AN INVESTIGATION ON WEBSITE ADOPTION AND PERFORMANCE ON IRANIAN HOTELS

This study investigates website adoption and performance among Iranian hotels. Using content analysis technique, this study identifies the presence of 28 website features on 57 Iranian hotels. The results found Iranian hotels are at very early stage of Internet adoption. E-commerce activities are very minimal among the Iranian hotels as none of the hotels provide online reservation. This study adds to the limited study of e-commerce and hospitality in Iran.E-tourism, Website, Evaluation, Hotel, Iran

Information Technology Applications in Hospitality and Tourism: A Review of Publications from 2005 to 2007

The tourism and hospitality industries have widely adopted information technology (IT) to reduce costs, enhance operational efficiency, and most importantly to improve service quality and customer experience. This article offers a comprehensive review of articles that were published in 57 tourism and hospitality research journals from 2005 to 2007. Grouping the findings into the categories of consumers, technologies, and suppliers, the article sheds light on the evolution of IT applications in the tourism and hospitality industries. The article demonstrates that IT is increasingly becoming critical for the competitive operations of the tourism and hospitality organizations as well as for managing the distribution and marketing of organizations on a global scale

Business-to-consumer e-commerce in Nigeria: Prospects and challenges

The growth of Internet usage in Nigeria continues to increase, recording over 90% growth rate between 2000 and 2008. While businesses in Nigeria are reported to have online access with opportunity for ecommercial activities, customers in the country however access business websites only to source for information but make purchases the traditional way. This paper aims at assessing the prospects and challenges of Business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce implementation in Nigeria from the consumers’ perspective. Survey research was adopted for this study. Research hypotheses were formulated and questionnaire designed and administered randomly to 900 respondents. Collected data was used to evaluate the acceptance of B2C e-commerce using the extended technology acceptance model (TAM). The extended TAM combines task-technology fit, relationship related construct: trust and risk, and the two TAM constructs to determine factors influencing consumer acceptance of B2C e-commerce in Nigeria. Findings revealed that there are significant relationships between the model variables. Tasktechnology fit and perceived usefulness have significant relationships with intentions to use, having a correlation coefficient of 0.2623 and 0.2002 respectively. Similarly, the interrelationship among trust, perceived risk, and behavioral intention are significant. The effect of risk on trust was statistically showing that risk is a predictor of trust. Risk has a high significant on trust and trust in turn has low significant effect on behavioral intention. Adding TTF and its relationships to the TAM also fit the data. The relationship between task-technology fit, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness and intention are significant

Word of Mouth, the Importance of Reviews and Ratings in Tourism Marketing

The Internet and social media have given place to what is commonly known as the democratization of content and this phenomenon is changing the way that consumers and companies interact. Business strategies are shifting from influencing consumers directly and induce sales to mediating the influence that Internet users have on each other. A consumer review is “a mixture of fact and opinion, impression and sentiment, found and unfound tidbits, experiences, and even rumor” (Blackshaw & Nazarro, 2006). Consumers' comments are seen as honest and transparent, but it is their subjective perception what shapes the behavior of other potential consumers. With the emergence of the Internet, tourists search for information and reviews of destinations, hotels or services. Several studies have highlighted the great influence of online reputation through reviews and ratings and how it affects purchasing decisions by others (Schuckert, Liu, & Law, 2015). These reviews are seen as unbiased and trustworthy, and considered to reduce uncertainty and perceived risks (Gretzel & Yoo, 2008; Park & Nicolau, 2015). Before choosing a destination, tourists are likely to spend a significant amount of time searching for information including reviews of other tourists posted on the Internet. The average traveler browses 38 websites prior to purchasing vacation packages (Schaal, 2013), which may include tourism forums, online reviews in booking sites and other generic social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Progress in information technology and tourism management: 20 years on and 10 years after the Internet—The state of eTourism research

This paper reviews the published articles on eTourism in the past 20 years. Using a wide variety of sources, mainly in the tourism literature, this paper comprehensively reviews and analyzes prior studies in the context of Internet applications to Tourism. The paper also projects future developments in eTourism and demonstrates critical changes that will influence the tourism industry structure. A major contribution of this paper is its overview of the research and development efforts that have been endeavoured in the field, and the challenges that tourism researchers are, and will be, facing

Consumer behavior study in the field of tourism

Today, the Internet is assumed to be an important channel for services marketing and is leading to profound changes in the way firms interact with consumers. Consumers now have increased access to informational electronic marketplaces and use this information in a sophisticated way to select their services. The Internet provides accurate and specific information that can reach the target audience with the accuracy of more personalized information sources. This new interactive medium can be considered as a rational medium of difficult classification. The Internet is not easily classified as either impersonal or a mass media channel.marketing, destination, internet, site, market, consumer

Direct and indirect tourism online channels. Do they have a different potential for customer loyalty?

To manage their competitive goals, e-tourism service companies, in direct and in indirect channels respectively, need to know the antecedents of customer loyalty. Customer loyalty, generated by satisfaction in its various forms, is the cornerstone of the company''s assets and financial sustainability. Current literature does not provide a comparative analysis on this issue. To fill this gap, this research presents a model that includes customer satisfaction and participation as the main drivers of customer loyalty. The empirical research relies on one survey conducted by a market research company addressed to Internet users in Spain with experience in online purchases of tourism products. The estimation method is 3SLS (Three-Stage Least Squares), a simultaneous equations model applied to the database obtained. The results reveal a different potential of the two types of e-channels in producing higher levels of loyalty through customer participation. Increasing the participation of customers in indirect e-tourism channels results in higher returns on loyalty while the impact is lower in the direct channels. These findings are especially interesting for tourism service providers

A Study of Online Hotel Reservations on Asia Pacific-Based, European-Based, and North American-Based Travel Websites

This paper reports a study that examined hotel reservation services on travel websites. Using a systematic search, 90 travel websites were selected with an equal number of North American-based, European-based, and Asia Pacfic-based websites. These regions represent the areas of the world with the most Internet users. Based on the developed framework of information quality, the contents of the selected travel websites were evaluated. Be empirical results indicated that the travel websites achieved different levels of quality in online information, and that North American-based websites performed significantly better in some attributes