Privacy/ Security

Privacy and security concept is a sensitive concept for online customers due to the fact that a website collects and stores personal information of customers for using them in future transactions. Kim and Lee (2004) advised that privacy/ security include transactional functions with the aim of making the customers to feel that the use of the website is simple and user-friendly in performing the transactions. Since customers purchase the firms‘ offerings not traditionally with cash or credit cards but online, they consider the safety of the purchasing transaction (e.g. protected credit card information, possibility of resolving any transactional problem occurred) (Madu and Madu, 2002). As Madu and Madu (2002) proposed that online service should be offered in a reliable and dependable manner in order to help customers feel comfortable with the transaction and hence to have trust to the website; thus, privacy/

security are considered to be one of the most significant key dimensions of website overall quality and ultimately customer loyalty toward a website (Zeithaml et al, 2002).

2.5.9.1 E-trust

Trust is essential because customers need the feeling of control or at least to understand the social environment in which they live and interact (Gefen & Staub,

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2003). According to Chen and Barnes (2007), trust is defined as the combination of ―a set of distinct beliefs consisting of integrity, benevolence, and ability‖ and ―feelings of confidence and security in the caring response of the other party‖ (Chen and Barnes, 2007). In the discussion about trust or the customers‘ confidence in a firm‘s website reliability, findings show that customers who trust organizations are willing to accept vulnerability in their interactions as a consequence of honest fulfillment of firm‘s transactional commitment exactly as promised to the customers. Accordingly, the website trust concept relies on the level of positive impressions of the customer interactions with the firm, followed by vulnerability accepted by customers. Yoon in 2002 reported the six factors that form the online trust as following: Security assurance, firms install assurance attributes that follow the transactions for providing security sense to customers (i.e. Visa logos); Brand represents the credibility of a firm depending on the firm‘s reputation or past experience for purchasers; Search, gives convenience in exploration; Fulfillment, equips accurate information on processing orders and in cases that several issues occur how to resolve them; Presentation, how different attributes are displayed depicting quality and technology; Technology, technical synchronous excellence.

These factors mentioned above speak for the essence of trust and are related to personality attributes such as dependability, reliability, and honesty. When online potential customers notice these factors within a site, they perceive the authenticity and continuously lower the amount of new information needed in order to buy (Sung- Joon Yoon, 2002). At this point, it is important to mention that e-commerce may bring to online customers need the feeling of control or at least to understand the social environment in which they live and interact Therefore, in order to increase customers‘ website trust, the perceived risk must be eliminated by making them believing that the products or service offers are honest as promised and not firms only carrying of profits, and helping them with any problems occurred (Kuhn and Petzer, 2015). Moreover, Yoon in 2002 studied on how familiarity with electronic commerce and satisfaction with previous online transactions affected the web user‘s website trust and satisfaction. The findings of this research pointed out that firms which wish to build online trust to their websites and therefore motivate higher usage and familiarity, have to provide a satisfying online individually positive experience that stimulates memory-resident positive imagery of the firm. Yoon (2002) illustrated the

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three dimensions of online trust, explaining in each of these categories the mechanisms of online trust as sub-categories: Technical-based, i.e. web searching, technology and presentation; Uncertainty of transactions and security, i.e. security assurance; Competency-based, i.e. reputation, fulfillment and interactions.

In their research Harris and Goode (2010) concluded that ―there are strong links between online consumers‘ evaluations of servicescape, trust of a web site, and purchase intentions and what we call ―e-servicescape‖, is not only an important factor in the dynamics of online exchange, but also (ultimately) a strong determinant of online shoppers‘ purchase intentions‖. The same opinion was stated also by Yoon (2002) proposing that website trust and satisfaction are highly correlated with each other and together with online purchase intention. Last but not least attribute highly connected with online trust in e- services is online customers‘ loyalty which is going to be further analyzed in our review.

Hence, trust reduces anxiety feelings of customers while they are to make a decision and enables long term relationships with them (Kumar et al, 1995). In online transactions, potential customers spend precious time in thinking about money losses and abuse of their personal information (Bart et al, 2005). In particular, in hospitality industry customers are confronted with the uncertainty and risks of the high-value purchases of hotel rooms. Wang et al (2014a) conducted a research pertaining to hospitality sector and determined that e-trust has three dimensions; integrity, ability and benevolence. In detail, integrity deals with online customers perceptions of the level up to which hotel website will fulfill their expectations; ability is about the customers‘ perceptions of whether a hotel website acquire the essential skill and knowledge in order to perform the services with responsibility; and benevolence refers to ―trust as an expectation which is a result of goodwill—that firms will not act opportunistically, even given the chance‖ (Ganesan, 1994).

After looking through the relative literature, concerning certain attributes of website service quality (i.e. usefulness of information, website usability, accessibility, privacy security, aesthetics/design, and personalization/customization), it was detected that further concur with e-servicescape basic dimensions. The aforementioned attributes were selected to be examined in terms of their correlation

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with website service quality. Hence, the first hypothesis of the study is constructed as following:

H1: E-servicescape dimensions are positively associated with perceived website service quality of a hotel owned website.