Cultural Difference in Motivations for Travellers’ Hotels Booking Behaviour: The Critical Role of Covid-19 Disruption

The growing presence of social networks is leading to great developments in the hospitality and tourism industry. Grounded in the informational social influence theory , we developed an integrative model to investigate the factors affecting travellers’ online hotels booking behaviour under different cultural contexts. Utilising SEM/PLS to analyse the gathered data from a sample of 2,305 users, the results revealed that the informational social influence theory offer an appropriate model for understanding travellers’ online hotels booking behaviour under different cultural contexts. Normative social influence was found to be the most significant driver of a member's booking behaviour , followed by informational social influence and the perceived quality of the information. The results revealed that a “one-size fits-all” approach is insufficient in capturing the heterogeneity of travellers across countries. Moreover, implications of COVID-19 play critical role in influencing travellers’ booking behaviour. Our study provides meaningful theoretical and practical implications.