Customers' perceptions on the importance of hotel web site dimensions and attributes

Purpose – Hotels at present have largely adopted e‐commerce to achieve different business goals. The existing hospitality literature, however, rarely investigates the importance of specific dimensions and attributes of hotel web sites from the perspective of web site users. In other words, what should be included on their branded hotel web sites remains unknown to hotel managers. This paper aims to report an exploratory study that investigated the perceived importance of dimensions and attributes on hotel web sites from the perspective of travellers. Design/methodology/approach – Through personal interviews with 304 travellers who had previously visited hotel web sites in the past year, the extent to which various hotel web site dimensions and attributes were perceived as important was examined. Findings – Empirical results indicated that respondents viewed reservation information as the most important dimension, and room rates as the most important attribute. In addition, respondents viewed that the included dimensions and attributes were more important on web sites of up‐scale hotels than on web sites of economy hotels. Research limitations/implications – A limitation of this research is the non‐random sample used. Originality/value – Findings of this study would benefit hotel managers in better understanding of the preferences of their customers on specific hotel web site dimensions and attributes, and assist hotel managers with the allocation of their efforts on e‐commerce development accordingly.