Differentiations between Expected and Perceived Interactivity in Hotel Websites

The uniqueness of the web lies in its interactivity. Interactivity refers to the reciprocity provided by a site during the process of using it and it has been positioned conceptually as a process, a function and a perception. Implemented appropriately may affect the success or failure of commercial websites. Perceived interactivity should be based on consumers’ actual interactions with the stimulus and means that consumers have perceived control over information and communication flow. Expected interactivity is the extent of interactivity that a person expects to experience during a prospective interaction with a medium. The paper explores the differentiations between consumers’ expected interactivity towards the web, and their perceived interactivity of hotel websites. The top25 hotel websites are used for the analysis. A group of users rate both expected interactivity towards the web and perceived interactivity of the hotel websites. Recently developed scales of perceived interactivity are used, which emphasize response time, communication, control, responsiveness and personalization issues. A comparison of expected with perceived interactivity is performed. The findings indicate that the hotel web sites are informative and perform fast but they provide less control than expected, while provide primarily one-way and no concurrent communication.