Online Hotel Booking Intention: Integrating fsQCA and PLS-SEM to Explain the Roles of Electronic Word of Mouth, Customer Experience, and Trust

The continuous expansion of digital tourism has increased the need to understand tourists’ intentions to book hotels online in competitive digital marketplaces. Previous studies have generally relied on symmetric analytical approaches, which have limited the understanding of the complex causal mechanisms underlying online hotel booking intention, especially in emerging tourism markets such as Thailand. This study aimed to investigate the determinants of online hotel booking intention (OBI) among Thai tourists by integrating partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA). The study collected data from 1884 Thai tourists who had prior experience with online hotel booking. Furthermore, PLS-SEM was used to examine the linear relationships among the study constructs, whereas fsQCA was employed to identify multiple causal configurations leading to OBI. The findings indicate that electronic word of mouth (E-WOM) was the strongest direct driver of OBI, while customer experience (CEX) significantly enhanced perceived value (PCV). Trust (TRU) emerged as a key relational mechanism that strengthened perceived usefulness (PU) and facilitated the development of E-WOM, while electronic promotion (EPM) indirectly influenced OBI. In addition, fsQCA identified multiple sufficient configurational pathways leading to high OBI, supporting the principle of equifinality. Collectively, these findings advance the theoretical understanding of OBI by demonstrating that the integration of symmetric and asymmetric analytical approaches provides complementary insights into tourists’ decision-making processes.