Quality of Hotels’ Websites: Proposal for the Development of an Assessment Methodology

In this article we propose a research whose main objective will be to reach a methodology for assessment, comparing and improving the quality of hotels Websites. The need for this methodology is justified by the fact that, so far, we haven´t identified any methodology that widely integrates and focus the technical quality and the content quality of the Websites. INTRODUCTION Tourism is now one of the greatest social and economic phenomena of the contemporary world (Sarpley 2002, WTO 2008), in which Internet is a facilitator instrument of the relationships between touristic products and touristic entities with whom they relate. Simultaneously, tourism is one of the domains where Internet is more used. In terms of sales, touristic products such as last minute air tickets, hotel rooms and package promotions are the most sold via the Internet, if not considering the sale of books (Arlt 2006). Thus, the Internet works as a main mechanism of reserves. In this context, marketing via the Internet has larger advantages than other means (Douglas & Mills 2004): it reduces the costs of divulgation and publicity activities; it eases the brochures and pamphlets update; it eases and turns its procedure more economical comparing, for example, 174 with the telephone channel; the information is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Thus, the hotels Websites becomes a competitive differentiation piece of the modern times, facilitating both the potential customers. The issues related to quality have been worrying many activity sectors in recent years particularly those associated with services and advanced technologies. Various contributions to the quality field as well as different thought schools have focused mainly on the quality definition and how to measure it (Mich et al. 2003). In this paper we adopt the quality definition of ISO (International Organization for Standardization), whether by falls in the same goals, or for its comprehensiveness and completeness, or its prestige of the entity in question, or its adoption in other important investigations (Mich et al. 2003, Ho-Won et al. 2004). Therefore, we believe that quality is " the totality of characteristics (of the product or service) as the basis for satisfying the needs specified and implied " (ISO 1994). Relatively to the approaches for assessment, comparison and improvement of enforcement of quality requirements by Websites, we can identify two in literature: 1. Methodologies focused on the Websites technical quality; 2. Methodologies focused on the Websites content quality; …