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A FRAMEWORK FOR THE EVALUATION OF HOTEL WEBSITES:

THE CASE OF GREECE

COSTAS ZAFIROPOULOS and VASILIKI VRANA

Department of Business Administration, Technological Educational Institute of Serres, Greece

It is essential for hotel companies to evaluate and improve website performance in order to keep
and increase their online presence and competitiveness in the marketplace. This article proposes
an evaluation framework for hotel websites, which categorizes web information services into six
information dimensions and also uses managers’ and users’ views. Based on the relative literature,
the model proposes some improvements, taking into account certain aspects of the evaluation
procedure. An application compares the performance of the top 25 hotel brand websites with the
Greek hotel websites. Top hotels lead in Facilities, Guest contact, Reservation/prices, and Sur-
rounding area information provision, while Greek hotel websites fall back especially in providing
online reservation and prices information.

Key words: Information services; Evaluation; Performance; Hotel websites;

Information dimensions; Top hotels; Greece

Introduction However, presence on the Internet is not a guaran-

Nowadays, corporations realized that informa-
tion technology can provide a distinct organization
advantage. A corporation’s website is an impor-
tant information technology tool that can be used
to achieve many purposes (X. Zhang, Keeling, &
Pavur, 2000), such as delivering a wide variety of
information and services (Auger, 2005), commu-
nication with customers, and facilitation of busi-
ness transactions (Van der Merwe & Bekker,
2003). It has been argued that companies of any
size and any sector can benefit from the Internet
(Gratzer & Winiwarter, 2003; Liang & Law, 2003;
Morisson, Taylor, Morrison, & Morrison, 1999).
tee of success (Liang & Law, 2003). The very
large and growing number of websites is making
it more difficult for organizations to attract visitors
to their site and to convert visitors into customers
(Auger, 2005). Haas (2002) mentioned, “Even if
you attract visitors to your site, the next issue is
how to offer a cost-effective, attractive and con-
tent-rich web experience resulting in high propor-
tion of repeat visits and online sales” (p. 637).
Many factors are affecting website success.
Much has been written about the design of web-
sites regarding human engineering, user interface,
business, and usability perspectives (Susser &
Ariga, 2006), and numerous web design checklists

Address correspondence to Dr. Costas Zafiropoulos, Department of Business Administration, Technological Educational Institution
of Serres, Terma Magnesias, 62124, Serres, Greece. Tel: +302321049280; Fax: +302321049165; E-mail: kz@teiser.gr

239
240 ZAFIROPOULOS AND VRANA
have been developed for the purpose of identifying
design and evaluation criteria of websites (P.
Zhang & Dran, 2000). However, in the travel and
tourism industry, although it is increasingly popu-
lar for companies to have an online presence, there
are only a few studies in the literature on evalua-
tion of websites. Previous website quality evalua-
tion models have taken into consideration manag-
ers’ views (Chung & Law, 2003; Zafiropoulos,
Vrana, & Paschaloudis, 2005). It has also been
claimed by Chung and Law (2003), Lin and Lu
(2000), and Zafiropoulos, Vrana, and Paschaloudis
(2004) that it is vital to examine users’ perceptions
about a website because these views give a clue to
manage a website effectively and determine the
eventual success. From this aspect, the article con-
tributes to the evaluation of hotel websites, pro-
poses an evaluation framework, identifies features
and dimensions of the information on the website,
and adopts a holistic approach as it uses managers’
views along with users’ views in order to provide
and incorporate the views of both the industry and
the customers regarding website development and
web performance.
Literature Review
Effectiveness of a Website
Because the advantages of Internet business are
illusive (H. Wan, 2000) and many companies have
failed to utilize their websites effectively (Chung
& Law, 2003; Dutta, Kwan, & Segev, 1998; Lin
& Lu, 2000), it is evident that a business website
should be carefully designed. K. Chen and Yen
(2004) claimed that a website must deliver several
essential features to foster a better online experi-
ence. Websites that do not provide positive experi-
ences may cause customers to decide that it is eas-
ier to go to a physical store rather than to purchase
online (Van der Merwe & Bekker, 2003) or to
switch to another site, which has no cost and is
just a click away (Nielsen, 2003). According to
Forrester Research estimates, Cunliffe (2000) ar-
gued that “poor web design will result in a loss of
50 per cent of potential sales due to users being
unable to find what they want, and a loss of 40
per cent of potential repeat visits due to initial
negative experience” (p. 297).
Because an effective website will be critical to
the success of the business (Jeong, Oh, & Gre-
goire, 2003), many researchers and practitioners
have pointed out a list of items essential to a web-
site. Law and Wong (2003) identified the three
most important factors in a successful website as
being “secure payment methods,” “different price
ranges for product/services,” and “user-friendly
systems.” Kanayama, Ogasawara, and Kimijima
(2002) claimed that “Content and usability are im-
portant in the context of efforts to raise the attrac-
tiveness of a corporate website” (p. 53). Huang
(2005) concentrated on hedonic and utilitarian as-
pects that reflect the entertainment and informa-
tion needs of the users. Furthermore, Sparkes and
Thomas (2001) mentioned that a good website
will contain the information needed to enable a
buying decision and it will have entertainment
value, and Sigala (2004) argued that websites must
provide adequate functional support to meet cus-
tomers’ needs at every stage of their decision pro-
cess. Nowadays, according to Tong, Duffy, Cross,
Tsung, and Yen (2005), “internet customers are
pickier, more demanding and have higher expecta-
tions, therefore excellent electronic service should
be provided in order to fulfill their expectations”
(p. 699).
Previous studies have also addressed issues of
web design and information provision that contrib-
ute to market success. Ranganathan and Ganapa-
thy (2002) claimed that an effective website should
serve as a major source of information, providing
complete information on the products and ser-
vices; allow quick access to information through
tools like search engines; and provide decision
aids to help in evaluating the alternatives. Hamill
and Gregory (1997) suggested that successful
website characteristics include information rich-
ness, regular updating, clear information paths, in-
teractivity, and responsiveness to user feedback.
Scanlon, Schroeder, Snyder, and Spool (1998) on
key design factors of websites included: content,
searching, links, navigation page layout, readabil-
ity, and graphics.
Hotel Websites
The Internet has also dramatically changed the
competitive dynamics of the lodging industry
(Jeong & Lambert, 2001). As a direct response to
 FRAMEWORK FOR HOTEL WEBSITE EVALUATION
the increasing demand for hotel e-business, ini-
tially numerous websites have been set up that of-
fer consumers information search and purchase
experience. An increased number of lodging cus-
tomers make reservations directly with hotels
(Jeong et al., 2003). Lodging will be one of the
fastest growth areas in the Internet, from a value
of $9 billion in 2003 to $17 billion in 2007 (Wong
& Law, 2005). The point is that most companies
use the web in order to exhibit their static informa-
tion about the companies and their operations (Lin
& Lu, 2000; Vrana, Zafiropoulos, & Paschaloudis,
2004; C. Wan, 2002). According to Chung and
Law (2003), “hospitality companies still do not
have adequate knowledge to build a useful site,
and many hotels have placed a lot of information
onto their websites but do not include relevant in-
formation or arrange the information in an appro-
priate order” (p. 121). Another serious problem is
of outdated information that may be negative for
the hotel’s image (Chung & Law, 2003). How-
ever, nowadays hotel companies redesign their
sites on a constant basis in order to use their fullest
potential (Baloglu & Peckan, 2006). Research on
the tourism industry has not reached a consensus
on what makes a tourism site effective (Susser
& Ariga, 2006). Legoherel, Fischer-Lokou, and
Gueguen (2002) claimed that the design, content,
and management of a website should be taken into
consideration for a successful website, and accord-
ing to Rachman and Buchanan (1999a) and Ho
(1997) as well, the effectiveness of a tourism web-
site may be measured from content, content qual-
ity, or design perspectives.
The term content refers to the information fea-
tures or services that are offered in the website
(Ghosh, 1997; Huizingh, 2000; Rachman & Bu-
chanan, 1999a, 1999b). According to Stephens
(2004), “the content of a website is not limited to
the subject, products or services provided. Rather,
content includes the solution and strategies em-
ployed to make it easy for the user to accomplish
important tasks, such as information retrieval,
search and navigation required in making a pur-
chase, and obtaining feedback” (p. 311). Providing
information is the basic goal of a website (Hui-
zingh, 2000), and is very important when custom-
ers purchase products and services (Van der Merwe
& Bekker, 2003) as it has a significant effect on
241
advertising and marketing (Burke, 1997). Davern,
Te’eni, and Moon (2000) stated that one of the
two key design variables for information environ-
ments is content quality, and Rosen and Puriton
(2004) stated, “High quality content is one of the
top four factors contributing to repeat visits” (p.
787). For tourism organizations, like hotel compa-
nies, the website content allows them to engage
customers’ interest and participation, to capture
information about their preferences, and to use
that information to provide personalized commu-
nication and services (Doolin, Burgess, Cooper,
2002) and is also particularly important because it
influences the perceived image of the destination
and creates a virtual experience for the consumer
(Cano & Prentice, 1998).
Another important service of the virtual mar-
ketplace is richness (Sigala, 2003a), which can be
used to describe the nature of information (Pan &
Fesenmaier, 2002). Richness is the depth and de-
tail of information that can be given to customers
as well as the depth of the collected customer in-
formation; it also refers to the ability of media to
improve human understanding by reducing uncer-
tainty and ambiguity (Daft & Lengel, 1986; Lod-
hia, 2004) and occurs because information flow is
greater, deeper, and faster than it is in the tradi-
tional market (Sigala, 2003a). Information rich-
ness is accepted as another decisive factor for the
typology of tourism-related websites, because
tourism websites vary tremendously in terms of
their information richness, and accordingly the de-
sign and use of their websites differ significantly.
Richness provides an enhanced potential to reduce
any asymmetry of information between buyers and
sellers, as both sites are empowered to use infor-
mation for their own interests. Sigala (2003a)
claimed that “as buyers have more product/service
information, transactions’ transparency amongst
prices and vendors increase” (p. 7). Rich media
need to be used with websites that provide infor-
mation-intensive products and services (Mahfouz,
2000; Palmer & Griffith, 1998) and the hotel in-
dustry is characterized as an information-intensive
industry (Doolin et al., 2002; O’Connor, 2003).
Information-intensive products and services have
high information content and are better supported
by rich media (Palmer & Griffith, 1998) and re-
quire the website to provide as much information
242 ZAFIROPOULOS AND VRANA
as possible to assist the consumer in making a pur-
chase decision (Mahfouz, 2000).
In the existing hospitality literature, prior stud-
ies have been conducted to measure how rich in
information hotel websites are. These studies have
also tried to classify the recorded website features.
The first approach was done by Murphy, Forrest,
Wotring, and Brymer (1996), who recorded 32
different services and placed them into four broad
nonexclusive categories: promotion and market-
ing, service and information, interactivity, and tech-
nology and management. They claimed that cyber-
hoteliers must analyze how these features effect or
enhance the mission, margin, mechanics, market-
ing, and maintenance of their websites. Depending
on this study, Weeks and Crouch (1999) modified
the services that Murphy et al. (1996) identified
into 33 attributes, and also classified them into
four categories. They analyzed 20 websites, in six
hospitality and tourism sectors, and concluded that
the accommodation sector appeared to be less
keen than other sectors to tell its visitors about
other accommodation or tourism sites. Following
these studies, Choi and Hsu (2001) defined web-
sites features in a different way as product/service,
place, price, promotion, packaging, people, and
communication. A different approach was made
by Gilbert, Powell-Perry, and Widijoso (1999),
who identified features on hotel websites and em-
phasized that these features can enhance a hotel’s
competitive advantage. In addition to the above, it
was claimed by Wei, Ruys, Van Hoof, and Com-
brink (2001) that the organization factors of a ho-
tel had some significant effect on certain aspects
of the information hotels posted on the web. Fur-
thermore, Lu, Lu, and Zhang (2002) analyzed the
distribution and classifications of tourism web-
sites, explored their functionality, and assessed
user satisfaction. They showed that the level of
regional economic development has a significant
impact on the construction of the site. Sigala (2003a)
recorded several characteristics from Greek hotel
sites as a part of her research, in an attempt to
record and valuate the offered services. Vrana et
al. (2004) also examined and measured the quan-
tity and type of information provided through ho-
tel websites and found out that higher class hotels
as well as chain hotels appear to be more active in
offering information services. Information services
provided through the web allow hotels to improve
communication, marketing, and e-commerce. Si-
gala (2003b) used the Internet marketing mix
model to measure the use of the Internet by Greek
hotels and to model their Internet marketing strate-
gies. Baloglu and Peckan (2006), in their study,
utilized content analysis to analyze the websites of
a selected group (four and five star) of hotels in
Turkey in terms of site design characteristics (in-
teractivity, navigation, and functionality) and site
marketing practices on the Internet.
Website Evaluation
Website evaluations have been fruitful in the
past several years and included conceptual discus-
sions on what should be evaluated and how to do
it (P. Zhang & Dran, 2000). Academic research
has also identified a number of criteria that cus-
tomers use in evaluating websites. Except from in-
formation availability and content, these include
ease of use or usability, privacy/security, graphic
style, and fulfillment (Zeithaml, Parasuraman, &
Malhotra, 2002). Moreover, quality issues sur-
rounding website design, in general, have been
studied (Hope & Li, 2004; Parasuraman, Zeithaml,
& Malhotra, 2004) and much has been written
about the design of websites by the human engi-
neering, business, and user interface (Susser &
Ariga, 2006). Nielsen (2004) and Palmer (2002)
studied the usability and effectiveness of websites
and provide guidelines for making web pages
more usable. Bell and Tang (1998), Liu and Arnett
(2000), and Liu, Arnett, Capella, and Taylor (2001)
examined the effectiveness of websites in the con-
text of e-commerce. Customers’ satisfaction is an
important aspect to evaluate websites. Q. Chen
and Wells (1999) measured the customer’s atti-
tudes towards the site, using five items, and Thel-
wall (2000) evaluated websites using four differ-
ent criteria. Huizingh (2000) and P. Zhang and
Dran (2000) examined the web quality dimen-
sions. Barnes, Liu, and Vidgen (2001) developed
the WebQual for measuring service quality. Madu
and Madu (2002) proposed a model for e-quality
and Zeithaml, Parasuraman, and Malhotra (2000)
pointed out that perceived electronic service qual-
ity (e-SQ) could be represented by 11 dimensions.
Parasuraman et al. (2004) developed E-S-QUAL,
 FRAMEWORK FOR HOTEL WEBSITE EVALUATION
a multiple-item scale for assessing electronic ser-
vice quality, and D’Angelo and Little (1998) pro-
posed also an evaluation method for websites.
Misic and Johnson (1999) developed user-defined
criteria and Olsina, Godoy, Lafuente, and Rossi
(1999) used QEM, the website quality evaluation
method.
There have also been various approaches on
website evaluation in the tourism sector. C. Wan
(2002) evaluated the websites of international
tourist hotels and tour wholesalers in Taiwan, us-
ing three evaluation criteria: user interface, variety
of information, and the presence or absence of an
online reservation system. Another approach was
made by Doolin et al. (2002), who used the ex-
tended model of Internet commerce adoption in
order to evaluate the level of website develop-
ment. Following these studies, Lu et al. (2002) an-
alyzed the distribution and classification of tour-
ism websites, explored their functionality, and
assessed user satisfaction. Liang and Law (2003)
investigated the functionality and usefulness of
hotel websites. Pan and Fesenmaier (2002) fo-
cused on semantic network analysis to study travel
website usability. Au Yeung and Law (2003,
2004) also investigated the usability of hotel web-
sites. Chartfield-Taylor (2002) examined various
factors contributing to the success of a hotel web-
site. Wong and Law (2005) pointed out that infor-
mation quality, sensitivity content, and time are
the three dimensions that influence the intention
to purchase on hotel websites.
The Evaluation of Hotel Websites
One method of evaluation of websites is by us-
ing opinions either of human users or of experts
(Wöber, Scharl, Natter, & Taudes, 2002). Opin-
ions of managers and consumers have been used
in many prior studies for evaluation of hotel web-
sites (Chung & Law, 2003; Law & Cheung, 2005,
2006; Liang & Law, 2003; Zafiropoulos et al.,
2004, 2005). The first approach was made by
Chung and Law (2003), who presented an infor-
mation evaluation model to measure the perfor-
mance of hotel websites. Their model was devel-
oped on the basis of a conceptual framework that
consisted of five major hotel website dimensions,
including facilities information, customer contact
243
information, reservation information, surrounding
area information, and management of websites
and their associated attributes. Hotel managers
rated the level of importance of the dimensions
and attributes. Experimental findings showed sig-
nificant differences in performance score for all
dimensions among the luxurious, mid-priced, and
budged hotel websites. Liang and Law (2003) re-
defined the features of the functionality perfor-
mance evaluation model that Chung and Law
(2003) proposed by commencing focus group dis-
cussion and rating the importance of the compo-
nents. The evaluation scores of the websites were
used to compare and contrast the performance
among three hotel categories. They concluded that
the websites’ performance was poor and that there
was no significant difference detected on the web-
site performance scores among the three catego-
ries of China-based hotels.
Zafiropoulos et al. (2004), using an extended
web survey, identified which information services
are offered through the Greek hotel website. The
conceptual model they used consists of seven
broad dimensions: facilities information, customer
contact information, reservation and prices infor-
mation, surrounding area information, manage-
ment of the website, company information, com-
munication and recording users’ attitudes. They
estimated the significance rates of the information
services. They concluded that Greek hotel web-
sites are primarily designed to serve as electronic
brochures and while they generally satisfy most of
the users’ needs, they partly serve as online trans-
actions media, a function considered significant by
the users. User opinions were also used by Law
and Cheung (2006), who studied the perceived im-
portance of the overall quality of different classes
of hotels. Their research attempted to develop a
weighting model for contents of hotel websites
and it was built on the basis of input from hotel
website users who were international visitors to
Hong Kong. The empirical findings showed that
the level of the perceived importance increases
with the class of hotel. Furthermore, Law and
Chung (2005) developed a weighing model for
contents of hotel websites. They used hotel web-
site users’ opinions in order to rate hotel website
dimensions and attributes. Findings indicate that
Reservations information and Website manage-
244 ZAFIROPOULOS AND VRANA
ment were the dimensions with the largest and
smallest weights. Travelers’ opinions were used
by Law and Hsu (2005), who also investigated the
perceived importance of dimensions and attributes
on hotel websites from the perspective of the trav-
eler. The results indicate that responders view res-
ervation information as the most important dimen-
sion, and room rates as the most important attribute.
Dimensions and attributes were considered more
important on websites of upscale hotels than on
websites of economy hotels. Zafiropoulos et al.
(2005) measured and evaluated the information
provided by hotel websites. The applied model
combines seven data dimensions: facilities infor-
mation, customer contact information, reservation
and prices information, surrounding area informa-
tion, management of the website, company infor-
mation, and communication. Hotel managers’ per-
ceptions were used to weight the relative importance
of both the information services and the seven di-
mensions. The study contributes to the understand-
ing and measuring of the performance of the hotel
websites.
Aims of the Study
The previously mentioned relative literature on
hotel websites evaluation supports the following
model.
1. Record information characteristics offered on
the websites through an extended web search
and content analysis in a target population,
such as the sites of the hotels of a specific
country. These information characteristics are
also called information services or information
features.
2. Place these information services in groups ac-
cording to their thematic similarity. These
groups are usually called information dimen-
sions and they generally have unequal sizes.
3. Count how many information services are ren-
dered in the target population’s websites.
4. Using hotel managers’ and/or customers’ views,
create weights to incorporate the significance
of the information services in the analysis.
5. Calculate the dimensions’ performance indexes
and the overall performance index.
This article adopts this approach (Chung &
Law 2003; Murphy et al., 1996; Vrana et al., 2004;
Zafiropoulos et al. 2004, 2005) and applies it to
the evaluation of website performance of Greek
hotels. Moreover, it adds some methodological
improvements regarding specific aspects of the
evaluation procedure. Specifically, this article
strives to answer some methodological queries
while it applies the evaluation procedure:
a) Where should the procedure start? The set of
information services should not be drawn from
the target population, which in the present case
is the set of Greek hotels. Instead, a set of in-
formation features should be drawn from a
population that can be considered to apply
state-of-the-art web design. Top hotel brands
could be considered as such.
b) How many information features and what in-
formation features will constitute the universal
set, will be grouped into dimensions, and
should be used for the evaluation? All the re-
corded information services are not necessarily
useful for the content analysis. Some statistical
procedure could help eliminating nonsignifi-
cant features.
c) How to deal with the problem of unequal size
dimensions? Dimensions of different size, re-
garding the number of information features, are
of different significance when calculating the
overall performance score. This property should
be considered.
d) Should the performance score for each dimen-
sion and the overall performance score be re-
ported as they are (i.e., compared to a maxi-
mum of 100%) or should they also be compared
to the top hotels’ website performance scores?
Because the latter represents the maximum per-
formance values currently applicable, this com-
parison grades target population websites more
realistically.
Methodology
In the aims of the study section four issues
were placed and need to be discussed. Three of
them are discussed in the present section while the
 FRAMEWORK FOR HOTEL WEBSITE EVALUATION
forth, concerning the comparison of the indexes
with those of the top hotels, is discussed in the
findings section.
The Starting Point
For the construction of a universal set of infor-
mation features, several hotel websites were
searched. O’Connor (2003) stated “that major in-
ternational hotel chains’ electronic-distribution ac-
tivities are indicative of industry patterns, because
recent research has shown that large companies
are most active on the web—perhaps because their
size often gives them an advantage in terms of
technical expertise and financial resources” (p.
91). He used for his study the top 50 international
hotel brands according to Hotels magazine rank-
ing. This study uses the 25 top brands according
to Lodging Hospitality (March, 2004). Sigala
(2003a) states that Internet search for the identifi-
cation and study of online practices is heavily
found in the literature (Chung & Law, 2003;
Deimezi & Buhalis, 2003; Murphy et al., 1996).
The procedure used aimed at finding as many in-
formation features offered by the websites as pos-
sible worldwide. In this study 63 different features
were recorded, by using a content analysis. The
features were placed into six broad categories ac-
cording to their thematic similarity: Facilities in-
formation, Guest contact information, Reservation/
price information, Surrounding area information,
Management of the website (in terms of mainte-
nance, administration, and website design), Com-
pany profile (Table 1).
The Selection of the Significant Features
The next step involves the selection of only the
significant information features from the set of the
63 of those information features. These significant
information features are the features that are actu-
ally used in several top hotel brands’ websites and
are not sparsely used by few of them. Each one of
the 63 information features does not have the same
importance for hoteliers because it could be added
for any reason, such as better appearance of the
site. The sole appearance of a feature in a top hotel
website does not necessarily mean that it is an im-
portant information feature by itself. Rather, it
245
should be examined whether it is important for
many hotels and if so whether it is incorporated in
several hotel websites. If many hotels websites
used this item, this should be an item of interest
for many hoteliers and consequently it could be
added in the analysis. But exactly how many hotel
websites should be considered many? Although
any approach to define the actually significant
items is subjective, the use of a statistical tech-
nique can add a lot to establishing an automated-
like procedure that will distinguish important from
nonimportant items.
There are several methods that could be used
in order to distinguish significant features regard-
ing their occurrence rates. For example, percen-
tiles or thresholds could be used. Every method
has its own merits and limitations. In this article
hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) is proposed
because it produces groups of elements taking into
account specific data properties. In this way it pro-
duces small or large clusters according to their ele-
ments’ proximities and is not limited to produce
small groups of nonsignificant elements, as it is
the case for the 75% percentile use. Zafiropoulos
et al. (2004) used HCA, in another context, to
summarize information features offered simultane-
ously. In this article HCA is applied to the occur-
rence percentages of the information features just
to group together those features with nearly equal
occurrence percentages within top 25 hotel brand
websites. Cluster analysis produces several cluster
solutions. However, a screen plot of Wilks’
lambdas can help to decide how many clusters are
needed. Producing scree plots to decide the num-
ber of factors or solutions is a standard procedure
in multivariate statistics. Figure 1 presents several
solutions from which a five-cluster solution seems
to be the most appropriate. Table 2 demonstrates
the information features grouped together by oc-
currence rate.
Cluster five consists of the following informa-
tion services: currency converter, web designer in-
formation, web host information, recommenda-
tions, and questionnaire. These features, although
they appear in the top 25 hotel brands’ websites,
only have a 7.2% mean appearance rate. Conse-
quently, eliminating these features from the infor-
mation services universal set could result in the
246 ZAFIROPOULOS AND VRANA

Table 1
Information Services and Dimensions

Occurrence Occurrence
in Top 25 Hotel in Greek Hotel
Dimensions and Information Services Websites (%) Websites (%) Weights

Facilities information
General description 100 93.0 11.655
Hotel facilities 100 90.6 12.474
Room facilities 96 90.4 12.561
Activities/entertainment 84 49.7 10.795
Dinning 60 48.6 10.406
Bars 52 38.7 10.131
Conference meetings facilities 64 29.3 9.047
Shops/gifts 28 7.0 7.734
Photos/photo album 92 87.3 7.991
Video/virtual tours 32 21.1 7.205
Guest contact information
Phone 96 94.0 13.558
Fax 92 94.9 12.157
Address 88 94.5 14.057
E-mail 88 92.0 13.640
Conduct form/feedback form 80 19.3 11.893
Claim form 52 1.3 9.950
FAQ 96 2.3 8.224
Sign in 88 11.5 7.217
Newsletter 44 13.7 9.304
Reservation/price information
Reservation 100 58.1 8.488
Online availability 100 20.4 8.108
Book online 100 20.2 8.307
Packages/promotion 96 19.7 7.370
Promotion other 56 7.4 5.024
Group promotions 56 3.3 6.927
Members special 76 6.9 7.021
Prices 80 53.1 9.428
Offers 100 12.5 8.422
Trip rewards points or miles 68 2.4 6.302
Flight finder 36 0.0 8.348
Rent a car online 36 0.0 7.722
Cards accepted 96 10.7 8.531
Surrounding area information
General description of the area/activities 88 83.8 10.903
Map 96 53.5 11.172
Distances 88 49.1 11.342
Ways of transportation 68 20.4 11.236
Area interests 92 35.0 10.844
Restaurants 68 3.6 9.048
Bars 60 2.8 8.835
Shopping 64 2.1 9.197
Nearby corporation facilities 72 2.6 8.400
Weather 44 18.8 9.023
Management of the website
Multilanguage 48 60.3 10.981
Web designer 8 — —
Web host 8 — —
Terms of use 80 3.8 11.242
Downloads 44 6.9 12.887
Search engines 100 3.9 11.734
E-shop 20 0.0 13.162
Help 52 1.6 12.579
Sitemap 32 17.7 13.697
Links to others 52 37.0 13.717
Company profile
Employment 76 12.2 11.123
Franchise 72 1.0 9.597
About us/brand 100 20.8 13.385
For travel agencies 80 10.2 14.825
Links to partners 76 36.5 10.465
Press 44 6.1 12.483
Recommendations 4 — —
Awards 28 9.6 14.791
Announcements 56 11.0 13.330
 FRAMEWORK FOR HOTEL WEBSITE EVALUATION 247

Figure 1. Scree plot: number of clusters versus Wilks’ lambdas.

creation of a more robust and widely applicable
set. Subjective as it may be, eliminating these fea-
tures from the universal set using this procedure is
a rather easy and automated procedure to follow.
The Implementation of the Evaluation
Next, a web search in order to record hotel
websites in Greece was performed. Greek Travel
Pages (GTP) were used to identify Greek hotels
that have a website. GTP is considered to be the
most comprehensive directory of Greek Tourism.
A total of 798 hotel websites were visited.
The next step involved the identification of in-
formation services that are offered through the re-
corded websites. This was done for both the 25
top hotel brands and the Greek hotel websites.
Finally, a questionnaire was given a) to 30 ho-

Table 2
Information Features Grouped in Five Clusters After Hierarchical Cluster Analysis

Mean
Clusters Occurrence (%) N SD (%)

1. General description, Hotel facilities, Reservation form, Online availability, Book online,
Offers, Search engines, About us, Room facilities, Phone, FAQ, Packages/promotions, Cards
accepted, Map, Fax, Area interests, Photos/photo album, Address, Email, Area short descrip-
tion, Distances, Sign in 95.09 22 4.77
2. Activities, Conduct form/feed back form, For travel professionals, Prices, Terms of use,
Members special, Links to partners, Employment, Nearby corporation, Franchise, Trip re-
wards points, Ways of transportation, Restaurants in area, Conference and meeting facilities,
Shopping areas 73.86 15 6.39
3. Restaurants/dinning facilities, Bars in area, Activities in area, Promotion other, Group pro-
motions, Announcements, Bars, Claim form, Help, Links to others, Multilanguage, Weather,
Downloads, Press, Newsletter 52 15 6.04
4. Flight finder, Rent a car online, Video, Sitemap, Shops gifts, Awards, e-shop 30.28 7 5.58
5. Currency converter, Web designer, Web host, Recommendations, Questionnaire 7.20 5 3.34
248 ZAFIROPOULOS AND VRANA
tel managers of freestanding and chain hotels in
Greece, and b) to 30 potential customers, called
users hereafter. All the managers had some famil-
iarity with the Internet and had some knowledge
about hotel websites and the potential that hotel
websites have to attract customers and produce
business. The managers were able to evaluate the
information services and the information dimen-
sions provided through the web. The users were
familiar with the web and had at some point used
hotel websites to browse information and book a
room. The questionnaire asked respondents to rate
both the information services and the information
dimensions using a 5-point scale (1 = not signifi-
cant, 5 = very significant). Each information fea-
ture was associated with one question. There were
58 questions regarding the information features
(corresponding only to the 58 “significant” fea-
tures), plus six regarding the dimensions as a
whole. All of these questions used a 5-point scale.
Managers’ views along with users’ views were
used in order to provide and incorporate the views
of both the industry and the customers regarding
website development and web performance, in
terms of content information (Zafiropoulos et al.,
2004, 2005).
The dimensions’ performance scores describe
the amount of offered information services within
the dimension weighted by their significance.
Roughly speaking, if the mean dimension perfor-
mance score is 50%, then half of the information
features of the dimension are offered by the aver-
age hotel website. This significance of every infor-
mation service can be calculated combining the
ratings of managers and users. The means of the
ratings are used as weights to standardize and cor-
rect the findings, which resulted from the web
search. This was done in the following way. For
every information service the associated rating
was divided by the sum of the ratings of the infor-
mation services within the dimension, producing a
percentage. The sum of all the ratios within the
dimension equaled 100%. This approach was used
for weighting the six dimensions by using the rat-
ings from both the managers and the users for the
six relative questions as well. It should be noted
that the attitudes of managers and users were con-
sidered equally significant for the purpose of
forming the weights. Other approaches can attri-
bute different significances to the two kinds of rat-
ings according to the specific context (Au Yeung
& Law, 2003). Table 1 presents the weights for
every information service and the dimensions ex-
pressed as percentages. For every information fea-
ture, the mean of the average user rating and the
average manager rating was calculated, because
both opinions were considered of equal signifi-
cance. This weight was multiplied by the occur-
rence rate of the information feature and finally
the results for every feature in the dimension were
summed to produce the total dimension score.
This was done for every dimension.
Taking Into Consideration Dimensions
of Unequal Sizes
It should be noted that the dimensions have dif-
ferent numbers of features within them. Thus,
computing the overall performance score would
incorporate dimensions’ percentages (scores) that
have different actual weights and meanings. For
example, a percentage calculated for a dimension
that has only three features may have a different
interpretation compared to a percentage computed
for a dimension of 10 or 15 features because every
feature in the three features dimension has a
greater impact to the dimension formation and is
associated to a greater percentage. This is a prop-
erty that may be taken into consideration when
calculating the final results of the evaluation pro-
cedure. The overall score, which represent the to-
tal performance score of the sites, is calculated as
follows:
a) If the number of information features in each
dimension is to be taken into account, then the
mean ranking of each dimension (taken from
both the managers and the users), is multiplied
by the number of information features in the
dimension. Then each product is divided by the
sum of these products and the outcome is ex-
pressed as a percentage.
b) If the number of information features in each
dimension is not to be taken into account, then
each mean rating of each dimension (taken
from both the managers and the users) is di-
vided by the sum of these mean ratings for all
the dimensions and is expressed as a per-
centage.
 FRAMEWORK FOR HOTEL WEBSITE EVALUATION 249

Table 3
Dimensions and Overall Performance, Dimension Sizes Considered Unequal

Dimension Dimension
Scores Top Scores Greek Percentage
Dimensions Weights 25 Hotels Hotels Greek/Top 25

Facilities information 19.56 74.38 59.53 80.03

Guest contact information 16.85 81.60 54.81 67.17
Reservation/prices information 26.66 78.23 17.92 22.91
Surrounding area information 17.08 75.28 29.46 39.13
Management of the website 8.90 52.36 16.10 26.09
Company profile 10.94 65.66 13.22 20.13
Total 73.86 33.57 45.45

Findings Greek hotels the two scores were 33.57% and

Greek and International Hotels’
Web Performance
Greek and international hotels provide informa-
tion services to different degrees. However, the
correlation coefficient calculated between the two
sets of the information services occurrences (Table
1) equaled 0.48 (p = 0.01). This is to say that the
information services that are offered to high de-
grees in top hotels are also offered to high degrees
by Greek hotels.
Tables 3 and 4 report the dimensions’ perfor-
mance scores and the overall performance score
for both the top 25 hotels and the Greek hotels.
Tables 3 and 4 differ from each other regarding
the weights of the dimensions. Consequently, only
the overall performance scores are different. When
the dimension sizes were considered to be un-
equal, top hotels presented a 73.86% overall per-
formance score compared to 73.04% when calcu-
lated considering dimensions sizes to be equal. For
33.98%, respectively. Despite the differences in
the weights calculation, the overall performance
scores were eventually only slightly different from
each other. This finding indicated that the overall
performance score was relatively invariable whether
the number of information services in each dimen-
sion was taken into account or not.
Regarding the weights in Tables 3 and 4, we
can comment that their values appear to be differ-
entiated from each other, with those in Table 3 to
be more extreme (due to the differences among
number of information features within the dimen-
sions) and those in Table 4 to be more smoothed
due to the fact that the dimension are virtually
considered to be equal in number. The weights in
both tables, which reflect different ways of calcu-
lating weights, present similar distributions. Di-
mensions that are highly weighted in Table 3 are
also highly weighted in Table 4. Reservations and
price information is considered to be the most sig-
nificant dimension, while Facilities information

Table 4
Dimensions and Overall Performance, Dimension Sizes Considered Equal

Dimension Dimension
Scores Top Scores Greek Percentage
Dimensions Weights 25 Hotels Hotels Greek/Top 25

Facilities information 19.43 74.38 59.53 80.03

Guest contact information 18.59 81.60 54.81 67.17
Reservation/prices information 20.38 78.23 17.92 22.91
Surrounding area information 16.97 75.28 29.46 39.13
Management of the website 11.05 52.36 16.10 26.09
Company profile 13.58 65.66 13.22 20.13
Total 73.04 33.98 46.52
250 ZAFIROPOULOS AND VRANA
and Guest contact information are the dimensions
that follow.
As far as the dimensions’ performance scores
are concerned (Tables 3 and 4) the top 25 hotel
brands’ websites present very high scores ranging
from 52.36% to 81.6%. Guest contact information,
Reservation/prices information, Surrounding area
information, and Facilities information are the di-
mensions with the highest provision of informa-
tion features. Company profile (65.66%) and Man-
agement of the website (52.36%) are considered
to be less significant dimensions and their infor-
mation features are offered to lesser degrees. Fi-
nally, the overall performance score for the top
25 hotel brands is about 73%, which should be
considered to be very high.
The picture is quite different for Greek hotels.
Greek hotels offer more Facilities information fea-
tures and Guest contact information features than
other information features, yet they hardly reach
the richness of information offered by the top ho-
tel brands’ websites. In the aforementioned dimen-
sions Greek hotel websites offer just a little more
than half of the information features within the di-
mensions. Only 29.46% of the Greek hotels web-
sites offer Surrounding area information and to far
lesser degrees they offer Reservation/prices infor-
mation features (17.92%), Management of the
website, and Company information features. Be-
cause the latter two are also not offered widely by
top hotels, it is interesting to restrict attention only
to the very low degree of provision of reservation
and prices information services by Greek hotels.
This dimension is weighted as the most significant
one by managers and users in Greece, to whom
the questionnaire of this survey was administered,
but Greek hotels are very distant from top hotels
regarding this property. Greek hotel websites
serve more as advertising brochures because they
do not provide the most important and most tech-
nologically up-to-date information services, fail-
ing thus to meet potential customers’ demands.
Overall, Greek hotel websites reach only one third
(little more than 33%) of their top information
provision.
The Relative Placement of Greek
Hotels’ Websites
This section addresses the forth issue men-
tioned at the aims of the study section. At this
point the analysis could come to an end because
the performance indexes of the hotel websites
were calculated and reported. However, it should
be noted that no hotel website reached 100% for
any dimension and this hypothetical situation is
far from being realistic and applicable. This sec-
tion points out that the performance of the Greek
hotel websites should not necessarily be compared
to the theoretical 100% but in fact it should also
be compared to the applicable status of the top
websites worldwide, and these should be the sites
of top hotel brands. The actual top scores are not
100% for every dimension but instead they are
those reported in Tables 3 and 4 for the top 25
hotel brands. By dividing Greek hotels perfor-
mance scores by the top 25 hotel brands perfor-
mance scores the relative placement of the Greek
hotels websites regarding the best information pro-
vision status applicable is derived. The picture is
described in the last columns of Tables 3 and 4.
Greek hotels are doing very well regarding Facili-
ties information and to some extent regarding
Guest contact information, but regarding the pro-
vision of other information features their perfor-
mance scores are placed between 20% and 40% of
the performance scores of top hotels. As far as
the overall performance index is concerned, Greek
hotel websites information provision reached
about 46.5% of the actual top performance value
that is calculated for top hotels.
Conclusions
This article introduced an overall approach re-
garding the performance evaluation of hotel web-
sites. This approach extended previous works on
this subject, while taking into account special
methodological aspects. The heuristic methods
that are supported by the literature and are used in
this article seem to be efficient for website evalua-
tion. However, they can benefit from some im-
provements that take into account certain aspects
of the evaluation procedures. The article intro-
duced three points of concern: the amount of in-
formation features to be considered in the analysis,
how the situation resulting from the different vol-
ume of the information dimensions used should
be handled, and what are the performance indexes
compared to the state-of-the-art status applicable
today. It was pointed out that in order to evaluate a
 FRAMEWORK FOR HOTEL WEBSITE EVALUATION
specific target population’s websites, top websites
should primarily consider providing a benchmark;
so top hotels websites were considered in the anal-
ysis to provide a benchmark and Greek hotel web-
sites were compared to them.
Top hotels are doing very well in providing in-
formation services through their websites, and
they neglect certain information dimensions that
are considered less important. Greek hotels are
quite different from top hotels in providing infor-
mation services. Their current status probably re-
flects the Greek hotelier’s attitudes about web
presence and promotion, which regard the web-
sites rather as an advertising tool and not as a
means for making and completing business online.
The overall information provision by Greek hotel
websites is placed at about one half of the infor-
mation provision of the top 25 hotel brands.
Greek hotels, and of course the hotels of any
country, should adjust to the current economic and
technological changes that take place worldwide.
Within a connected economy every enterprise is
affected by global changes and improvement.
Within the scope of this context no company of a
specific country by itself should be analyzed with-
out being connected and compared to similar com-
panies worldwide so that the international trends
could be taken into account.
Greek hoteliers need to adopt new technologies
and trends for e-business as well as to alter their
attitudes about online presence. The hoteliers’ de-
lay to apply modern technological techniques may
be due to a reluctance to make a serious invest-
ment but also may be due to their negative attitude
towards the use of personal data and lack of per-
sonal contact, or their persistence to implement
traditional ways of doing business. Maintaining a
website mainly serves as an advertising and con-
tact tool, while business is primarily done through
personal contact, or fax, etc. Deimezi and Buhalis
(2003) report the findings of a series of interviews
with Greek tourism agents. The majority of the
respondents stated that Internet bookings count for
up to 5% of their reservations. Lack of knowledge
on how to manage and market the website was
identified as the limitation. Also small companies
suffer a lack of financial resources, while larger
companies are more active on the web and more
prone to make an investment on the Internet. Big
companies can afford spending more money for
251
promoting a website and employing a technical
expert, and they appreciate more the e-commerce
potential (Deimezi & Buhalis, 2003).
While the main use of the website is as an ad-
vertisement brochure, online booking and reserva-
tion are provided to low degrees. In this way, al-
though hoteliers in Greece promptly assimilated
new technology, they are not using the Internet’s
full potentials by incorporating more sophisticated
techniques. Along with using more traditional
ways of doing bookings and registrations, such as
collaborating with tour operators and using inter-
personal contacts, hoteliers will benefit from re-
constructing their websites to offer more sophisti-
cated information services. In this way the overall
website’s efficiency is expected to be elevated.
Key shareholders such as hoteliers unions and
state organizations, such as Greek Tourism Orga-
nization, should make efforts to record, under-
stand, and enhance web practices in order to pro-
vide hoteliers with more skills and even finance
their investments to construct more powerful web-
sites. Informing hoteliers about the current status
of web performance internationally should be the
first step to enhancing Greek hotel companies’
web presence.
Hoteliers’ views about assimilation of current
technical improvements should also be studied in
depth by using more qualitative methods. Future
research should include the comparative study of
several countries’ hotel web presence and also
should include the study of other key variables be-
sides content, such as usability, navigation, and in-
teractivity.
Biographical Notes
Dr. Costas Zafiropoulos is an Assistant Professor at the De-
partment of Business Administration, Technological Edu-
cation Institute of Serres, Greece, where he teaches research
methodology and marketing research. He holds a Ph.D. in
applied statistics (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Greece, 1995). His research interests include sampling and
data analysis and research methods.
Dr. Vasiliki Vrana holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science (Ar-
istotle University of Thessaloniki Greece, 1993). She
teaches information systems at the Department of Business
Administration, Technological Education Institute of Ser-
res, Greece. Her research interests include the study of In-
formation Technology in tourism and hospitality industries
and the study of information provided through their web-
sites.
252 ZAFIROPOULOS AND VRANA
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