Optimal channel choices and online refund policies in a low-carbon tourism supply chain considering carbon reduction level

Abstract With the rapid development of low-carbon tourism and online travel agencies (OTAs), whether to enter OTAs has been a problem faced by tour operators in the context of low-carbon tourism. Besides, if tour operators enter OTAs, whether to provide online refund policies is also a challenge for them. To research whether tour operators should enter OTAs and provide online refund policies, three models are built. Main results reveal that when OTAs charge relatively high annual service fees, tour operators should not enter OTAs. When the annual service fees are relatively low and tourist’s satisfaction rate with tour package from online channel meets the constraint in our models, tour operators will enter OTAs and always provide online refund policies for tourists. Although entering OTAs and providing online refund policies will benefit tour operators and tourists, they will cause the worst impact on the environment. Moreover, when considering the impacts of online reviews, government subsidy and discounted value of the dissatisfied low-carbon tour package, operation strategies of tour operators are still held. When considering the different power structure, tour operators’ optimal channel choice strategies are not changed but optimal online refund policy strategies have changed a lot.