Does the Usability Experienced Performance of Travel Websites in China Meet Users' Expectation?

Abstract

Despite the increasing use of the Internet in travel and tourism, the issue of usability on travel websites has been largely overlooked in the existing tourism literature in Mainland China (hereafter known as China), one of the world's largest markets for generating and receiving tourists. This paper reports on a study that investigated the perceptions of Internet users in China on China-based travel agency websites (henceforth referred to as travel websites). The expectancy disconfirmation theory was used to compare the expected performance and experienced performance of 24 usability attributes. Empirical results showed significant differences between perceived performance and expected performance for all included attributes.

Keywords:

• usability
• travel website
• expectancy disconfirmation theory
• China

Acknowledgment

The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for providing constructive comments on an earlier version of this paper. This project was supported by research grants funded by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (Contract No. G-U437) and the National Science Fund of PR China (No. 70561001/G0110).