9 July 2019
Website Evaluation in Tourism and Hospitality
The recent development of the Internet supports practitioners in tourism and hospitality to disseminate information, reach potential customers worldwide, and facilitate bookings through business websites. From the perspective of suppliers, a website is a worldwide distribution channel of products or service to consumers. From the perspective of consumers, the Internet enables them to access websites and make reservations anytime and anywhere. Therefore, a functional and easy-to-use website is crucial for managers to facilitate the process of reservation, thereby meeting the needs of consumers, and increasing revenue.
Website usefulness is of great importance when consumers evaluate a website. Website usefulness consists of website functionality and website usability. Website functionality refers to information provision (i.e. website contents and features), whereas website usability denotes information use and processing (i.e. design). Overall, a good website should be useful and easy to use. Easily accessible information, consistent appearance of content, and a good navigation system all contribute to the enhanced usefulness and ease-of-use of a website. Besides basic information about reservation, the information available on websites can be extended to a relational level, such as by integrating social networking sites, providing customized service and information on loyalty program, which will enhance customer relationships.
In this presentation, the historical background of the Internet will be introduced. Then, some recent research findings related to website, such as website visibility, website evaluation approaches, and website performance measurements will be illustrated with some real-life examples. After that, an overall picture of the progress and future development directions of websites will be presented. Specifically, terminologies used for website evaluation, measurements of website functionality and usability, chronological development of the mainstream website evaluation models from 1990s to present will be reviewed. The adoption of digital footprints in tourism will also be delivered in this presentation.
The ultimate goal of this presentation is to provide industry practitioners, post-graduate students, and other tourism professionals the insights on improving websites, such as exerting effort in achieving high-level information communication in order to bring more convenience and personalized service to consumers, and in the meantime, increase business revenue.
Course leader
Professor Rob Law, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Target group
PhD students, practitioners and business participants in tourism and hospitality.
Course aim
Understanding the state of the art in the course topic.
Fee info
EUR 380: The forfeit amount (for PhD and master students) covers the entire participation at LION-APP, including ten related courses in tourism and hospitality during the period July 5 - 9, 2019