In the next question, aimed at measuring the number of sources Germans and
Chinese use prior to booking, more than a half of respondents in each group stated
they use several various websites and at least one metasearch engine. In the
opinion of about one third of the pollees of each group one search engine or travel
agency is sufficient for air tickets purchase and the rest opt for airline companies
websites.
The third question examined which attributes of online air ticket offering are
more important for the passengers. For this purpose the participants were required
to rank the following seven attributes from 1=the most important to 7=the least
important: air ticket price, name of the airline, ticket availability (suitable
departure and arrival date and time), name and credibility of air ticket vendor,
after sale service (e.g. electronic ticket issuing, confirmation, rebooking and
cancellation), rewards and benefits offered by the seller (e.g. frequent flier miles
or discounts) and payment method. According to the rank in each valid
questionnaire, each attribute was awarded the number of points from 7 (if ranked
1) to 1 (if ranked 7). After the completion of the survey the total score for each
- 31 -

attribute was calculated by summing up all the points given to each attribute in all
the questionnaires. The overall ranking for the whole sample was made in
accordance with the calculated total scores.
Overall results expose several differences and similarities between the two
groups. To start with, the most important attributes are by far tickets availability
and price. In the Chinese part of the survey these parameters were ranked the 1st
(total score of 297) and the 2nd (total score of 292) respectively, whereas in the
German sample it was the other way around 266 points and rank 1 for the ticket
price, 254 points and rank 2 for the availability. The difference between the
attributes number 2 and number 3 in both samples was about 70 points, while
number 3 and 4 again were very close to each other. Identically for both groups
the latter 2 positions were occupied by vendors credibility and airlines name
respectively. The next 2 attributes payment method and after sale service - are
almost equally (the 5th with 138 points and the 6th with 136 points respectively)
valued by German respondents, while in the Chinese part after sale service is
ahead of the payment method. Ranked number 7 rewards and benefits apparently
are the least important factor for the Chinese and German travellers when they
book air tickets online.
The last two questions of part B tested some of the perceptions of travellers in
the post purchase stage. Firstly, the participants were asked which rewards and
bonuses can make them buy tickets from a particular seller more often. They were
offered to choose different bonus programs or to provide their own suggestion.
Again several answers were allowed for this question. However, almost a half
(49%) of the Chinese and 44,4% of the German respondents were not attracted by
any of the rewards saying that only ticket price matters. As for the rest,
cumulative discounts were found attractive by 40% of interviewees in Germany,
while in China special offers for frequent fliers (28,6%) were chosen most
frequently. Interestingly, when suggesting their own variants 8,2% of Chinese
travellers emphasized safety, reputation and quality of service of airlines as
important factors influencing their repeat purchase decision.
Secondly, the travellers were asked to reflect upon their willingness to adopt a
new online air ticket sales option (e.g. a menu on the website), if the latter was
introduced by one of the websites they usually use for other purposes not related
to ticket purchase, for instance reading news and travel blogs or entertainment.
- 32 -

The results show that only 17,7% of German interviewees will not use such
option at all. In the Chinese sample such opinion was expressed by 30,6% of the
survey participants. Furthermore, 37,8% of Germans said they would start
comparing their existing sources with the new one and almost the same
percentage of people would test it first in order to make a decision. In China 47%
of the respondents in total welcomed the new option either for purchasing or price
comparison, while 22,4% would consider testing it.

4.3.3 Hypotheses testing

In order to test the proposed hypotheses about the attitudes of Chinese and
German air ticket buyers towards several stages of online ticket booking process 2
independent samples t-test method was used. According to Snedecor and Cochran
(1989), this method allows comparing the means of two groups of respondents
and assessing whether they are statistically different from each other. When doing
so, usually the so-called null hypothesis is tested, implying that two means are
equal and therefore their arithmetical difference equals zero. The decision about
accepting or rejecting the null hypothesis is taken on the basis of the calculated tvalue. The calculated value is compared with the standard t-value from the tdistribution table at the chosen confidence level. The null hypothesis that the two
means are equal is rejected, if the absolute value of the calculated t-value is bigger
than the critical value from the table. Otherwise, the null hypothesis is accepted
(Snedecor and Cochran, 1989). Practically, in terms of marketing and consumer
behavior the accepted null hypothesis means that both groups share similar
opinions and if the null hypothesis is rejected, it can be stated that consumers
attitudes in two samples are distinct.
After finishing the survey and processing all the responses from
questionnaires filled in by both Chinese and German respondents the means for
each of the statements were calculated. Calculated t-values were compared to
those from the distribution table at the confidence level =0,001 and the number
of degrees of freedom =90. The results reveal that for both statements IS1 and
IS2 the calculated t-value is smaller than the critical value at a chosen confidence
level, making the means of both samples equal and supporting H1a. Thus,
Chinese and German travellers use equally large number of sources when
searching for air tickets online. The absolute value of the calculated t-value for the
statement TV2 is smaller than the critical value, while that of the TVR1 is greater.
- 33 -

Therefore, hypothesis H2 stating that Chinese travellers are less concerned about
the name and reputation of ticket vendor than German travellers is not supported.
The last hypothesis H3 that Chinese travellers perceive booking air tickets via
mobile devices to be riskier than do German travellers is also not supported. The
calculated t-value for MD1 is smaller than the critical value, so the null hypothesis
can be accepted and one can assume that the attitude of Chinese and German
consumers towards air ticket booking via mobile devices is similar. All the results
of the calculations for each statement along with the t-values and hypotheses tests
are presented in Table 6.
Table 6: Comparison of Chinese and German respondents attitudes towards
air ticket purchase
Attitudes

Chinese air
German air
ticket buyers
ticket buyers
T-value
(n=49)
(n=45)
(calc.)
Mean Std.Dev Mean Std.Dev

T-value
(critical)
*

Information
search (IS)
IS1
3,69
1,04
3,87
1,12
-0,77
IS2
2,51
1,08
2,24
1,17
1,13
Reputation of
3,4020
ticket vendor
(TVR)
TVR1
2,10
0,85
2,93
1,19
-3,86
TVR2
3,41
0,96
3,58
1,01
-0,83
Mobile
devices (MD)
MD1
2,49
1,04
2,36
1,26
0,56
*confidence level =0,001, the number of degrees of freedom =90

Hypotheses

H1a is
supported

H2 is not
supported

H3 is not
supported

5. Discussion and implications

Based on the 5-stage theory of consumer behavior, the review of existing

academic findings on online travel market and travellers behavior when booking
air tickets online as well as Hofstedes theory and framework of dimensions of
national culture this research examined actual behavior and attitudes of German
and Chinese consumers when purchasing air tickets on the Internet along with
their perception of the selected features of this process. Even though the results of
this study mainly confirm that behavioral patterns and drivers of buying decision
in terms of the features of air tickets selected for this research are to a big extent
- 34 -

similar across these two nations, they also reveal that several differences do exist.
Travellers in China and Germany make comparatively similar efforts and conduct
equally thorough search when looking for the best flight fares. They share more or
less the same perception of the security of air ticket bookings with mobile devices,
but the Chinese seem to be more concerned about the credibility of the seller,
whereas the Germans are more price-conscious. Moreover, travellers from these
two countries attach slightly different value to different attributes of air ticket
offers and show different inclination towards adopting new online air ticket search
options. As a result, some managerial implications emerge from the findings of
this research and some strategic advice can be offered to online air ticket sellers
and service providers planning to expand to the Chinese market.
When looking for air tickets both groups search for low fares quite carefully,
preferring to check several sources before finally booking a flight. At the same
time Chinese travellers rely on metasearch engines more than their German
counterparts, while the latter buy tickets from airlines websites more frequently.
On the average people from both countries do not agree that using more than 2
sources to find a suitable ticket at the lowest price is not worthwhile. In particular,
they usually use one or several search engines and compare the prices found there
with those offered by other websites. In this regards entering Chinese online air
ticket market by means of cooperation with the Chinese most popular metasearch
engine Qunar seems to be the first logical step. This will let ticket offers of a
foreign agent appear in Qunars search results, making them available for Chinese
passengers. However, in this case a company may encounter currency conversion
issues, because Qunar accepts payments only in RMB. That is why another
alternative is to cooperate with big well-established OTAs like Ctrip or other
resellers. To these Chinese incumbents it will bring access to new Global
Distribution Systems and, therefore, new airlines and destinations, whereas a
foreign agent will start selling in a new market and evade payment and currency
conversion problems. In addition, Chinese firms may be interested in such
cooperation for the purpose of expanding to overseas markets.
The necessity of entering Chinese market via cooperation with domestic
companies is also determined by the fact that Chinese passengers are slightly
more concerned about the name of the ticket seller. The comparison of
respondents attitudes towards the reputation of air ticket vendor has proven that
Chinese travellers do not pay less attention to sellers credibility than Germans. It
- 35 -

is either equally important for both groups or even less important for German
passengers, especially when the price is low. That is why reaching the customer
by offering flight fares on behalf of a Chinese agent will be more beneficial, rather
than operating under companys own name, not recognized by the travellers in the
Chinese segment of this market. This last point is particularly true for smaller
foreign firms and technical service providers.
Another argument supporting the way of cooperation for the market entry is
that according to the survey results Chinese consumers are more conservative than
the Germans about using new air ticket search options. That is directly related to
those firms providing technical solutions and online support. For them it will be
more difficult than in Germany to persuade the travellers to switch to a new sales
channel, because less Chinese respondents were ready at least to give it a try and
to spend some time testing such new websites air ticket sales services.
Survey results also confirm that price is a dominant attribute of air tickets,
which influences travellers choice. For that reason it is difficult to attract both
Chinese and German passengers by various rewards and bonus programs.
However, the fact that the Chinese pay a lot of attention to the quality of service
implies that exceptional after sale support may be one of the key success factors to
win the favor of Chinese ticket buyers. That is why foreign agent must be ready to
provide all the air ticket related after sale features including electronic ticket
issuing, payment and booking confirmation, cancellation, rebooking etc. All such
requests should be processed via a Chinese-speaking call center, which again
speaks in favor of collaboration with already established resellers.
The last part of the findings deals with the attitudes of Chinese and German
travellers towards mobile devices usage for online air ticket bookings. Despite the
differences in statistics on mobile bookings in China and Germany, it was found
out that the Chinese do not perceive this channel to be riskier than do German
travellers. Such results indicate that the role of mobile bookings should not be
neglected when operating on Chinese travel market. The attention paid by Chinas
travel giants Ctrip, Qunar and eLong to the importance of mobile strategy
(iResearch, 2014) proves that this sales channel is seen as a promising source of
revenue in the future.

- 36 -

6. Limitations and suggestions for future research

As almost any other academic study, due to various reasons this research has
several limitations. First of all, both groups interviewed during the survey
consisted of about 50 respondents each, which makes it difficult to generalize the
findings considering the total population of Germany and China. Secondly, from
the point of view of demographic data both samples are biased in terms of
interviewees area of residence and age. Young people coming from Sichuan
province dominated in the Chinese group and in Germany most of the responses
were collected in Berlin area. In addition, women are overrepresented in the
Chinese sample, while the German group has an excess of students, whose
preferences may be significantly different from those of working travellers.
Finally, this research aims at assessing the attitudes and purchase behavior of air
ticket buyers in several stages of the booking process at the same time. Having
only two to three questions devoted to each stage, this study is to a certain extent
superficial and does not cover all the perceptions and motivations of the
consumers purchasing air tickets on the Internet.
Nevertheless, the findings of this research provide some insights about the
purchase behavior of air passengers in a cross cultural perspective. The results and
implications can be used in academic as well as in practical purposes. For instance,
more profound further research may be carried out to investigate the drivers of
consumer behavior in one of the stages of ticket booking process. Moreover,
future empirical studies can extend cultural scope of the research question and
examine similar behavior in several other countries or across the whole European
region. Further works should also endeavor to obtain a broader variety of data in
terms of demography and representability.
7. Conclusion

Triggered by the interest of a foreign air ticket reselling company in

expanding to the Chinese travel market this study attempted to examine buying
behavior of air passengers in a cross-cultural perspective. Taking into account
other works and findings about online purchasing, consumer behavior and air
ticket bookings this research sheds some light on a less explored area of online air
ticket purchase behavior of German and Chinese travellers. Main goal of this
- 37 -

study was not only to get some insights about air ticket market in China, but also
to compare behavioral patterns of Chinese and German online ticket buyers.
Based on the data collected with the help of the survey conducted in Germany
and China this study has managed to test several hypotheses and to identify
differences and similarities among the attitudes towards online air ticket booking
process in these two countries. The comparison across nations revealed that
Chinese and German travellers act in a similar way when searching for air tickets,
attach comparatively equal importance to various attributes of air ticket offers and
in genera share similarly positive perception of mobile devices as means of online
air ticket purchase. At the same time, slight differences related to consumers
price-consciousness and their concern about ticket sellers reputation and
credibility were found out by this research. Such results were thoroughly analyzed
and discussed from the point of view of their academic and practical application.
Following that some managerial implications regarding a business strategy to
enter the Chinese market were provided along with the suggestions for future
research and recommendations on research quality improvement.

- 38 -

Bibliography

Amaro, S. and Duarte, P. (2012): Online travel shopping: A review, Revista

Tourismo & Desenvolvimento, No. 17/18, pp. 237-239.
Beg, J.I., Chan, T.C. and Chen, X. (2013): Meet the new Chinese consumer,
Outlook: Accenture's Journal of High-Performance Business, Available from URL:
http://www.accenture.com/us-en/outlook/Pages/outlook-journal-2013-meet-the-newchinese-customer.aspx (accessed on Apr. 09, 2014)
Beldona, S., Morrison, A.M. and O'Leary, J. (2005): Online shopping motivations
and pleasure travel products: a correspondence analysis, Tourism Management, Vol. 26,
No. 4, pp. 561-570.
Bukhari, S.M.F., Ghoneim, A., Dennis, C., and Jamioom.B. (2013): The
antecedents of travellers' e-satisfaction and intention to buy airline tickets online: A
conceptual model, Journal of Enterprise Information Management, Vol. 26, Issue 6,
pp.624-641.
Chan, Y. K. and Lau, B. Y. (2001): Explaining green purchasing behavior: a crosscultural study on American and Chinese consumers, Journal of international consumer
marketing, No. 12(2/3), pp.9-40.
Chao, C-N., Mockler, R.J. and Dologite, D.G. (2009): Online air ticketing in the
airline industry: The global impact, Review of Business Research, Vol. 9, No. 2,
pp.176-179.
Chea, S. (2006): The supply chain structure of online air travel industry: A multiactor multi-distribution channel view, San Diego International Systems Conference,
Available from URL:
http://www.sophea.info/portal/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=uWBQtkkybwo%3D&tabid=5
4&mid=377
China Internet Watch, (2014): Chinese Travelers Mobile App Search Behavior,
Available from URL: http://www.chinainternetwatch.com/5320/china-lbs-travel-part3/
(accessed on Mar. 12, 2014)
CNNIC, (2014): The 33rd Statistical Report on Internet Development in China (Jan
2014), Available from URL: http://www1.cnnic.cn/IDR/ReportDownloads (accessed on
Feb. 23, 2014)
Conyette, M. (2012): A framework explaining how consumers plan and book travel
online, International Journal of Management and Marketing Research, Vol. 5, No. 3,
pp.57-67.
- 39 -

DDMA, (2011): The influence online information has on Chinese consumer buying
behavior, Available from URL: www.china-briefing.com/news/wpcontent/uploads/2011/02/DDMA_Online_Impact_Study_2011_Key_Findings.pdf
(accessed on Apr. 03, 2014)
Deutscher Reiseverband (2014): Facts and figures on the German travel market
2013, Available from URL:
http://www.drv.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Fachbereiche/Statistik_und_Marktforschung/
Fakten_und_Zahlen/14-03-17_DRV_Zahlen_Fakten2013_V2.pdf (accessed on Apr. 15,
2014)
Doran, K.B. (2002): Lessons learned in cross-cultural research of Chinese and
North American consumers, Journal of Business Research, No. 55, pp.823-829.
Doran, K.B. (2000): Information search and use in consumer decision making: An
in-depth study of Chinese and North American consumers, Available from URL:
http://digitool.library.mcgill.ca/R/?func=dbin-jumpfull&object_id=36763&local_base=GEN01-MCG02 (accessed on Apr. 15, 2014)
Garnik, I. (2006): Vendor credibility in e-shops design in Poland: An empirical
study, Available from URL: http://www.zie.pg.gda.pl/~igar/articles/ECCE13-GarnikVendor_Credibility.pdf (accessed on Mar. 17, 2014)
Gong, W., Maddox, L.M. and Stump, R.L. (2012): Attitudes toward online
shopping: A comparison of online consumers in China and the US, International Journal
of e-business development, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp.28-35.
Guo, J. and Noor, I.J. (2011): A study on consumers attitude towards online
shopping in China, International Journal of Business and Social Science, Vol. 2, No. 22,
pp. 122-132.
Gupta, A., Su, B-C. and Walter, Z. (2004): An empirical study of consumer
switching from traditional to electronic channels: A purchase-decision process
perspective, International Journal of Electronic Commerce, Vol. 8, No. 3, pp.131161.
Heung, V.C.S. (2003): Internet usage by international travellers: reasons and
barriers, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 15, No. 7,
pp.370-378.
Hofstede, G. (2001): Cultures Consequences (2nd edition), Thousand Oaks, CA:
Sage Publications.
Hofstede, G. (1991): Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind, McGrawHill, New York.
- 40 -

IATA, 2013: Airline Industry Forecast 2013-2016, IATA

iClick, (2013): Chinas online travel market, Asia Media Services Ltd., Available
from URL: http://www.slideshare.net/brentc123/china-onlinetravelmarketanalysisreporten# (accessed on Mar. 13, 2014)
Iordache, C. and Voiculet, A. (2010): Prospects of computer-assisted booking and
Global Distribution Systems at world level, Revista Tinerilor Economisti (The Young
Economists Journal), Vol. 1(14S), pp.83-92.
iResearch, (2014): China Online Travel Market Outlook in 2014, Available from
URL: http://www.iresearchchina.com/views/5474.html (accessed on Mar. 05, 2014)
iResearch, (2013): 2011-2012 China Air Ticket and Hotel Sales Channel Report
(Brief Edition), Available from URL:
http://www.iresearchchina.com/samplereports/4774.html (accessed on Mar. 05, 2014)
Johanson, J. and Vahlne, J-E. (1977): The Internationalization process of the firm
a model of knowledge development and increasing foreign market commitments,
Journal of International Business Studies, 8(1): 23-31.
Kim, L.H., Qu, H., and Kim, D.J. (2009): A study of perceived risk and risk
reduction of purchasing air tickets online, Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, Vol.
26, Issue 3, pp.203-224.
Kim, W.G., Ma, X. and Kim, D.J. (2006): Determinants of Chinese hotel
customers' e-satisfaction and purchase intentions, Tourism Management, Vol. 27, No. 5,
pp.890-900.
Kim, L.H., Kim, D.J., and Leong, J.K. (2005): The Effect of Perceived Risk on
Purchase Intention in Purchasing Airline Tickets Online, Journal of Hospitality &
Leisure Marketing, Vol. 13, Issue 2, pp.33-53.
Klein, S. (2002): Web impact on the distribution structure for flight tickets,
Information and Communication Technology in Tourism, K. W. Wober, A. J. Frew, and
M. Hitz (eds.), SpringerComputerScience, NY, pp. 219-228.
Kotler, P. and Keller, K.L. (2009): Marketing management, 13th edition, Pearson
Education, p.189-219.
KPMG, (2014): E-commerce in China: Driving a new consumer culture, China 360,
Issue 15 (2014/01) Available from URL:
http://www.kpmg.com/CN/en/IssuesAndInsights/ArticlesPublications/Newsletters/Chin
- 41 -

a-360/Documents/China-360-Issue15-201401-E-commerce-in-China.pdf (accessed on
Feb. 27, 2014)
Lee, S.H. (2005): An application of a five-stage consumer behavior decision
making model: An exploratory study of Chinese purchasing of imported health goods,
Burnaby, B.C. Canada: Simon Fraser University.
Li, L. and Buhalis, D. (2006): E-commerce in China: The case of travel,
International Journal of Information Management, No. 26(2), pp.153-166.
Li, N. and Zhang, P. (2002): Consumer online shopping attitudes and behavior: An
assessment of research, Proceedings of the 6th
Americas Conference on Information Systems, pp.508-517.
Li, D., Gallup and Alec, M. (1995): In search of the Chinese consumer, China
Business Review, Vol. 22 Issue 5, pp.19
Llach, J., Marimon, F., Alonso-Almeida, M. D. and Bernardo, M. (2013):
Determinants of online booking loyalties for the purchasing of airline tickets, Tourism
Management, Vol. 35, No. 2, pp.23-31
Luo, Y. (2009): Analysis of culture and buyer behavior in Chinese market, Asian
Culture and History, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp.25-30. Available from URL:
http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ach/article/view/361/290 (accessed on Apr.
24, 2014)
Mazaheri, E., Richard, M-O. and Laroche, M. (2009): Online Consumer Behavior:
A Comparison between Canadian and Chinese Website Visitors, Available from URL:
http://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/973645/1/JBR_online_consumer_behavior.pdf
(accessed on Apr. 19, 2014)
MEC China, (2011): Understanding Chinese car consumer behavior online,
Available from URL: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/understandingchinese-car-consumer-behaviour-online-132609623.html (accessed on Mar. 26, 2014)
Mooij, M. and Hofstede, G. (2011): Cross-cultural consumer behavior: A review of
research findings, Journal of International Consumer Marketing, No. 23, pp.181-192.
Muller, P., Damgaard, M., Litchfield, A., Lewis, M. and Hornle, J. (2011):
Consumer behavior in a digital environment, Available from URL:
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/document/activities/cont/201108/20110825ATT25258/2
0110825ATT25258EN.pdf (accessed on Feb. 26, 2014)

- 42 -

Park, J-W., Robertson, R. and Wu, C-L. (2009): Differences in air passengers'
buying behavior: findings from Korean and Australian international passengers,
Transportation Planning & Technology, Vol. 32, Issue 5, pp.441-460.
Peng, H., Xu, X. and Chen, W. (2013): Tourist behavior in online booking: A new
research agenda, Communications in Information science and Management Engineering,
Vol. 3, Issue 6, pp.280-285.
PhoCusWright, (2013): European Consumer Travel Report 4th Edition,
PhoCusWright Inc.
Sam, M.F.M. and Tahir, M.N.H. (2009): Website quality and consumer online
purchase intention of air ticket, International Journal of Basic & Applied Sciences, vol.
9, No. 10, pp.4-9.
Snedecor, G. W., Cochran, W.G. (1989): Statistical Methods, 8th edition, Iowa
State University Press.
Tan, B.F., Yan, L. and Urquhart, C. (2010): Explaining actual online shopping
behavior evidences from two distinct national cultures, Conference on Information
Science Technology and Management, Available from URL:
http://aut.researchgateway.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10292/1072/Explaining_actual.pdf?se
quence=1 (accessed on Apr. 22, 2014)
The Hofstede Centre, (2014): Available from URL: http://geerthofstede.com/countries.html (accessed on Apr. 22, 2014)
Toh, R.S., DeKay, F. and Raven, P. (2012): Travel planning: Searching for and
booking airline seats on the Internet, Transportation Journal (Pennsylvania State
University Press), Vol. 51, Issue 1, pp.80-98.
Vogt, C.A. and Fesenmaier, D.R. (1998): Expanding the functional information
search model, Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 25, No. 3, pp.551-578.
Vuylsteke, A., Wen, Z., Baesens, B. and Poelmas, J. (2009): Consumers online
information search: A cross-cultural study between China and Western Europe, Paper
presented at Academic and Business Research Institute conference, Orlando, USA,
Available at URL: http://www.aabri.com/OC09manuscripts/OC09043.pdf (accessed on
Apr. 23, 2014)
Wonderful Copenhagen R&D, (2013): Review of Chinas outbound travel market
2013: Perspectives for Scandinavian city tourism, Available from URL:
http://www.visithelsinki.fi/sites/visithelsinki.fi/files/files/Tutkimukset/chinavia__review_of_chinas_outbound_travel_market_2013_-_final.pdf (accessed on Feb. 26,
2014)
- 43 -

World Travel & Tourism Council, (2013a): Benchmarking Travel & Tourism in
Germany, Available from URL:
http://www.wttc.org/site_media/uploads/downloads/Germany_benchmarking_2013.pdf
(accessed on Mar. 10, 2014)
World Travel & Tourism Council, (2013b): Benchmarking Travel & Tourism in
China, Available from URL:
http://www.wttc.org/site_media/uploads/downloads/China_benchmarking_2013.pd
f (accessed on Mar. 10, 2014)
Wu, X. and Ozkan, P. (2010): Chinese and British consumer attitude towards online
purchasing of cosmetics, Available from URL: http://www.divaportal.org/smash/get/diva2:324336/FULLTEXT01.pdf (accessed on Mar. 20, 2014)
ZDNet, (2014): China has 618M Internet users, 80 percent on mobile, Available
from URL: http://www.zdnet.com/cn/china-has-618m-internet-users-80-percent-onmobile-7000025291/ (accessed on Mar. 02, 2014)
Zhang, J., Fang, X. and Sheng, L. (2007): Online consumer search depth: Theories
and new findings, Journal of Management Information Systems, Vol. 23, No. 3, pp.7195.

- 44 -

Appendices
Appendix I
Questionnaire
A. Personal information
1. Which age group do you belong to?
18-30
31-40
41-50

51-60

60+

2. What part of China/Germany do you come from? _________________

3. What is your current occupation?

- student
- employee in a private company
- employee in a SOE
entrepreneur
- unemployed
- other (please specify)_

4. What is your level of education?

-high school
- bachelor degree

- master degree

-Ph.D

5. What is your average monthly income in RMB/EUR?

< 3000
3001-5000
5001-10000
>10000

- other (please specify)

unstable (e.g.student)

B. Purchase experience

1. How many times have you purchased air tickets during the last year?
0
1-2
3-5
more than 5

2. When searching for air tickets, which sources of information do you usually use? (several
answers)
- metasearch engine(s) (e.g. qunar; taobao; skyscanner; cheapflights; momondo; kayak etc.)
(please specify)_______
- online travel agencies (e.g. ctrip; elong; expedia; cheaptickets etc) (please specify) ______
- air companies websites
- traditional offline travel agencies (e.g. travel agency office in the street)
- my personal network (e.g. relatives or friends working in a travel agency, air company or
other travel related firm)
- other (please specify) ______________

- 45 -

3. How many websites do you usually visit before purchasing the air ticket?
- one metasearch engine
- one travel agency
- one or several air companys websites
- one metasearch engine and several other websites (e.g. travel agency, air company)
- several metasearch engines and several other websites (e.g. travel agency, air company)
- other (please specify) ______________

4. Please rank the following attributes of the air ticket offer in accordance with their
importance and influence on your final buying decision (7 the most important, 1 the least
important):
- name of the airline
- availability of the ticket (suitable date and time)
- air ticket price
- name and credibility of the ticket seller (the website you fill in the form at and pay money to)
- after sale service (e.g. ticket issuing/confirmation/rebooking/cancellation)
- rewards and future benefits offered by the seller (e.g. future discounts/promotions for frequent
buyers)
- payment method

5. Which of the following rewards and bonuses could make you purchase air tickets from a
particular seller more often?
- frequent flier miles
- cumulative discount after each purchase
- special offers for frequent fliers
- gifts after spending a specific sum of money
- none of the above - only ticket price matters
- your own variant______________

6. Imagine that one of the websites you frequently visit not for ticket purchase, but for other
purposes (e.g. news, entertainment, travel forum etc.) introduces a new option air tickets search
and sales. It looks like a new menu on the webpage, where you can choose the destination, set
travel dates and then check air ticket prices and buy them.
Would you welcome such ticket search/sales option?
- yes, I would start buying on this website
- yes, I would start using this option to compare it with the sources I already use
- no, I am satisfied with the sources I already use
- no, I am not going to spend time on getting familiar with one more new interface
- I would test its convenience and reliability first and then will make a decision
- other ______________________
- 46 -

C. Attitudes towards ticket purchase

1. I prefer to visit at least 3 or more different websites
to compare offers of air ticket and to take advantage of
low prices.
2. I feel that visiting more than 2 different websites to
compare offers of air tickets is not worthwhile.

strongly disagree
disagree

neutral

agree

strongly
agree

strongly disagree
disagree

neutral

agree

strongly
agree

Qunar, Taobao, Skyscanner etc. are search engines that do not sell air tickets, but just
provide price comparison of tickets offered by other vendors. Final vendor is a reselling
company which sells you the ticket and which you pay money to. It can be a travel agency or
another ticket reseller.
strongly disagree
3. If air ticket price is attractive, final sellers name and disagree
credibility are not that important.

neutral

agree

strongly
agree

strongly disagree
disagree

neutral

agree

strongly
agree

strongly disagree
5. I dont feel safe to pay for air tickets via my phone or disagree
tablet PC.

neutral

agree

strongly
agree

4. I always check the name of the vendor before

purchasing air tickets.

- 47 -

A.
:
A1
18-30
31-40
41-50

51-60

60+

A2_________________
A3




______________
A4

A5.
3000
3000-5000
5001-10000

______________

10000

B.
B1.
0
1-2
3-5
5
B2
qunar; taobao; skyscanner; kayak _________________
ctrip.com (); elong.com; expedia; cheaptickets _____________



______________
B3





______________

- 48 -

B4 1 = 7 =
__
__
__
__
__
__
__
B5.




--
______________
B6. //

______________

C.
C1.
3

C2. 2

Qunar, Taobao, Skyscanner

C3.

C4.
C5.

- 49 -

Umfrage
Personal Information
Geschlecht:
1. Welcher Altersgruppe gehren Sie an?
18-30
31-40
41-50
51-60

M (mnnlich)

W (weiblich)

60+

2. In welchem Bundesland der Bundesrepublik Deutschland wohnen Sie? _________________

3Was ist Ihre aktuelle berufliche Ttigkeit?
Student
Mitarbeiter in einem privaten Unternehmen
Unternehmen Unternehmer
Arbeitslose
4. Welche Ausbildungsabschlsse haben Sie?
Abitur
Bachelor
Master

Mitarbeiter in einem Staatlichen

Sonstiges, und zwar __________

Doktor

Sonstiges, und zwar ______

5. Wie hoch ist Ihr durchschnittliches Netto -Monats-Einkommen in EUR?

< 1000
1000-3000
3001-5000
>5000
instabil (e.g. Student)
Erfahrung
1. Wie oft haben Sie Flugtickets im letzten Jahr gekauft?
0
1-2
3-5
mehr als 5 Mals
2. Auf der Suche nach Flugtickets, welche Informationsquellen verwenden Sie normalerweise?
(Mehrfachnennungen mglich)
Metasuchmaschine(n) (z.B. skyscanner, cheapflights, momondo, kayak etc.) (bitte angeben welche)_____
Online-Reisebros (z.B. TUI, expedia, cheaptickets, etc.) (bitte angeben welche) _________________
Web-Seiten der Fluggesellschaften
Traditionelle Offline-Reisebros (z.B. Reisebro auf der Strae)
Mein persnliches Netzwerk (z.B. Verwandte oder Freunde, die mit einem Reisebro, mit einer
Fluggesellschaft oder mit anderem Reiseunternehmen verbunden sind)
Sonstiges, und zwar ______________
3. Welche Webseiten besuchen Sie durchschnittlich vor dem Kauf des Flugtickets?
Eine Metasuchmaschine
Ein Reisebro
Eine oder mehrere Web-Seiten der Fluggesellschaften
Eine Metasuchmaschine und mehrere andere Web-Seiten (z.B. Reisebro, Fluggesellschaft)
Mehrere Metasuchmaschinen und mehrere andere Web-Seiten (z.B. Reisebro, Fluggesellschaft)
Sonstiges, und zwar ______________
4. Bitte ordnen Sie die folgenden Attribute des Flugticketangebots gem nach ihrer Wichtigkeit und nach
ihrem Einfluss auf die endgltige Kaufentscheidung (1 - das wichtigste, 7 - das am wenigsten wichtig):
Name der Fluggesellschaft
Vorhandensein des Tickets (geeignet Datum und Zeit)
Flugticketspreis
Name und Zuverlssigkeit des Verkufers der Tickets (die Website, auf der Sie das Formular ausfllen
und auf die Sie das Geld anweisen)
Service nach dem Verkauf (z.B. Ticketausgabe / Besttigung / Umbuchung / Stornierung)
Speziellen Angeboten von Verkufer fr Kunden, um zuknftige Ntzlichkeit den Einkauf zu
vergrern (z. B. zuknftige Rabatte / Angebote fr Vielkufer)
- 50 -

 Zahlungsmethode
5. Welche folgenden Bonus Programme knnten Sie so beeinflussen, dass Sie knftig die Flugtickets
speziell von nur einem bestimmten Anbieter kaufen werden?
Vielflieger-Meilen
Kumulativer Rabatt nach jedem Einkauf
Spezielle Angebote fr Vielflieger
Geschenke, nachdem Sie eine bestimmte Geldsumme gezahlt haben.
Keinen aus den obengenannten Varianten - nur Ticketpreis ist wichtig
Ihre eigene Variante ______________
6. Stellen Sie sich vor, eine Web-Seite, welche Sie fr andere Zwecke hufig besuchen haben (z. B. Nachrichten,
Unterhaltung, Reise-Forum usw.), fhrt nun eine neue Option zum Suchen und Kaufen von Flugtickets. Das ist so
gestaltet, wie ein neues Men der Web-Seite. Hier knnen Sie zunchst das Ziel und Reisedaten whlen, dann die
Flugpreise prfen und dann am Ende des Prozesses die Flugtickets kaufen.
Wrden Sie eine solche Suche / Verkaufsoption begren?
Ja, ich wrde anfangen auf dieser Web-Seite Tickets zu kaufen
Ja, ich wrde anfangen diese Option zu verwenden, um die mit anderen Systemen zu vergleichen, welche ich
bereits verwendet habe
Nein, ich bin mit dem System zufrieden, das ich bereits verwendet habe
Nein, ich mchte nicht meine Zeit verschwenden, um mich mit einem neuen Interface vertraut zumachen
Ich wrde die Bequemlichkeit und Zuverlssigkeit erst einmal testen und dann eine Entscheidung treffen
Sonstiges, und zwar ______________
Die Einstellung zum Flugticketskauf
C1. Ich bevorzuge mindestens 3 oder mehr verschiedene
Web-Seiten zu besuchen, um Angebote fr die Flugtickets zu
vergleichen und den niedrigsten Preis auszusuchen.
C2. Ich denke, dass es sich nicht lohnt, mehr als 2
verschiedene Web-Seiten zu besuchen, um Angebote fr die
Flugtickets zu vergleichen.

trifft gar
nicht zu

trifft nicht
zu

unentschieden

trifft zu

trifft
vollkommen
zu

trifft gar
nicht zu

trifft nicht
zu

unentschieden

trifft zu

trifft
vollkommen
zu

Skyscanner, Kayak, Momondo etc. sind Suchmaschinen, die keine Flugtickets verkaufen, sondern nur den Ticketspreis von
anderen Anbietern vergleichen. Der Verkufer ist am Ende ein anderes Unternehmen welches Ihnen das Ticket verkauft
und an welche Sie den Ticketpreis bezahlen. Der Verkufer kann ein Reisebro oder ein anderer Ticket-Hndler sein.

C3. Wenn der Ticketspreis attraktiv ist, sind der Name und
die Zuverlssigkeit des Verkufers nicht so wichtig.

C4. Vor dem Kauf der Flugtickets berprfe ich immer den
Namen des Verkufers.

C5. Ich habe kein Vertrauen darin, Flugticket mit meinem

Smartphone oder Tablet-PC zu kaufen.

trifft gar
nicht zu

trifft nicht
zu

unentschieden

trifft
zu

trifft
vollkommen
zu

trifft gar
nicht zu

trifft nicht
zu

unentschieden

trifft
zu

trifft
vollkommen
zu

trifft gar
nicht zu

trifft nicht
zu

unentschieden

trifft
zu

trifft
vollkommen
zu

Vielen Dank, dass Sie sich die Zeit genommen haben an dieser Umfrage teilzunehmen!
- 51 -