The Impact of Perceived Security on Consumer E-Loyalty: A Study of Online Tourism Purchasing

With the development of e-commerce and smart tourism, the combination of tourism and the internet has caused tourism purchasing in China to shift from traditional channels to online ones. However, while online tourism consumption has many advantages there are also high associated security risks. Understanding how perceived security impacts online tourism purchasing behavior is extremely important for tourism e-commerce enterprises. In this paper, we adopt the self-regulatory process proposed by Bagozzi (1992) as our theoretical framework. By employing structural equation modeling and bootstrapping, we systematically investigated the effects of perceived security on consumer e-loyalty. Data were collected in two ways, via an online survey and via a field survey of several famous tourism spots in Xiamen, a seaside tourism city in southern China. After confirmation, 330 valid questionnaires were received from respondents who had recently purchased tourism products online. The study results indicate that the impact of perceived security comprises two parts: first, perceived security significantly and positively impacts customer emotional elements (trust and satisfaction), thereby affecting their loyalty behavior, second, perceived security also affects subsequent behavior through other cognitive elements (perceived value and website image). Discussion and implications are provided based on the research results.