PERCEIVED CONSUMER NAVIGATIONAL CONTROL IN TRAVEL WEBSITES

The purpose of this study is to provide a better understanding of the perceived online control effects on consumers' behavior in the travel industry. The article uses a laboratory experiment to investigate how perceived consumer navigational control affects consumer behavior. An online travel store of a fictitious company was developed as the experimental stimulus. The findings imply that perceived navigational control affects consumers' levels of pleasure and trust during the online navigation. In turn, pleasure and trust affect consumers' attitude toward the online store and satisfaction. Surprisingly, consumers' attitude is not directly affected by their perception of the level of navigational control over the travel website. Finally, gender moderates the relationship between the perceived navigational control and consumers' attitude toward the travel website. Managerial implications regarding the development of travel websites and research opportunities are discussed.