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Asymmetric Information and e-Tourism: Literature Review

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Intelligent Systems and Applications (IntelliSys 2019)

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Abstract

The Online tourism transactions generally take place in an environment where the consumer of services often does not have sufficient information about the tourist establishment or the quality of the services offered. This urges the consumer to pay for the service before verifying it, which can put him in a vulnerable situation. Moreover, the tourist establishment knows exactly all the characteristics and the information on the service that it offers. The purpose of this paper is to provide a theoretical framework addressing the problem of information asymmetry in the literature, as well as the role of digital trust in converting Internet users into E-buyers. We propose a framework for analyzing the information asymmetry problem in the e-tourism market. We discuss the Kreps model and its implications for the management of the good reputation of tourist establishments based on their past behaviour translated by the “Rating” granted by their customers in previous transactions. Applying the Kreps model to our research framework, results in the integration of the rating reflects the reputation of tourist establishments, as a mechanism that engenders consumer confidence.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Médiamétrie, 2016, http://www.mediametrie.fr/internet/communiques/.

  2. 2.

    TNS-Sofres, 2009, https://www.tns-sofres.com/publications?etudes_publiees-education-2009.

  3. 3.

    Source: Comptes des transactions courantes, Office de Change, 2017.

  4. 4.

    Among the main phenomena that are at the root of failures in the pure and perfect competition market are asymmetric information, externalities and public goods.

  5. 5.

    Signaling [6, 63, 64] represents a strategy adopted by the informed agent which consists of reporting to the uniformed agent all the information necessary for its decision-making, before the transaction. The informed agent is the one who decides first. Spence applies his signal theory to the labour market by admitting that the diploma can be considered as a signal sent by the potential employee to his employer on his skills and qualifications. This positive signal will allow the employer to eliminate candidates with lower degrees because they are supposed to be less productive than the others.

  6. 6.

    The Screening [12, 60,61,62] is a strategy that protects the uninformed agent against the opportunistic behavior of the informed agent through the conclusion of a contract, specifying the intrinsic qualities of the exchanged good or of the individual before the exchange.

  7. 7.

    DGTPE, The Evaluation Notebook 2010.

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Correspondence to Samira Oukarfi or Hicham Sattar .

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Oukarfi, S., Sattar, H. (2020). Asymmetric Information and e-Tourism: Literature Review. In: Bi, Y., Bhatia, R., Kapoor, S. (eds) Intelligent Systems and Applications. IntelliSys 2019. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 1037. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29516-5_93

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