An evaluation of tourism destination website quality and image projection effectiveness

Efthymiou, K

Abstract

The Internet has changed the way the tourism industry operates. It has provided potential
tourists with an efficient way to gather information about destinations, to plan trips to the
last detail and to make reservations from the comfort of their homes. It has also provided
Destination Management Organisations (DMOs) with an effective communications
medium and a new distribution channel. Tourism website quality is therefore a key issue.
Whilst there is an increasing body of literature concerned with measuring website quality
from a consumer perspective, the analysis of tourism website performance, particularly
comparative analyses of competing tourism destination websites, has been neglected.
Moreover, even though the importance of destination image in influencing tourist
behaviour has received wide acknowledgement in the tourism literature, little research has
been conducted on destination image projection via the Internet. This study addresses this
gap in the literature by focussing on tourism website quality and destination image
projection. It specifically deals with the measurement of tourism website quality from a
user perspective and is concerned with the role of the website in tourism decisions
regarding destination choice. The research examines the relationship between the quality
of the tourism website experience, user satisfaction and future behavioural intention in
relation to both tourism websites and their respective destinations. It does this through a
comparative analysis of three European countries' official tourism websites, France, Spain
and Croatia. The study assesses user perceptions of website attribute importance and
performance. It also compares the websites in terms of the effectiveness of their
destination image projection with respect to user word-of-mouth promotion and future
visitation to both the site and the destination. As such, the study makes a contribution to
tourism theory and destination marketing practice.
A number of gaps were identified in the literature and these underpinned the Hypotheses.
Hypothesis 1 states that consumer perceptions of the website will be significantly
influenced by a) previous visits to the website, b) to the destination and c) consumer
demographics. Hypothesis 2 states that competitor websites will significantly influence
the consumer perceptions of the website. Hypothesis 3 states that the "performance -
only" model of website quality will explain significantly more of the variance in perceived
quality than the "importance - performance" model. Hypothesis 4 follows the established
model of previous empirical research and proposes that perceived website quality will
influence visitor satisfaction with the website. Hypothesis 5, in turn, proposes that
perceived website quality will significantly influence consumer intention to a) recommend
and b) visit or re/visit the website. Hypothesis 6 states that the perceived quality of the
website will change consumer attitudes towards the destination in a positive way. Finally,
Hypothesis 7 argues that the images of a destination found on the website will motivate
consumers to visit or re/visit the destination. All hypotheses were supported.
The findings confirmed that the Internet is the most popular way of findings tourism
information, followed by word - of - mouth. The findings also demonstrated that the
respondents showed a reluctance to visit the official tourism destination websites,
preferring instead more objective websites. The respondents also showed a reluctance to
book their holidays through the official tourism destination websites.

Citation

Efthymiou, K. An evaluation of tourism destination website quality and image projection effectiveness. (Thesis). University of Salford

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Jul 30, 2021
• Award Date: Nov 1, 2012