A Modified Model for Hotel Website Functionality Evaluation

ABSTRACT

Harnessing a mathematical computation approach to analyze data solicited from 354 website stakeholders (including 200 hotel customers, 83 hotel managers, and 71 hotel website designers), this study presents an up-to-date and robust evaluation model for assessing the functionality of hotel websites. The modified model was also empirically used to assess the functionality performance of the websites of all the hotels in Hong Kong. Results from the non-parametric Kruskal–Wallis and Mann–Whitney tests revealed a difference in performance, with higher star rating hotels performing better than those with a lower star rating. As one of the first attempts to incorporate the perceptions of multiple website stakeholders into hotel website evaluation, this study provides hoteliers with practical advice on website development.

KEYWORDS:

• Website evaluation
• website functionality
• stakeholders
• Hong Kong

The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on improving an early version of this paper.

Additional information

Funding

This project is partly supported by a research grant funded by The Hong Kong Polytechnic University [grant number G-UB30 and G-SB47].

Notes on contributors

Daniel Leung

Daniel Leung, MPhil, is a Researcher and Lecturer, Department of Tourism and Service Management, MODUL University Vienna, Vienna, Austria (E-mail: [email protected]).

Rob Law

Rob Law, PhD, is a Professor, School of Hotel and Tourism Management, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong, SAR (E-mail: [email protected]).

Hee “Andy” Lee

Hee “Andy” Lee, PhD, is a Lecturer, School of Business, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia (E-mail: [email protected]).