The importance of tourism websites to tourism services and assurance of their competitiveness

Abstract

In the recent years, a considerable number of scientists have shown interest in the significance of innovations in tourism sector, have analyzed the impact of information technologies to tourism services and their competitiveness. Unfortun ately, such studies in Eastern European countries, including Lithuania missing and it is also unclear what the structure of the website features are crucial to tourism service customers and could determine the competitiveness of such a service. The aim of this research is to evaluate website features from the internet tourism serv ice users’ point of view. A tourism website survey, analyzing the ch aracteristics of electronic services revealed that for potential tourism service buyers the most important tourism website e-services are Interactivity and Functionality of the page. In descending order of importance there are these features: website interaction, mailing list subscription, online reservation and payment, information safety and security. Least important e-services for tourism webs ite are Design and Information. These are the following (from leas t important): location features, website map, company information and website customization