Assessing the website effectiveness of top ten tourist attracting nations

ORI GINAL RESEARCH

Assessing the website effectiveness of top ten touristattracting nations

Devashish Das Gupta • Utkarsh

Received: 17 February 2014 / Revised: 31 May 2014 / Accepted: 4 June 2014 /

Published online: 24 June 2014

� Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014

Abstract Website evaluation has been studied extensively in Information Systems

and Tourism literature; but few studies combine information system issues with the

Tourist decision making perspective. In this research we evaluate websites on a

comprehensive set of criteria, based on five factors of website effectiveness.

A Content analysis of official tourism websites of top ten tourist attracting nations

was done and data was analysed using Correspondence analysis and weighted mean

scores. Findings reveal that websites need to improve on certain factors, the two

most important being Security and Responsiveness. In addition to this, websites

should include features that support decision making at different stages of travel

which would enhance website effectiveness. The study also discusses the implica-

tions for tourism organisations for developing websites that create destination image

and attract tourists across the globe. The research contributes to the website eval-

uation approaches by developing a set of criteria using a tourist decision making

perspective, rather than only technical, for evaluating website effectiveness. The

research employs a novel approach of analysing cross national websites unlike other

studies that have generally evaluated websites from a single country.

Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s40558-014-0012-x)

contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

D. D. Gupta (&) � Utkarsh

Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow, India

e-mail: [email protected]

Utkarsh

e-mail: [email protected]

Present Address:

Utkarsh

Department of Business Administration, University of Lucknow, Lucknow, India

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Inf Technol Tourism (2014) 14:151–175

DOI 10.1007/s40558-014-0012-x

http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s40558-014-0012-x

Keywords Tourism website effectiveness � Website evaluation � Tourist decision

making � Correspondence analysis

1 Introduction

The total number of internet users in the world is estimated at around 2.4 billion in

the year 2012, with a growth of around 566 % over the year 2000 (Internet World

Stats 2012) which means more than a quarter of world’s population is using internet

at present. Internet is widely used during travel decision making by tourists. The

internet and World Wide Web have emerged as a mass medium for communication

(Dorren and Frew 1997) and as a distribution channel for travel services. The

information required for making travel decisions is large (Hwang et al. 2006) as

tourists require information related to destinations and different industries like

accommodation, transportation etc. The information related to travel is among the

most frequently sought information on the internet (Law et al. 2008). The

advantages of internet have made it an essential ingredient of tourism organisations’

marketing mix (Marcussen 1997). Park (2002) states that the fragmented nature of

tourism industry has made internet an appropriate medium for communicating with

tourists because information related to different industries can be made accessible at

one place on websites.

Divisions on the web, namely websites can influence the destination image and

final purchase decision of tourists. The rising importance of websites in the purchase

process of tourists has made it necessary to develop effective websites and evaluate

their effectiveness. Website effectiveness has been defined subjectively and there is

no consensus among researchers on its definition and operationalisation. It has been

suggested that expert judgments, consumer evaluation of revisits intentions and

other network metrics like websites ranking, number of visits, time spent etc. can be

used to evaluate tourism website effectiveness (Ip et al. 2011; Schmidt et al. 2008).

In this research we focus on the factors which influence the effectiveness of a

website.

We have chosen five important factors of website effectiveness with help of

previous research in this area (Park and Gretzel 2007) and on basis of their wide

application in evaluating tourism websites. Though there are number of studies in

area of tourism website evaluation, from information system perspective, marketing

perspective and combined approaches yet there is a lack of research on tourism

website effectiveness from a tourist decision making perspective. Law et al. (2010)

also advocated that more approaches should be developed by researchers for

evaluating tourism websites as there is no standard instrument and consensus on

method, for website evaluation. This research fills this gap by developing an

instrument grounded in the intervention of different website characteristics at each

stage of consumer decision making process adapted from Merwe and Bekker (2003)

for analysing websites. The objective of the study is to explore how world’s top

most visited countries perform on different factors of website effectiveness which

aid in tourist decision making. The second objective is to explore the differences in

152 D. D. Gupta, Utkarsh

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website effectiveness among websites classified on parameters of ‘Tourist

Destination Dominance’ (Woodside et al. 2011), Economy type and Tourists visits.

This research will also develop a comprehensive instrument for website evaluation

through which tourism organisations can evaluate their websites effectiveness and

compare it with websites of other tourism organisations.

2 Tourist consumer behaviour and role of website

2.1 Tourist decision making process

Numerous theories of consumer decision making have been proposed and tested

(Engel and Kollat 1968; Howard 1969, 1994; Nicosia 1966). These theories have

been usually adopted by researchers to study consumer behaviour in different

contexts including tourism. Engel and Kollat (1968) proposed a consumer decision

making model which had five stages of decision making. The decision process

started with Need Recognition where consumer understands his/her needs and then

moves to Information search, to collect information about the alternatives that can

satisfy his/her need. The information collected at this stage helps the consumer in

evaluating alternatives and to make the final purchase decision. After making the

final purchase the consumer exhibits some kind of post purchase behaviour. Each

step of this model has been closely studied in consumer behaviour literature.

Different consumer decision models have been applied in tourism research and

several researchers have studied the tourist decision making process (see: Jeng and

Fesenmaier 2002). Sirakaya and Woodside (2005) in their review found that early

research in area of tourism was largely based on economics paradigm or rational

behaviour but Woodside and MacDonald (1994) decision making framework was

based on psychological paradigm. Since then more and more studies have utilised

the psychological paradigm to study consumer decision making a departure from

traditional way of studying travel behaviour. Tourism products are experiential in

nature and involve hedonic motives (Werthner and Ricci 2004). The decision

making involved is temporal, dynamic and seen as an ongoing funnel like process

(Decrop and Shelders 2005; Pan and Fesenmaier 2002; Sirakaya and Woodside

2005). The travel trip begins with anticipation and planning followed by movement

to destination, onsite experience and activities and departure with recollection of

experiences (Clawson 1966).

Tourist’s behaviour includes what tourist do, why they do with emphasis on

travel planning and decision making (Pearce 2005). Jeng and Fesenmaier (2002)

found that tourist decision making process is highly complex in nature and

constitutes multiple decisions. They proposed that travel planning can be depicted

as a three stage hierarchical process which includes ‘core decisions’, ‘secondary

decisions’ and ‘peripheral decisions’. These decisions are made at various stages of

the travel planning and understanding these will help marketers in developing better

marketing strategies and enhancing information quality of internet based travel

services.

Assessing the website effectiveness of top ten tourist attracting nations 153

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Sirakaya and Woodside (2005) synthesized the variables which influence travel

decision making into Internal, External, Nature of trip and Trip Experiences.

Internal variables include components like attitude, values, motivation and beliefs

which are internal to tourists or psychological in nature. External variables include

factors external to tourists like the marketing mix, culture and peer influence.

Researchers and practitioners in tourism area have emphasized the role technology

plays in travel decision making (Ozdemir and Gok 2009). An examination of

relationship between different levels of tourist purchase decision involvement and

use of internet as an information channel have found tourists at high involvement

level were more likely to use internet (Cai et al. 2004).

In tourism research, information search is one of the most studied areas because

tourism products involve high risk and tourists use extensive information search as a

risk reduction strategy (Fodness and Murray 1997; Sirakaya and Woodside 2005).

Another reason for this emphasis is the requirement of large amount of information

in travel decision making (Pan and Fesenmaier 2000, 2002) beyond the information

processing capability of tourists (Pan and Fesenmaier 2006). A destination is an

experiential and intangible product which is difficult to evaluate (Cai et al. 2004).

Fodness and Murray (1997) state that a variety of information sources are used in

case of vacation travel. In a study, Snepenger and Snepenger (1993) found that

family and friends, destination specific literature, media and the travel consultant

were major information sources for tourists but in late 1990s internet emerged as a

commercial channel for travel information search (Bonn et al. 1998). The emphasis

on information search research moved towards online domain as the information

availability and accessibility became almost effortless with help of internet

(Werthner and Ricci 2004; Wen 2009).

2.2 Role of website in tourist decision making

The usage of internet for travel decision making is increasing rapidly (Baggio and

Del Chiappa 2013; Law et al. 2008). Websites act as a direct bridge between the

tourism organisations and tourists. Numerous advantages of World Wide Web have

been identified such as, accessibility to detailed information, instant accessibility to

availability enquiries and bookings, and assistance to tourists by making the product

more tangible in their minds (Buhalis 1996) and these are helping tourists to make

better travel decisions. The content of information, pictures and interactivity on

internet, acts as a stimuli in purchase of travel products or services (Baggio 2003).

As the role of web in tourists’ decision making has increased, it is essential to

understand the synthesis between website and tourist consumer behaviour. Choi

et al. (2007a) attempted to find tourists’ use of online information at the various

travel decisions making stages and found that information needs vary across the

complete trip course and even at the end of travel activities tourists have strong

desire for sharing their experience and knowledge. The destination image in the

minds of potential tourists often determines the final destination choice. Before

visiting a destination tourists develop an image and a set of expectations which are

based on previous experience, word of mouth, advertising and common beliefs

(Buhalis 2000).


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Tourism industry is based on information, where tourists move to a different

environment for product consumption (Werthner and Klein 1999). Tourism

products require gathering large information by tourists (Pan and Fesenmaier

2002); this leads to high information search cost (Werthner and Ricci 2004).

Internet has been identified as a low cost resource for both consumers and suppliers

(Bakos 1991; Cheyne 2006; Inkpen 1998; Morrell 1998; Reinders and Baker 1997;

Rachman and Richins 1997) The advantages of the web based technologies have

redefined the relationships between tourists, tourism organisations and travel agents

(Lu et al. 2002) and made it a strategic necessity for tourism organisations.

Marcussen (1997) suggests that tourism organisations can not overlook the inclusion

of internet in marketing mix as many tourists use websites for their information

needs. Kim and Fesenmaier (2008) elucidated the online search process of travellers

where the information search process was divided into three stages namely Search,

Primacy and Elaboration. They illustrate that during the Search process tourists use

different terms to search for websites from where they can get information and

move to Primacy where they select webpage from the search results and form a first

impression. Finally in the Elaboration stage they search within website and learn

about the website and the destination they intend to visit. Merwe and Bekker (2003)

elaborated the decision making cycle of online consumers and emphasized on the

importance of website features in each phase.

The contents of websites have an important role in influencing the purchase

decision process of the tourists (Ranganathan and Ganapathy 2002).Websites

provide tourists a virtual experience and facilitate information search and bookings

(Benckendorff 2006). Tourists are able to book directly and feel that they have

control over their trips. The visual presentations increase the interests of online

visitors and attract first time visitors to form an image of the destination (Han and

Mills 2006; Ozdemir and Gok 2009). This influences tourist’s preference of

websites for searching and purchasing travel products (Tierney 2000). The role of

different characteristics of website in tourist decision making can be represented by

the conceptual model in Fig. 1.

Merwe and Bekker (2003) developed a framework for evaluation of e-commerce

websites and advocates using such framework mainly because it facilitates

comprehensive evaluation of websites and also focuses on the consumer decision

making. But there are few shortcomings in their evaluation framework; first it

ignores the linkage of post purchase behaviour of consumers with website

characterises. Post purchase behaviour is very important in case of tourism websites

as consumer share their experiences by returning to the website from which they

collected information (Choi et al. 2007a). A lot of consumers write reviews, share

pictures and their experiences of the visit. So we also focus on linking post purchase

behaviour of consumers with website characteristics for website evaluation in this

study. Secondly they depict that each website characteristics is specific to a

particular stage of decision making. They posit that in four stages of decision

making namely and, Information search, valuation and Purchase the website

characteristics important at each stage are Interface, Navigation, Content and

Reliability respectively. In addition, Technical features are important throughout the

buying process. Interface included characteristics like design, multimedia style etc.,


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Navigation included ease of use, logical structure, Content included information

quality, contact details, interactivity, responsiveness etc., Reliability included

functions and process of website and Technical features included speed, security,

software use etc. Contrary to this we propose that all website characteristics are

important at every stage of buying process, for instance the information quality may

be important at the evaluation stage but will also be important during information

search. Similarly ease of using a website will be important at the information search

stage but will also be significantly important at evaluation and post purchase stage.

The framework was adapted in this study to facilitate the better evaluation of

tourism websites by adding post purchase behaviour stage and extending the

influence of characteristics of website at all stages of decision making. The model

adapted from Merwe and Bekker (2003) is applied in a tourism context and

indicates the intervention of websites at each step of tourist decision making. The

model is not empirically validated in previous or current research but is a

framework to facilitate tourism website evaluation from a tourist decision making

perspective.

3 Tourism website effectiveness

Several studies have attempted to evaluate tourism websites (Buhalis and Spada

2000; Kaplanidou and Vogt 2006; Kim and Fesenmaier 2005; Kline et al. 2004;

Law and Leung 2002; Nysveen et al. 2003). Schmidt et al. (2008) operationalised

website effectiveness of hotels, from a marketing perspective, and measured it in

terms of client acquisition, market share, sales volume and customer retention.

Website effectiveness is also measured as intention to visit site, repeat visits, time

spent, number of visits and popularity of a website.

Kaplanidou and Vogt (2006: p 206) define ‘perceived destination website

usefulness’ as,

…degree to which websites navigation, content and accessibility character-

istics can help travellers satisfy their travel planning information needs.

The content of the website, design, information, interactivity, ease of use,

presentation, overall impression and technological features are basic requirements

Fig. 1 A conceptual model of intervention of website characteristics at different stages of touristdecision making (adapted from Merwe and Bekker 2003)


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for a useful website (Kaplanidou and Vogt 2006; Kincl and Strach 2012; Perdue

2001). Kincl and Strach (2012: p 647) define ‘Website Usability’ using the

ISO9241.11: Guidance on Usability (1991) as

…the extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve

specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified

context of use.

They argued that user centred perspective is the dominant logic of website

usability and found in their research that users perceive website as high in quality if

they achieve what they expected from the website. Park et al. (2007: p 17),

operationalise website quality as ‘‘the customers overall judgment of a websites

excellence and superiority’’. They describe that website quality has six core

dimension based on literature of website evaluation, namely Fulfilment, Ease of use,

Security/privacy, Information/Content, Responsiveness and Visual appeal. Ip et al.

(2011) in their review proposed that website effectiveness has four dimensions

namely expert evaluation, consumer intentions to purchase, use or revisit, user

satisfaction and others. They mention that use of network statistics is not a reliable

way of measuring website effectiveness as data often can be misleading. Ip et al.

(2012) argue that ‘website functionality’ is one of the important dimensions of

website usefulness which refers to content and information adequacy and is a

critical factor in determining website quality. Kim and Fesenmaier (2008) found

that Website usability, operationalised as ease of use and navigation was an

important determinant of first impression of travel websites formed in minds of

tourists. The definitions discussed above are subjective in nature and offer no clear

direction on how to operationalise website effectiveness. Moreover it can be

observed that researchers have used similar dimensions to measure different

constructs and the evaluation approaches suggested are not systematic (Lee and

Morrison 2010; Morrison et al. 2004).

In this research we adopt the argument that website effectiveness is a

consequence of usability and quality of website. Features that increase the usability

and quality of websites will enhance its effectiveness and influence tourist’s

behaviour in extending their trip, and repeat visit intentions (Law et al. 2008;

Ozdemir and Gok 2009). Website effectiveness is seen as a function of website

usability and website quality.

3.1 Evaluation of tourism websites

Law and Leung (2002) examined web based online reservation system to asses

differences between websites of three different regions, in terms of website

attributes and services provided. (Han and Mills 2006) in an attempt to examine the

marketing effectiveness of hospitality and tourism websites, developed online

promotion evaluation instrument which compared aesthetics features, information

features and interactive features. There evaluation instrument was comprehensive

but lacks few features which can influence the website effectiveness. First their

instrument is focused on marketing the destination and secondly it does not assess

websites for their security or privacy features which are found to have direct


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influence on visitor’s perception of websites. Park (2002) evaluated 60 travel agency

websites in Korea and suggested that travel agencies have not fully utilised website

capabilities. Kim et al. (2002) analysed ten websites of large convention centres in

USA based on expert judgement. Jeong and Lambert (2001) found that information

quality, perceived usefulness significantly affect customer behavioural intention to

use accommodation websites. They combined the theory of information quality and

consumer decision making. Wen (2009) state that high quality travel website needs

to be high on three dimensions namely information quality, system quality and

service quality. A high quality website will enhance the website effectiveness by

influencing consumers attitude, trust, satisfaction, repeat purchases etc. (Law et al.

2008). They also state that there is no universal agreement on definition of quality of

website design.

Morrison et al. (1999) used the Balanced Score Card (BSC) approach in

evaluating hotel websites of Scotland. This approach contains different aspects for

website evaluation namely technical, marketing, internal and customer critical.

They developed critical success factors for each dimension. The technical

perspective was related to the factors like, downloading speed, currency of links,

traffic monitoring etc., the marketing perspective included positioning approach,

market segmentation and target marketing, marketing research and database

marketing and the Internal perspective was associated with, ease of site mainte-

nance, schedule for site maintenance and skills to maintain site and the Customer

perspective included, attractiveness, information about availability and reservations,

content updating and user friendliness. Though this is one of the most comprehen-

sive evaluation approaches it lacks on front of technical aspects in which the role of

security in website evaluation is not given much importance. Another issue is that

the BSC has been applied only in a hospitality context (Lee and Morrison 2010;

Morrison et al. 1999) rather than destination website.

Perdue (2001) evaluated North American ski resorts using four website

characteristics; speed and quality of accessibility, ease of navigation, visual

attractiveness and information quality. Morrison et al. (2004) have stated four

main reasons for conducting website evaluation based on financial, marketing,

competitors and website design perspectives. Lee and Morrison (2010) using BSC

approach developed a set of criteria and instrument to measure website

effectiveness of upscale hotels in two culturally different countries. Ip et al.

(2012) investigated the criteria of website functionality using fuzzy set approach

and pair wise comparisons and found that reservation information, user generated

information and hotel facility information were ranked high in improving website

functionality. Baggio (2003) evaluated European tourism websites based on

features of first impact, design and graphics, information contents, interactivity

and services, structure and navigation, and technical management. Though the

features are quite comprehensive still technical features like security and privacy

of visitors were not assessed. Kaplanidou and Vogt (2006) used the technology

acceptance model to explicate the influence characteristics of tourism websites

have on consumer’s perceived usefulness of websites. They found that attractive

visuals and information usefulness were significant predictors of website

usefulness. They also found that higher the perception of website usefulness


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higher was the consumer’s intention to visit the destination. Woodside et al.

(2011) explored the relationship between ‘Tourism Destination Dominance’

(TDD) and ‘Website Usefulness’ of competing destination websites. Tourism

destination dominance was measured by dividing the number of annual tourists to

the destination by number of current residents. Content richness was measured

using a 19 item criteria which evaluated quality and quality of information

usefulness, employed for predicting website usefulness. They found asymmetric

relationship between TDD and Website Usefulness.

Law et al. (2010) in a review classified previous researches of tourism website

evaluation into five approaches of counting, automated, numerical computation,

user judgment, and combined methods. Counting methods were used to identify

the existence of website features. Automated approach was applied for testing

the technical performance of certain website features using software systems. In

numerical computation, mathematical computation process was utilised for

performance evaluation and under user judgement methods user satisfaction was

examined. In combined methods these different approaches were combined in

website evaluation process. They suggested that more research should be

conducted in this area to reach to as consensus on method to evaluate websites.

In a Meta analysis of 153 research papers in area of tourism and non tourism

(Park and Gretzel 2007) synthesised the web site evaluation factors used in previous

studies. They identified key evaluation factors that were utilised in previous studies

and segregated vastly used factors in both tourism and non tourism areas. The key

factors in the 53 papers of tourism area are given in Table 1:

Chiou et al. (2010) in their review highlighted that website evaluation research in

general has been performed using Information System perspective and moved to

Marketing perspective. Information technology applications, is an important area of

research in tourism domain grounded in technology paradigm (Ip et al. 2011; Law

Table 1 Key factors for website evaluation in tourism studies

S. no. Key factors Percent of papers

1 Information quality 87

2 Ease of use 60

3 Security/privacy 43

4 Responsiveness 42

5 Customer service 39

6 Interactivity 39

7 Accessibility 29

8 Navigation 27

9 Visual appearance 23

10 Personalisation 19

11 Trust 18

12 Brand/reputation 16

13 Incentive 16

Source: Park and Gretzel (2007)


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et al. 2009). Woodside et al. (2011) mention that website quality has generally been

researched from two streams, namely, content richness and ease of use. They

support the use of website quality dimension for website evaluation as there is no

consensus on definition and method of website evaluation. To summarise few

important things can be inferred from the review. First, there is lack of research

which links the consumer decision making process to factors influencing website

effectiveness. Second, there is lack of comprehensive evaluation of websites as

‘information content’ and ‘ease of use’ factors have been given much focus over

consumers concern for security, privacy and appearance factors affecting website

effectiveness. Third, there is need to conduct more research in tourism website

evaluation to facilitate the development of new instruments and approaches. Fourth,

the most popular technique to evaluate websites has been content analysis followed

by Balanced Score Card and other techniques like experiments and surveys. This

research will address these core issues and contribute to the research in tourism

website evaluation.

To achieve the objectives of the study a comprehensive set of criteria was

developed for evaluating websites based on user centred dimensions and unlike

other studies which focus only on content and technical aspects, we emphasized on

the factors and criteria that aid tourist decision making. These criteria were adopted

from previous literature of e-commerce and tourism website evaluation studies

(Jeong and Lambert 2001; Lee and Morrison 2010; Merwe and Bekker 2003; Han

and Mills 2006) and modified to develop a standard instrument to measure website

effectiveness.

3.2 Factors influencing tourism website effectiveness

In this section we discuss the factors which influence website effectiveness. These

factors were chosen on basis of their relevance in website usability and quality and

are discussed below with respect to their definition, relevance to website

effectiveness and their role in tourist decision making.

3.2.1 Information quality

Information has an important role to play in the tourists’ decision making process

(Wen 2009). It is the degree of relevant, timely, secured and well designed

information presented on the website (Liu and Arnett Kirk 2000). Information is one

of the primary motives of tourists’ website visit. Information quality influences not

only tourist’s perception of website quality but also their decision making (Jeong

et al. 2005; Jeong and Lambert 2001; Kaplanidou and Vogt 2006). The important

dimensions of information quality as obtained from previous literature are accuracy,

consistency, timeliness, completeness, conciseness, reliability and comprehension

(Knight and Burn 2005). As discussed earlier websites are seen as an important

source of information on internet, information quality is essential for developing

effective websites.


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3.2.2 Ease of use

Ease of use is an important determinant of website quality. It has been used by

several researchers as a key factor in tourism website evaluation (Perdue 2001;

Xiang and Fesenmaier 2004). Ease of Use includes usability, accessibility,

navigation, consistency and logical structure. A website visitor always expects

required information to be available and easy to find. Users prefer easy navigation,

where website is ‘‘free of effort’’ (Park et al. 2007). Ease in using a websites makes

a tourist to spend more time on the website and access information conveniently.

This factor can also enhance repeat visit intention of tourists due to the ease of

access (Jeong et al. 2005).

3.2.3 Security/privacy

Tourists’ assessment of privacy and security on websites is done from statements on

the site. Tourist look for privacy and security policies of website which range from

what kind of information is collected by website, their information sharing policies

and features like password protection (Belanger et al. 2002). A positive correlation

is found in statements of privacy/security and likelihood of purchase from websites

(Miyazaki and Fernandez 2000). A secured website enhances tourist’s intention to

share their personal information. Ranganathan and Ganapathy (2002) found that

security and privacy dimension have a significant effect on consumer purchase

intention from a website. As consumer’s knowledge will increase they will become

more concerned about security and privacy issues on websites.

3.2.4 Responsiveness

Responsiveness is the willingness of customer support to provide prompt service

(Park et al. 2007). It is an important factor for online customer’s website evaluation

(Yang and Jun 2002). Important constituents of responsiveness are service

representative’s accessibility, reply to email, providing timely information. A

responsive website helps in solving visitor queries, gathering relevant data and

creating a touch point for prospective tourists, which can in turn can influence

tourist decision making.

3.2.5 Visual appearance

In tourism websites visual appeal is of much importance. Image graphics and

website design influence tourists’ perception of destinations (Park et al. 2007). In

tourism websites visual appearance is necessary to communicate the attractiveness

of destination through colours, graphics, images and videos. These visual graphics

and presentation have an impact on tourist’s destination image (Kaplanidou and

Vogt 2006; Ozdemir and Gok 2009). A poor visual presentation can adversely

impact tourist choice to visit the website again. Table 2 provides a set of criteria

under each factor on basis of which websites were evaluated in this study.


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Table 2 Website evaluation criteria under each factor of website effectiveness

Information quality Ease of use Responsiveness Security/privacy Visual appearance

Jeong and Lambert

(2001), Lee and

Morrison (2010),

Han and Mills

(2006)

Merwe and

Bekker (2003),

Lee and Morrison

(2010), Han and

Mills (2006)

Jeong and Lambert

2001), Merwe and

Bekker (2003), Lee

and Morrison

(2010)

Merwe and

Bekker (2003)

Jeong and Lambert

(2001), Merwe and

Bekker (2003),

Lee and Morrison

(2010)

1. Tourist cultural

information on

destination is

provided

1. Content

logically

structured in

different

sections

1. Full company

information

available

1. Security

systems

accredited

1. Home page

concise and clear

2. Information on

attractions

2. Menus

understandable

and straight

forward

2. Terms and

conditions easily

accessed

2. Secure

payment

systems used

2. Effective use of

white space

3. Information

concerning

relevant events are

provided, sports,

exhibition, concert

3. Site map/table

of content

available

3. Email address of

employees

available

3. Privacy of

users

protected

3. Effective and

consistent use of

colour

4. Information about

transportation

means in

destination area

4. Consistent

navigation

through site

4. Telephone and

fax number

available

4. Security

protocols well

communicated

4. Effective and

consistent use of

background

5. Information

useful for staying

at destination is

provided

(documents,

habits, currency)

5. Easy to find

site

5. Postal and

physical address

available

5. Security

certificate

adequate

5. Effective

graphics/type

face/colour

combinations

6. 2–3 click for

needed info

6. Easy to

explore specific

idea or subject

6. Easy to register

on site

6. General

privacy policy

is available on

site

6. Graphics and

multimedia

facilitate

understanding of

site

7. Overview of all

information for

final decision

making

7. Easy to return

to main page

7. Feedback forms

available

7. Information

regarding

security of

payment is

clearly

represented

7. Icons easy to

understand

8. Information on

type of hotel

8. Easy to find

specific

information

8. Quick reply to

email enquiries

8. There are

seals which

state that

information

on this site is

secure

8. Size of graphics

and multimedia:

no negative

impact on

loading

9. Information on

hotel facility

9. Easy to access

complete

destination

information

9. Online complain 9. Style of pages

consistent


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4 Methodology

4.1 Sample

In tourism website evaluation studies mainly websites from a single country like

USA, Hong Kong and China etc. are analysed (Ip et al. 2011) except Han and Mills

(2006) who analysed 25 tourism websites from different continents. We did a cross

national analysis which is a novel approach to website evaluation and more

appropriate in the era of globalisation where countries are competing with each

Table 2 continued

Information quality Ease of use Responsiveness Security/privacy Visual appearance

Jeong and Lambert

(2001), Lee and

Morrison (2010),

Han and Mills

(2006)

Merwe and

Bekker (2003),

Lee and Morrison

(2010), Han and

Mills (2006)

Jeong and Lambert

2001), Merwe and

Bekker (2003), Lee

and Morrison

(2010)

Merwe and

Bekker (2003)

Jeong and Lambert

(2001), Merwe and

Bekker (2003),

Lee and Morrison

(2010)

10. Room

availability and

rate

10. Easy to use

search engine

10. Online query

(FAQ)

10. Correct

spelling and

grammar

11. Local weather

information

11. Help function

easy to use

11. Easy access to

online community

11. Page sized to

fit in browser

window

12. Map of

surrounding area

12. No broken

links

12. High degree of

interactivity in

community

12. Printable

version of certain

page available

13. Information is

non repetitive

13. Links

labelled and

defined

13. Chat room

availability for

tourist discussion

regarding

destinations and

experiences

13. Text only

version available

14. Full details

about package

holidays are

available

14. Possible to

comeback from

a diverging

path

14.

Accommodation

made for

disabled users

15. How to reach

suggestions

15. Possible to

visualise ones

past navigation

path

15. Good colour

contrast

16. Possible to

understand

ones position in

the site

17. Foreign

language

support

available


123

other in different business pastures including tourism. We analyse the top most

visited countries that can be seen as global competitors in tourism industry. The

official tourism websites of the world’s most visited countries have been analysed

on factors identified. According to World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), the

world’s 10 most visited countries in terms of international tourist arrivals are

mentioned above in Table 3.

4.2 Content analysis

Content analysis has been used to evaluate the websites in this study. This method

has been used by a number of researchers to evaluate websites in tourism and

hospitality research (Choi et al. 2007; Han and Mills 2006; Law and Leung 2000;

Morrison et al. 1999; Park 2002; Perdue 2001). It was used in this study because

websites were analysed on different factors like information quality, ease of use,

Table 3 Details of countries of which websites were analysed

Tourist

arrival

rank

Country No. of international tourist

arrivals in year 2009 (in

millions) (UNWTO Report

2010)

Population in year 2009

(in millions) (CIA world

Factbook 2009)

Official tourism

website

1 France 74.2 64 http://us.

franceguide.

com/

2 United

States

54.9 307 http://www.

discoveramerica.

com/uk/

3 Spain 52.2 40 http://www.spain.

info/

4 China 50.9 1,338 http://www.

tourismchina.

org/

5 Italy 43.2 58 http://www.italia.

it/en/home.html

6 United

Kingdom

28.0 61 http://www.

enjoyengland.

com/

7 Turkey 25.5 76 http://www.

tourismturkey.

org/

8 Germany 24.2 82 http://www.

germany-

tourism.de/

9 Malaysia 23.6 25 http://www.

tourism.gov.my/

10 Mexico 21.5 111 http://www.

visitmexico.

com/wb2/


123

http://us.franceguide.com/



http://www.discoveramerica.com/uk/



http://www.spain.info/

http://www.spain.info/

http://www.tourismchina.org/



http://www.italia.it/en/home.html

http://www.italia.it/en/home.html

http://www.enjoyengland.com/



http://www.tourismturkey.org/



http://www.germany-tourism.de/



http://www.tourism.gov.my/

http://www.tourism.gov.my/

http://www.visitmexico.com/wb2/



visual appearance etc. and it is a technique used to identify and analyse the content

with words, pictures, symbols or any other message communicated in a given text

(Neumann 2003). Content analysis is an objective, systematic, and quantitative

description of content (Berelson 1952) and hence was helpful in achieving the

objective of the study.

To do the content analysis a comprehensive codebook was developed for five

factors and 68 sub criteria adapted from previous literature of website evaluation.

Each sub criteria was defined by the authors, referred here as coding criteria, in an

objective manner to ensure the reliability of results and facilitate analysis. The

coding criteria were evaluated by two experienced researchers in area of tourism. A

code sheet was developed to record the responses of coders. Two coders with

experience in website management were trained to analyse the websites on basis of

the coding criteria provided in the codebook. The websites of most visited countries

(refer Table 3) were analysed on basis of sub criteria under the selected factors. In

September year 2010 total 300 web pages of ten websites were analysed on Internet

Explorer 8 with internet download speed of around 1–2 Mbps, on a screen

resolution of 1,024 9 768 pixels. For all the websites the English version was used

in evaluation. It was ensured that both coders used the same browser, speed and

resolution to enhance the reliability. For each item under a factor a Yes/No response

was marked. ‘Yes’ response was marked when a particular feature was present in

the website and absence of feature was marked as ‘No’. Further the ‘Yes’ and ‘No’

responses were coded as ‘1’ and ‘0’ respectively to facilitate data analysis. The final

responses were shown to an expert in tourism area who evaluated the responses of

the coders by analysing the websites to ensure the reliability of data. In case the

expert had a different opinion he discussed it with the concerned coder and reached

to a final response.

4.3 Data analysis

Five factors and a total of 68 sub criteria were developed to asses website

effectiveness. The factors were Information quality, Ease of use, Responsiveness,

Security/Privacy and Visual Appearance and under each factor 15, 17, 13, 8 and

15 sub criteria were developed respectively. Due to the unbalanced number of

sub criteria the scores on each factor was equally weighted to contribute a

maximum of 20 points and as there were five factors the maximum possible

score for a website was 100 points. Such balancing of instrument has been done

by Lee and Morrison (2010) and facilitates data analysis and inference from

results. We used Correspondence Analysis to further explicate the association

between the websites and factors of website effectiveness. This technique is

helpful in presenting the results of a contingency table graphically in a low

dimensional space and facilitates analysis and inference. In addition to these

advantages, it has also been suggested and used by researchers in website

evaluation to analyse the data (Choi et al. 2007; Hanai and Oguchi 2008; Merwe

and Bekker 2003; Ting et al. 2013).


123

5 Findings

For achieving the objectives of the study content analysis of websites was done and

the results were analysed as website effectiveness score, an equally weighted score

of websites on each factor and correspondence analysis was used to infer the results.

Further the websites were classified on parameters of TDD, Economy Type and

Tourist visits to assess the differences in website effectiveness of different countries.

The scores on each factor and total effectiveness score are presented in Table 4. We

found that the highest website effectiveness score was for website of United

Kingdom (UK) (76.38) and lowest for websites of China (27.36) and Turkey

(27.36). Websites of Malaysia, Spain and Unites States were high on Ease of use

and websites of France, Spain and Italy were high on Information quality. Website

of Germany scored high on Visual Appearance and website of United States (US)

scored high on Responsiveness. Website of UK scored high on all factors compared

to other websites and can be termed as the most effective website. Overall, websites

scored highest on Ease of Use and lowest on Security.

We plotted a two dimensional Correspondence analysis Biplot to assess the

relationships. Two dimensions contributed 92 % of total inertia used to plot the

graph. From the Fig. 2 we can infer that Ease of use and Visual Appearance are in

proximity to the origin with websites of Malaysia, UK, Spain and Germany around

them which indicates that these websites scored high on both factors. The websites

of UK and Malaysia are in proximity with almost all factors which implies that

these websites score high on all dimensions and can be termed as the most effective

websites. The websites of Spain, Italy and France score high on the factor of

Information Quality but low on Responsiveness and the website of US scored low

on Information quality but high on Responsiveness. The Security factor lies on the

periphery which means that none of the websites scored high on this factor as

Table 4 Total weighted scores of evaluated websites on factors of website effectiveness

Website Information

quality

Ease of

use

Responsiveness Security/

privacy

Visual

appearance

Total

(100)

United

Kingdom

18.67 20.00 15.38 5.00 17.33 76.38

Malaysia 16.00 20.00 12.31 5.00 16.00 69.31

Spain 17.33 20.00 9.23 2.50 16.00 65.06

United

States

9.33 20.00 13.85 5.00 16.00 64.18

Mexico 16.00 18.82 9.23 5.00 14.67 63.72

Germany 14.67 18.82 10.77 0.00 17.33 61.59

Italy 17.33 17.65 6.15 2.50 16.00 59.63

France 18.67 16.47 7.69 5.00 9.33 57.16

China 5.33 9.41 4.62 0.00 8.00 27.36

Turkey 5.33 9.41 4.62 0.00 8.00 27.36

Total (200) 138.67 170.59 93.85 30.00 138.67 571.77


123

compared to other factors. Thus Security becomes an area of major improvement for

all websites. The Information Quality and Responsiveness also lie on periphery as

compared to other factors which indicates that few websites scored well on these

factors. To sum up we can say that websites need to increasingly focus on the

Information Quality, Responsiveness and Security.

The results of correspondence analysis are in line with previous research by

Baggio (2003) who found that the website of UK was second highest on website

quality dimension and website of Turkey was lowest. Though there is a long gap in

time of data collection in both studies and different websites were analysed, on a

general level it can be understood that countries which focus on information

technology have better websites than countries which do not.

The second objective of the study was to explore the differences in website

effectiveness score among websites classified on basis of Tourist Destination

Dominance (TDD) and Economy Type. To achieve the objective we ranked and

classified the respective analysed websites on the factors mentioned. Table 5

describes rank and classification of websites for analysis and Table 6 highlights the

differences in effectiveness score of countries classified on different parameters.

TDD is a concept given by Woodside et al. (2011) which indicates the dominance

of a destination in terms of tourist arrival to a country proportionate to its

population. TDD at country level can be simply calculated by dividing the number

of non domestic tourists in previous year to number of current residents in that

country. We ranked the websites on basis of their TDD scores and segregated the

first five websites into High TDD and last five into Low TDD. From Table 5 we can

Fig. 2 Correspondence analysis of countries’ websites and factors of website effectiveness


123

infer that countries that scored high on TDD parameter were also high on website

effectiveness scores as compared to low TDD countries. This reflects that countries

high in TDD focus more on developing websites that are effective in popularising

their destination and attract more tourists. Though the number of websites analysed

is less in our study we cannot suggest statistical significance but on an exploratory

level high TDD countries scored high on all factors of website effectiveness except

website of France. We further investigated the relationship between Website

effectiveness and TDD by performing a correlation on rank of these two parameters

Table 5 Ranks and classification of analysed websites on different parameters

Country Website

effectiveness

rank

Tourist

visit

rank

Tourism destination

dominance

(n = arrivals/

residents)

Tourism

dominance

rank

Economy type (IMF

World Economic

Outlook April 2012)

France 8 1 1.159 2 Developed

United

States

4 2 0.179 9 Developed

Spain 3 3 1.305 1 Developed

China 9 4 0.038 10 Emerging

Italy 7 5 0.745 4 Developed

United

Kingdom

1 6 0.459 5 Developed

Turkey 9 7 0.336 6 Emerging

Germany 6 8 0.295 7 Developed

Malaysia 2 9 0.944 3 Emerging

Mexico 5 10 0.194 8 Emerging

Table 6 Website effectiveness scores of countries classified on different parameters

Parameters Information

quality mean

Ease of

use mean

Responsiveness

mean

Security

mean

Visual

appearance

mean

Total

score

mean

Tourism destination dominance

High (5) 17.60 18.82 10.15 4.00 14.93 65.51

Low (5) 10.13 15.29 8.62 2.00 12.80 48.84

Economy type

Developed

(6)

16.00 18.82 10.51 3.33 15.33 64.00

Emerging

(4)

10.67 14.41 7.70 2.50 11.67 46.94

Tourist visit

High (5) 13.60 16.71 8.31 3.00 13.07 54.68

Low (5) 14.13 17.41 10.46 3.00 14.67 59.67


123

using Spearman’s rank correlation. We found a positive correlation of 0.31 between

website effectiveness rank and TDD rank of websites which denotes that there is a

positive relationship but the chances of this relationship being asymmetric cannot be

ignored as suggested by Woodside et al. (2011) on relationship between TDD and

Website Usefulness. For instance the website of France was rated low on website

effectiveness though its TDD was very high.

In general, countries high in TDD used websites more innovatively than others

except few. Malaysia’s website has a section for Health tourism, which introduces

Malaysia as a top five destination for medical tourism and provides links to

specialised website on medical tourism in Malaysia. This reinforces the marketing

strategy of identifying tourist’s purpose of visit and updating information on website

which helps these tourists. This website has also pages and external website links for

niche tourism activities like, Agro Tourism, Ecotourism, Home stay, Formula one,

Bird watching etc. The Spanish website, another country high on TDD illustrates its

destination in a thematic way. The homepage in attractive links state ‘‘Come,

Discover, Enjoy, Taste, Experience’’. Click on these links leads a visitor to

destination information, historical destinations, cuisines and events in Spain. This

kind of thematic presentation creates positive image about a destination in tourists

mind and may affect the visitor’s perception of destination.

As discussed earlier internet has emerged as a mass medium and destination

websites have an important role to play in the final purchase decision of tourists. In

emerging markets tourism is the major source of income and foreign exchange

(Norwak et al. 2003) and the market share of emerging economies in tourism

increased from 30 % in 1980 to 47 % in 2012, and is expected to reach 57 % by

2030 (UNWTO 2013). Thus it is important for emerging economies to focus on

developing effective websites which can enhance their destination image and attract

tourists. To analyse the relation between website effectiveness scores and economy

type we classified the analysed websites into developed economies’ website and

emerging economies’ website using the International Monetary Fund criteria (IMF

World Economic Outlook 2012) for classifying economies. The same criterion has

been used by UNWTO (2013) for classifying developed and emerging economies

and projecting tourism statistics. Out of ten websites analysed in this study, four

websites are of emerging economies: China, Turkey, Malaysia and Mexico and

other six are developed economies (see Table 5). Comparing the Website

effectiveness score we found that developed economies are high on all factors of

website effectiveness as compared to emerging economies. The overall effective-

ness mean score for developed economies was 64 while for emerging economies

was 46.94 which implies that the former are using websites more effectively than

latter to market their destination and attract tourists. We also compared the countries

on basis of number of tourist visits in a year. The countries which were ranked high

on tourist visit scored low on website effectiveness as compared to less visited

countries’ websites. This criterion we believe is not suitable for comparison as

compared to TDD since in a small country there would be less tourists visiting than

large country.

Websites of China and Germany have dedicated few pages to country specific

tourism. German website has a special section dedicated for Indian tourists known


123

as ‘Indiapool’, where website visitors can download a sales guide to know more

about Germany. The file contains information on destinations, travel packages,

special products for families and information on Indian cuisine in Germany. In

Europe, Germany is the most popular destination for Indian tourists after United

Kingdom. The idea is to popularize Germany as a top tourist destination in India and

Germany is aggressively promoting which is also integrated on the German tourism

website. This kind of marketing strategy can be used where a nation can promote

their popular destination, or country specific schemes. The web is the most low cost

way to do it. Chinese websites dedicate a page to promoting Canada as a tourist

destination. In the year 2009 around 1,59,000 Chinese tourists visited Canada

Chinese visitors on an average stayed for 28 nights and spent around $1,650

(Statistics Canada 2009) which is highest spending than visitor from other countries.

Canadian tourist offices view China as a largest outbound market and Canada has

been given approved destination status by Chinese Government. Chinese website to

capitalize on this pact dedicates a page promoting Canada to China Tourism. Other

emerging destinations can also identify top countries from where tourists visit and

update information related to tourist preferences, using language support for those

tourists.

6 Discussion and implications

Website evaluation research has not reached a consensus and several researchers

have proposed different methods to evaluate websites (Law et al. 2010; Lee and

Morrison 2010). We did content analysis of websites of top most visited countries to

reach to a website effectiveness score and used correspondence analysis to elucidate

the performance of websites on different dimensions of website effectiveness. The

evaluation instrument was very comprehensive and lead to better evaluation of

websites. This research used a novel approach of analysing cross national websites.

Analysing the websites of ten different countries offered deeper insights through

comparative evaluation, when compared to previous studies which have analysed

websites from a single country. We also show how the effectiveness score differ

when countries were classified into high and low groups of Tourist destination

dominance, economy type and number of tourist visits. The results of this study will

benefit academic researchers and tourism organisations for evaluating and

developing effective websites. It will benefit academic researchers as the instrument

can be used for further analysis of tourism websites and provide a benchmark for

developing new comprehensive instruments. Tourism organisation can benefit from

this research by using the instrument to evaluate their own or competitors website

and comparing their performance with competitors.

From the analysis we suggest that all the websites need to improve on security

dimension. The low scores on this dimension could be because the websites were

not meant for e-commerce but as more and more security and privacy issues appear

in the internet world people will start looking for cues which ensure that their

privacy is protected. Security features increase trust in the website which can

increase website effectiveness as consumer will trust the information provided and


123

will have higher willingness to register on site, interact in chat rooms, share their

experiences and photos which can increase the interactivity on websites. Improve-

ment on this factor also means that if in future these websites add e-commerce

functions then they can convert their visitors into customers as Ranganathan and

Ganapathy (2002) state that security and privacy have a greater effect on the

purchase intent of consumers than content and design in business to consumer

websites. So we suggest that addition of features like statements of privacy

protected, security seals, and security accreditations from organisations should be

done to enhance the effectiveness of the websites.

Responsiveness is another factor that websites must focus on. Overall this was

the second factor on which websites scored lowest which indicates that they are not

responsive as they should be. To check the response to visitor queries we send an

e-mail to each of the websites, posing as a tourist asking for some information

related to currency exchange issues. After sending email enquiries only websites of

Spain and Mexico replied in time duration of 24 h and one replied after 72 h and the

rest did not. The websites of Spain and Mexico were also high on website

effectiveness score. We suggest that the websites should be more responsive to

tourist queries, as internet is a real time communication medium and tourists may

expect a quick reply. The websites which replied also offered information relating to

their destinations. Websites are perceived as an interactive medium. A responsive

website engages user and enhances the entire experience of visiting web pages. For

most of the websites it was easy to access and share the recommendations and

reviews by tourists. Only websites of France, US and UK had ‘Frequently Asked

Questions’ section. Only the Spanish website had a very responsive, online survey

system, which is presented to the user at the end of his site visit, by seeking

permission at the very beginning of site surfing. This questionnaire collects

information about basic demographics, intention to visit website and country,

usability, surfing experience and satisfaction with website. To improve the

responsiveness the websites must add features like registration, chat room, online

query, availability of contact details and quick reply to emails.

The websites analysed in this study were not able to create an overview of

information for decision making except few. Features like activity and itinerary

finder on US website helps in consolidating the information for user and facilitating

search. The German website on the right side of the page gives options like ‘Print

page’, ‘Recommend page’, ‘Add page to travel planner’, ‘Edit travel planner’ and

‘Add to my favourites’ which can help tourists to plan their travel and save

information they find relevant. In addition to this the interactive map lets tourists

choose several travelling themes and results on the map highlighted the regions in

country suitable for those themes. Details of holiday packages were available only

on Chinese and Malaysian websites. Another important point is that only four of the

analysed websites give details about transportation means in destination area, which

can be an important tourist facilitator in pre trip and during trip stages (Choi et al.

2007a). The websites of China and Turkey scored very low on the information

quality dimension as they had not even provided basic information on accommo-

dation and transportation. US’s website states different plans for what to visit in

60 min, 1 day visit, a week visit, weekend visit are stated to facilitate tourist


123

decision making. This type of information presentation can be used by destinations

to convert business trips to their nations into leisure tourism. Tourists prefer

technology that is easy to use. The website analysed were easy to find and had

proper links defined, which signifies that they were accessible. In addition,

navigation was quite easy and it was possible to come back from a diverging path.

Individual sites were logically structured and had site map or table of contents

which can help tourist in different stages of trip to take decision.

Image, graphics and presentation of content is very important in tourism

websites. A visually attractive website engages and affects the visitor’s perception

of destination (Park et al. 2007). Effective use of colours and attractive graphics and

colour combinations increase the visual appearance of the websites and Size of

graphics and multimedia should not have negative loading impact on pages of

website. Websites should address the issues of disabled users by including features

like text only function, read aloud function which would help them in convenient

access and will not hinder registration and purchase (Han and Mills 2007). The need

is to strategically develop websites using specific standards and incorporating

effective information, features and presentation which can influence visitor’s

destination selection.

7 Limitations and future research

There are number of limitation in this study. First, the research is limited to analysis

of only ten websites which leads to restrictions in generalisability of research

findings. Second, among the set of criteria developed to evaluate websites many were

subjective in nature and were not easy to handle on a dichotomous response of 0/1.

But we follow the approach of Lee and Morrison (2010) that a dichotomous scale is

better than a likert scale and properly defining the evaluation criteria will reduce the

subjectivity of the analysis. Dichotomous responses were also used by Han and Mills

(2006). Third, efforts were made to ensure the reliability of analysis by using two

coders and a judge who finally evaluated the responses and in case of disagreements

discussed with coders to mark a final response. The coders in this study evaluated

different websites and thus calculating intercoder reliability was not possible.

However using a judge to review the responses ensured the reliability of the results.

The analysis can have a cultural bias as the coders were from a single country and

they may not like or understand presentation of websites of different cultures. An

objective definition of the criteria here helped in ensuring the reliability. Fourth the

study is a snapshot study, a longitudinal evaluation of websites will offer a clearer

picture on factors like information updating and interactivity on websites which may

increase in a particular season. Fifth, the website effectiveness score were not

corroborated with other determinants of website effectiveness like number of tourist

visiting website, time spent, number of registered users etc.

In future research more number of websites can be analysed and user judgement

can be used for analysis. A number of studies have focussed on web evaluation

approaches; however, few researches have attempted to propose a framework for

development of effective websites which can be a fruitful research area. The future


123

research should also look into finer issues of multilingual websites, use of colours and

cross cultural communication and their importance in tourism website effectiveness.

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Assessing the website effectiveness of top ten tourist attracting nations

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