Evaluación de los sitios web de los hoteles e implicaciones para la gestión del marketing hotelero

Abstract

In marketing history, there has been no revolution as impacting as Internet. Products whose buying decision is based on information, whose distribution can be made using the Web, whose value can be added by Internet commerce and whose clients have Internet access, are taking advantage of the new media. Among those, tourism products are typically included. Hotels that for a long time practice their commerce through tour operators, now faced the tourist directly: establishing final process, processing reservations and saving commissions. On the other hand, the hotel physiognomy that the client is facing is through the Website. Then which characteristics a Website must have to take advantage of Internet. What is the result of each characteristic to the hotel? Internet professionals advocate that a complete website will provide competitive advantage to hotels, in terms of commerce and relationship programs. But is that so? The objective of this thesis is to verify the characteristics of hotels’ websites of the south of Brazil and the Balearic Islands in Spain, evaluating its relationship with the hotelier’s perception of website’s results. As this investigation has an exploratory and causality approach, structural equations modeling (SEM) was used as part of its research method. A measurement model was developed and validated and a structural model generated to verify causal relations. One hundred sixty seven Brazilian and Spanish hotel websites were submitted to this model, which suggested that promotion is the only characteristic that is related to the perception of website result. Multimedia, printer-friendly content, accessibility, customer relations, privacy and security as well as service promptness did not present causal relations with result perception. This presents serious contradictions with the actual literature, and suggests that further investigations must be made to clarify this issue.