Feeling free: the effect of a hotel self-perceived gay-friendliness on its intention to escape from online travel booking agents

The goal of this study is to determine the effect of a hotel management’s involvement in the gay-friendly cause on its intention to escape from big online travel booking agents. Since extant literature does not provide a scale to measure the self-perceived gay-friendliness of a business, we develop an original measurement scale of the self-perceived gay-friendliness, including the three dimensions of gay-friendly involvement, participation in the gay-friendly network, and gay-friendly welcome. Since traditionally the B2B literature focuses on the intention to continue or to strengthen the relationship, we investigate the unexpected possibility that non-economic beliefs, such as the perceived gay-friendliness of the business, may determine the decision of hotels to quit the relationship with online travel platforms. Our findings are supported by a unique set of more than two-hundred observation collected by interviewing hotels management.