Online travel agencies (OTAs) depends on marketing clues to reduce the consumer uncertainty perceptions of online travel-related products. The latest booking time (LBT) provided by the consumer has a significant impact on purchasing decisions. This study aims to explore the effect of LBT on consumer visual attention and booking intention along with the moderation effect of online comment valence (OCV). Since eye movement is bound up with the transfer of visual attention, eye-tracking is used to record visual attention of consumer. Our research used a 3 (LBT: near vs. medium vs. far) × 3 (OCV: high vs. medium vs. low) design to conduct the experiments. The main findings showed the following:(1) LBT can obviously increase the visual attention to the whole advertisements and improve the booking intention;(2) OCV moderates the effect of LBT on both visual attention to the whole advertisements and booking intention. Only when OCV are medium and high, LBT can obviously improve attention to the whole advertisements and increase consumers’ booking intention. The experiment results show that OTAs can improve the advertising effectiveness by adding LBT label, but LBT have no effect with low-level OCV.

Chenzhu Zhao. Near or Far? The Effect of Latest Booking Time on Hotel Booking Intention: Based on Eye-tracking Experiments. International Journal of Frontiers in Sociology (2020), Vol. 2, Issue 7: 1-12. https://doi.org/10.25236/IJFS.2020.020701.

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