Factors Determining ROPO Behaviors of Travel Agencies Customers during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Thank you for the opportunity to read and review this interesting article.
The article is well written but needs a few minor corrections.
1. The authors provide data on % of travelers taking package tours in various countries. But this article is about Poland. What % of tourists in Poland use package tours?
2. The pupose is "an identification of COVID-19 pandemic impact on tourist decision making process". It seems to me that the authors did not identify "impact" but distinguished segments that differ in shopping behavior in covid-19. To identify the "impact" it would be necessary to compare behaviors before and during covid-19, and this has not been done.
3. In this context, the thesis (hypothesis) is also incorrect (r. 126-132), because the change in purchasing behavior has not been verified.
4. I propose to use the classic structure of a scientific article and place the description of the methods and the presentation of the results in separate chapters.
5. Fig. 3. It takes up two pages filled with a large number of incomprehensible numbers that the authors do not interpret at all. I believe this drawing requires at least two pages of discussion.
6. Discussion. "The results of this study indicate the presence of four patterns of decision-making" - The results of this study don't indicate the presence of four patterns of decision-making, because the existence of these four patterns was assumed in advance (before starting the research). And the applied statistical method assigned the examined cases to these four patterns.
7. When explaining shopping behavior, the authors used only socio-demographic characteristics, which they called factors, as independent variables. Such factors should rather include, for example, perceived ease of ICT use, perceived risk of ICT use or perceived usefulness of ICT (see Davis's (1989) technology acceptance model - TAM, or UTAUT/UTAUT 2 (Ayeh et al., 2013), etc.
Good luck!
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We are most grateful for a very thorough analysis of our article and indicating its imperfections. After reading the review, we would like to present our standpoint regarding all the comments and suggestions made (in uploaded file).
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
I have made the following comments:
1. In the sentence: “…..the Peng, Xu and Chen’s [30] classification, as well as the Amaro and Duarte’s [31] classification of factors influencing buyers' behavior. They summarized these factors into four categories……"., should be three categories.
2. “Minor children in a household” isn’t Nominal scale. It is Quotient scale.
3. In the sentence: “This is one of the few studies analysing the decision-making process of purchasers of tourist packages from the perspective of their use of online and offline information channels” I don’t know what it is “This is one of the few studies ….”. It is a new paragraph and it is not clear which approach is meant.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We are most grateful for a very thorough analysis of our article and indicating its imperfections. After reading the review, we would like to present our standpoint regarding all the comments and suggestions made (in uploaded file).
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The study investigates package tour which is rather typical in tourism industry and is always a popular product, especially among senior tourists. The findings has certain contributions, but the overall study also has many big problems.
1. Introduction: it is better to propose a research question to answer instead of giving a statement as a research question.
2. Literature review: authors mention many studies regarding decision of package holiday purchase, but I cannot find a clear logic from each paragraph. It is better to organize the contents in a clear and easy-to-understand style.
3. Method: there is no need to list Table 1, which is too long. I suggest presenting the key demographic profile in the finding section. Meanwhile, it is more meaningful to tell how the classification trees are obtained, which is quite short and the figure is actually not clear enough to read.
4. Conclusion: I doubt the rigorousness of the study. Nowadays, most young people search online and purchase online. This has almost become the routine of the young. In my life, I can only see those over 55 or 60 will use offline service. However, the percentage from this study is quite different. Is it because of the survey sample? If the representativeness of the sample cannot be clearly proven, the meaning of the study will be significantly weakened. Also, will this percentage be so because of the pandemic situation at that time? Will the findings be useful for the common package tour in the post-covid period?
5. Structure: authors can use some subtitles to segment a big section, then the overall readability of the study can be enhanced. Now there is much content in discussion and conclusion, then why not give some subtitles to them?
6. Language issues: “During the period of the most severe 47 restrictions international tourism almost died out.”/ decision of package holidays purchase/
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We are most grateful for a very thorough analysis of our article and providing highly valuable comments, which allowed us to introduce the respective improvements. After reading the review, we would like to present our standpoint regarding all the comments and suggestions made (in uploaded file).
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
Dear Authors,
Your manuscript is well-written and the thought flows well. I am of the opinion that it could contribute potentially to literature, however, there is a need for minor corrections.
1. "ROPO" was in the captured in the title suggesting that the work somehow is centered arround the concept of research online, purchase offline behavior, however, this was not the case in the introduction and literature. I will recommend that you incorporate this issue more in the introduction and literature.
2. the first mention of ROPO in your manuscript was in the method section, this must be first written before abbreviation.
3. What is CAWI?
4. How does your study connects with sustainability?
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We are most grateful for providing valuable comments, which allowed us to introduce the respective improvements. After reading the review, we would like to present our standpoint regarding all the comments and suggestions made (in uploaded file).
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 3 Report
The article has improved to certain degree, but still has some problems:
1. Introduction: Statement like “Before COVID-19 crisis researchers have noticed a growing share of Internet 62 channels in making decisions about the purchase of tourist packages. They also observed 63 ROPO (Research online Purchase Offline) phenomenon, which means a certain part of 64 buyers mixed online and offline channels during decision making. Buyers looked for in-65 formation about tourist packages on the Internet whereas bought them in traditional 66 (bricks and mortar) travel agencies.” really need using citations to support.
2. Decision of package holidays purchase: some paragraphs are very short while others too long. Authors should properly organize their contents to clearly show their ideas. Meanwhile, what is the function of this section? Should it be combined with section 3 to form the literature review section? I feel there is no need to have these two sections separated.
3. Materials and methods: in this statement “The research covering purchasers of package holidays and focusing on the problems 172 of travelling during the COVID-19 pandemic (N = 1502) was carried out to answer re-173 search question.”, what does N mean? The expression is very ambiguous. Actually, it is not needed to put the sample size here.
4. Authors should focus on displaying their contribution under the context of COVID or their study will be quite normal without innovation.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We are most grateful to the Reviewer for re-reviewing our manuscript and further valuable and helpful remarks supporting us to improve our article. Taking into account all the comments included in review report, we make an attempt to revise the paper and introduce appropriate corrections. Detailed answers are provided in the attached file.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
Congratulations
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We are most grateful to the Reviewer for re-reviewing our manuscript and word of congratulations. Taking into account the comment included in review report, we revised the paper and introduce appropriate corrections. The answer is included in attached file.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 3
Reviewer 3 Report
Overall, authors have properly addressed all comments. Now I am happy to recommend its publication in the journal.
