Critical Success Factors for Positive User Experience in Hotel Websites: Applying Herzberg's Two Factor Theory for User Experience Modeling

This research presents the development of a critical success factor matrix for increasing positive user experience of hotel websites based upon user ratings. Firstly, a number of critical success factors for web usability have been identified through the initial literature review. Secondly, hotel websites were surveyed in terms of critical success factors identified through the literature review. Thirdly, Herzberg's motivation theory has been applied to the user rating and the critical success factors were categorized into two areas. Finally, the critical success factor matrix has been developed using the two main sets of data.Comment: Journal articl

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

A Longitudinal Study of Consumer Perceptions of Travel Websites: The Case of Hong Kong

Knowing how consumers perceive travel websites can help practitioners better understand consumers’ online requirements. This paper reports the findings of a longitudinal study that investigated the changes and trends in the profile and behavior of online travel-website users in Hong Kong. The profiles of e-buyers and e-browsers in 2009, when compared with those established by prior studies conducted in 2000 and 2007, point in a new direction for practitioners and researchers investigating online travelwebsite user behavior. The results indicated that more middle-aged consumers have become online travel-website users, and that website security and price are perceived to be the most important factors for travel-website use by both e-browsers and e-buyers

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

Referencial para a caracterização de websites de hotéis de acordo com as necessidades dos consumidores

Online presence is essential for tourism organisations, and the quality of websites can influence customers. In the case of hotels, there are many studies to evaluate website performance based on functionality, usability and other factors, much less on the amount of different information available to the consumer. In the near future by using Big Data it is expected that hotel websites will be dynamic, they will adapt themselves on-the-fly, showing personalized information to each consumer. Different consumers will have different websites (information? available) from the same hotel. This paper presents a framework for the characterisation of hotel websites, focusing on the amount of information available to the consumer in each website, which was applied in a case study during the last months of 2013 to the websites of five-star hotels that operate in the tourist region of the Algarve, Portugal. The framework allowed to identify a set of exhaustive indicators for hotel website characterisation, which were then grouped into ten fundamental information dimensions. These dimensions further fell into four dimension groups. Finally, it is presented and discussed quantitative and qualitative evaluations, that illustrates which indicators and dimensions are more often considered on hotel websites to satisfy the consumer?s information needs

A framework to analyse the effect of hotel websites stimuli on emotions, attitude and intentions moderated by sensory curiosity; language of instruction; classification of hotel; and annual income of customer

The present study reviews the literature about the S–O–R framework and proposes an extending model regarding attitude and behavioral intentions as responses. Additionally, the model hypothesizes that sensory curiosity, language of instruction, classification of Hotel, and annual income of customer moderate the relationships between atmospheric cues and consumers’ emotional reactions. The proposed model should be tested using two samples. One sample should gather consumers who have experience of using and booking in hotel websites. Another sample, a group of control, should be composed of people with no experience in using the hotel website for booking

Exploratory Study of the Download Speed of Leading University Hospitality and Tourism Department Websites Worldwide

Increased broadband penetration (BP) rates around the world have encouraged web designers to include more web content and additional functions on their web sites, thereby enhancing the richness and playfulness of the information. However, it is often very difficult for web surfers who are still using narrowband connections to access such web sites. Many university web sites target international audiences; therefore their download performance should be considered, as it may directly influence the user experience. This exploratory study examined 331 university hospitality and tourism department web sites in 37 countries. The empirical results showed that entry web pages of universities in Asia, with a medium BP rate (mid-BP), have the slowest download speeds, and those in Australia and New Zealand perform the best. The adoption rate of the Cascade Style Sheet (CSS) in Asia is relatively lower than that of other regions

The Study on the Usability for Tourism Websites of Scenic Spots -Took Hainan Province as the Example

At present, people pay more and more attention on the usability of tourism websites. The websites with poor usability can not bring good experiences for the users. For good scenic spots, good experiences can bring the positive propaganda and poor website experience can made the tourists abandon the trip their destination trip. The paper made the comparison and exploratory research for the web portals of tourist attraction in Hainan. By using the evaluation methodology of correction and elicitation, the writer made sure the index to the websites made by users. The paper analyzed the questionnaires based on 5 categories and 30 indexes, discussed present construction status of tourism website for the scenic spots in Hainan province, searched the relation between the star level and usability for the tourist spots, researched the influences to the trip of travelers caused by website usability and found out the insufficient of trip website construction in the scenic spots of Hainan province to improve the management level for the tourist destination and tourist spot, provide theoretical basis for the plan of trip promotion and improve the quality of traveling experience for travelers. In the paper, the research meanings are as follows: 1. The paper used the method of correction and enlightenment and took the feeling of tourists (who browsed the website) into consideration. By using 5 categories and 31 usability indexes of tourism website, the writer made the modeling and assessment for the tourism websites of scenic spots in Hainan. From five aspects, such as language, page structure and design, information structure, user interface and navigation mark and the whole part, the writer made omni bearing and deep assessment for the tourism websites of scenic spots in Hainan. He knew fully the deficiencies and provided the suggestions and opinions for the construction of tourism website in Hainan. 2. The aim of the paper is researching the relation among star level and usability and so on for Hainan scenic spots and finding the deficiencies for the tourism website usability of Hainan scenic spots to put forward relative improvement measures and helped servers who provided the tourism information to improve the tourism service and provide more convenient, timely and efficient tourism information. It aims to improve the management level for travel destination and scenic spots and provide theoretical basis for the plan of trip promotion. 3. Finding out the influences to scenic spot expectation of tourists made by websites of tourist attraction to understand well the influences to scenic spot propaganda made by the website of tourist attraction