Shanshan Qi

Usability of Chinese Destination Management Organization Websites

Information Communication Technology (ICT) has had a large impact on tourism industry. In Mainland China (hereafter known as China), the increasing popularity of Internet applications to its tourism industry is evident by the rapid growth of Chinese tourism websites. In 2005, e‐tourism in China has reached an income of RMB12.5 billion or US

Perceptions of Functionality and Usability on Travel Websites: The Case of Chinese Travelers

1.63 billion, showing that although a small percentage of Chinese use the Internet, their online consumption is still considerable. While the e‐tourism market seems promising, there exist a limited number of prior studies on website evaluations in the context of China. This research explores usability, a contemporary issue of website design, and focuses on the provincial Destination Management Organization (DMO) websites in China. Research findings include a checklist of criteria for assessing DMO website usability. Findings showed that Chinas DMO websites had medium problems, and the best and worst performing destinations were Beijing and Ningxia. In addition, the usability indices had no significant relationship with website performance and level of tourism regional development which was represented by total tourism income in the destination. Findings of this study would be of interest to readers for better understanding the current development of DMO websites in China. Industrial practitioners may consider adopting a similar approach to evaluate their websites. The authors are grateful to the constructive comments offered by the three anonymous reviewers about an earlier version of this article.This project was partly supported by a research grant funded by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (A‐PG87).

A New Framework on Website Evaluation

Despite the large increase in the amount of online purchases of travel-related products in recent years, previous studies on travel website analysis have concentrated mainly on assessing the quality of travel websites, customer purchase behavior, and website content analysis. In the context of Mainland China (hereafter known as China), with growing wealth of her citizens and the inclination to travel, more Chinese travelers have been, and will probably be, visiting worldwide destinations. In addition, many Chinese travelers will use the Internet to search, and subsequently to purchase, travel-related products and services. This study makes an attempt to analyze Chinese online buyers and online browsers on their perceived importance of travel website functionality (content) and usability (design) and their specific factors. Online buyers (e-buyers) are the Internet users who have previously purchased on travel websites, whereas online browsers (e-browsers) are the Internet users who have browsed travel websites but without making any purchases. The research findings showed that e-buyers did not differ significantly from e-browsers in most of the included factors. The findings of this research are expected to assist travel website developers to improve their websites and to attract more e-travelers.

Hong Kong Residents’ Perception of Travel Websites

Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) have changed how business is conducted and consumers’ purchase behavior. Online market has showed its importance to both academia and business circles. This paper analyses published website evaluation related studies and found that the existing e-commerce literature simply does not have any commonly agreed-upon standards for evaluating overall website performance. Therefore, this research proposes a novel direction to website evaluation. A new framework has been established which suggests website assessment should be performed in three major aspects: website usefulness (technique), service quality, and physical accessibility. The expected contributions of the proposed model to academics and practitioners are discussed.

A Study of Information Richness and Downloading Time for Hotel Websites in Hong Kong

At present, Internet applications have been well adopted in the tourism industry. In terms of online marketing, consumers online purchase intention is always recognized as one of the most popular topics in both academia and industry. This research makes an attempt to investigate the perception of residents in Hong Kong, grouped in experienced and inexperienced travelers, of online and offline perceptions. Empirical findings indicated that both groups of travelers considered price and online payment security were equally important, and website reputation was more important to inexperienced travelers. Respondents did not shop online mainly because online transactions are too complicated and insecure. They preferred face-to-face interactions. Drawing on the findings, recommendation and suggestions to the industry were provided.

A Modified Fuzzy Hierarchical TOPSIS Model for Hotel Website Evaluation

It is generally agreed that a hotel website is created for attracting business. Adding visual materials such as images and multimedia files can enrich the website’s content and enable a visitor to better understand the hotel. However, the more visual materials that are put on the website, the longer the download time. This study analyzed 102 Hong Kong hotel websites’ home pages. Empirical findings showed that economy hotels had fewer image files than their luxury counterparts but the total file size of the former group was much larger than the latter. Moreover, most luxury hotels used script programs to handle sophisticated web functions such as member login and room availability; whereas only half of the economy and mid-priced hotels used script. In general, the difference on average web page size between luxury hotels and economy hotels was only lOOKBytes (371KB and 271KB). Luxury hotels, however, contained an average of 47 objects and economy class hotels only contained 18 objects. As a result, when download speed is considered, the number of objects is not the major factor, but file size needs to be measured carefully.

Hotel Website Performance Evaluation: A Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process Approach

The performance of commercial websites is a critical issue that has a significant effect on consumers’ online decision-making. This study develops and applies a fuzzy model to assess the performance of hotel websites. It presents a fuzzy decision-making approach to the evaluation of tourism website performance that integrates consumer perceptions with a hierarchical model. The model consists of a fuzzy multicriteria procedure that weighs evaluation criteria in a hierarchy structure and defuzzifies the matrix in a simpler and more accurate way. The study’s findings include a new website usefulness evaluation framework and a newly developed fuzzy hierarchical TOPSIS model. The results from applying this model indicate that the functionality and usability dimensions are equally important for hotel websites. The ranking of hotel website performance is listed in terms of usefulness, functionality, and usability.

A Study of Chinese and International Online User Perceptions of Hotel Websites’ Usefulness

Previous studies on hotel website performance have relied on frequency counting, content analysis or user behavioral approaches. These studies cannot accurately calculate hotel website performance in terms of user assessments of dimension/ attribute weighting and performance ratings. The aim of this research is to develop a scientific model that integrates a set of website evaluation dimensions for evaluating websites performance. Unlike previous studies, this research proposes a novel framework for evaluating website performance by using Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (Fuzzy AHP). Since human judgments are often uncertain and vague, using fuzzy set theory instead of exact numbers could integrate a decision maker’s uncertainty. This proposed method could rectify this limitation and provide a more accurate overall evaluation result.

The Search for Kenya: How Chinese-Speaking Generation Z Does Its Online Travel Planning

The unprecedented growth of China’s online market renders more online Chinese users to use the Internet to search and purchase tourism related services and/or products. Hence, it is crucial to understand China’s online users and how they act as compare to international users. The aim of this research is to compare the difference in perceptions of functionality and usability between Mainland China and international online users on the usefulness of hotel websites. Empirical findings revealed that the two groups of users do not exhibit significant differences in perceptions in most of the included attributes. Additionally, many users would like to use weblog or social network to share their travel experiences. Findings of this study would be of use to readers for better understanding the Chinese online users. Industrial practitioners may consider using the recommendations to improve their websites.

Comparative evaluation study of the websites of China-based and international luxury hotels

Travel planning is highly reliant on the websites of tourist bureaus, professional travel writers and experienced (non-professional) travelers. This study examines the search preferences of Chinese speaking Generation Z (alternatively known as Post-Millennials, the iGeneration, Founders, Plurals, or the Homeland Generation) as they plan a trip to a destination unfamiliar to them. The findings indicated more than 70% of the websites they frequented were well-known international sites, including user generated content (UGC) and the sites of business entities. The sites most preferred by Generation Z were UGC websites, with 100% of the participants saying they frequently use them while travel planning. The Destination Management Office (DMO) website was not a popular source, being frequently used by only 13% of participants. Of the nine dimensions of destination information, the two rated most important were natural resources and natural environment, which suggests that travel planners strongly associate Kenya with these qualities. Leisure and recreation information ranked least important. The results indicate, firstly, the perceived destination image affects the perceived importance of the destination information, and secondly, with the exception of popular world-wide travel websites, travelers prefer using local sites which share the same language and cultural background.