Measuring customer value in online collaborative trip planning processes

The paper first aims to analyse the role and functionality of geocollaborative portals in assisting collaborative trip planning processes and then it seeks to develop and test a model for measuring the multi‐dimensionality of customer value perceived by system users.

Primary data are collected from students assigned to use Yahoo! Trip Planner for collaboratively designing an hypothetical trip. A two step approach of an exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis was used for testing the model measuring the types of customer value derived from the system use.

Findings provide evidence of the existence of both “give” (risk, time and effort to use the system) and “get” (functional, social and emotional) customer values.

Findings are limited to the demographics of the students' sample, while future research should also try to replicate the study in other contexts (e.g. cultures, type of trips and destinations).

The findings provide useful information about the value dimensions that can affect customer behaviour in using and preferring a particular geocollaborative portal, which in turn give useful guidance on how to design and develop the functionality and services of such systems.

The paper contributes to the fields related to the role of geocollaborative portals in supporting collaborative decision processes and the types of customer value deriving from and motivating technology use. The paper also contributes to the field related to user toolkits developed to assist customers in designing and customising products/services.