ABSTRACT

This paper reports on a study that applied the newly developed technique of measuring the incremental performance of websites to evaluate the websites of hotels in mainland China and the United States. On the basis of a conceptual framework that includes five dimensions of functionality, sixty hotel websites in mainland China and the U.S. were evaluated. The empirical findings indicate that the websites of the hotels in the U.S. significantly outperform their mainland China counterparts in four of the five dimensions. In addition, the overall performance score for hotel websites in mainland China is significantly lower than the corresponding number for the websites of hotels in the U.S.

1. INTRODUCTION

The Internet has been changing the life styles of people, from methods of searching information to purchasing products and services. E-commerce, in particular, has become an essential part of Internet applications (Cox, 2003). In the United States, almost two-thirds of Internet users have made online purchases (Ipsos, 2002). In the context of the hotel industry, given the dramatic growth of the Internet, hotel guests and lodging companies can largely rely on the Internet as a major medium for the dissemination of information and for conducting online transactions (Jeong and Lambert, 2001).

Internet applications offer many advantages to the hotel industry. Morrison, Taylor, Morrison, and Morrison (1999) pointed out that web materials are available in various formats and languages, and with no geographical or time limitations. Hoteliers can therefore effectively pursue niche markets on the web and can substantiate their unique differences on their websites through the use of photographs, text, graphics, animation, testimony, awards, and other means. Hotels can also provide special offers or deals to online customers by offering information related to the needs and interests of their customers. Small hotels can compete in cyberspace by forming an unlimited number of Internet alliances on the web through reciprocal hyper links. In short, having a web presence brings benefits to hotels in the form of lower distribution costs, revenue growth, niche marketing, improved customer satisfaction and increased customer loyalty, improvements in quality, and the ability to address other critical business or customer needs (Morrison et al., 1999).