The Development of Service Quality Scale for Travel Websites

Since the service quality dimensions change in virtual marketspace, the approach for modifying or expanding the best-known SERVQUAL model may not be appropriate. Quite a few measurement scales with robustness have been developed which cover e-service contexts (Content, Communities, and Commerce) of travel web sites.

This study attempts to formulate such scale and its items for evaluating the on-line service quality. The development of scale is followed by a four-stage process, including (1) Identification of the scale items and purification the scale; (2) Focus group discussion of the scale identified in the first stage; (3) Test of the scale identified in the first stage and the second purification of the scale. In order to examine the rigour of the scale, several statistical techniques (including: exploratory factor analyses, confirmatory factor analyses and Cronbachα coefficients) have been utilized to analyze the scale’s validity, reliability and constructs.