Last-minute hotel-booking behavior: The impact of time on decision-making

Last-minute bookings are becoming more prevalent in the hotel industry. Consequently, this study aims to identify distinctive booking attributes associated with last-minute booking, and to examine how temporal distance between the time of booking and the date of arrival affects customers' price perception and booking behavior. An online survey of 357 individuals was conducted, and a series of one-way ANCOVA (analysis of covariance) were performed to test the hypotheses. The results indicated that customers who have the shortest temporal distance (0-2 days before the date of stay) exhibited a relatively smaller evoked set size, lower involvement, and shorter decision time than any other temporal distance group. Moreover, the group with the shortest temporal distance (0-2 days before the date of stay) diverged noticeably from the rest of the temporal distance groups on booking attributes. This research is one of the pioneering studies specifically focusing on last-minute booking behavior. The findings contribute to the understanding of the impact of time on customers' hotel-booking decisions. The current study offers new insights into the set of salient and non-static booking attributes that drive hotel choices over time as the date of stay draws near. This study offers pointed suggestions on how to drive online hotel bookings more effectively depending on customers' time of booking.