Analysing Room Rates and Terms and Conditions for the Online Booking of Hotel Rooms

Online hotel bookings have recently become popular in both direct and indirect distribution channels. Although prior studies have stated that attempting to find the lowest price is a major factor for customers in choosing a website for booking, the existing literature contains virtually no articles that examine the terms and conditions (T&C) offered on online reservation channels. The study reported herein investigated the importance of the room rates and T&C on six major websites for the 97 hotels on the member list of the Hong Kong Hotels Association (HKHA). The findings of this study are expected to provide a better understanding of the T&C for online bookers of hotels via different online distribution channels.