A Relationship Marketing Approach to the Online Purchase of tourism Products

The main goal of this paper is to develop empirical knowledge regarding the evaluation of the most important determinants of a relationship marketing approach to an online context, assuming that in the online context a gap remains in the marketing literature. The proposed model integrates four online determinants of a relationship marketing context and tries to identify their simultaneous influence on satisfaction, trust and loyalty. A questionnaire was applied to loyal customers of online tourism products, resulting in a valid sample of 3188 individuals. The main statistical analyses were conducted within the Structural Equation Modeling framework. The findings indicate that site image and routines associated with site visits are strong determinants of online customer satisfaction and loyalty in tourism and that satisfaction as a strong impact in trust as well trust as in the loyalty of customers.