Information Technology & Tourism, Vol. 5 pp. 73–89 Printed in the USA. All rights reserved.

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BENCHMARKS OF WEB SITE DESIGN AND MARKETING BY SWISS HOTELS

ROLAND SCHEGG,* THOMAS STEINER,† SUSANNE FREY,‡ and JAMIE MURPHY§ *Lausanne Institute for Hospitality Research (LIHR), Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne (EHL), Le Chalet-à-Gobet, 1000 Lausanne 25, Switzerland †Competence Center ISnet-VS, University of Applied Sciences Valais, Technopôle 3, 3960 Sierre, Switzerland ‡Hotel Valuation Services HVS, 372 Willis Avenue, Mineola, NY 11501 §University of Western Australia, Faculty of Business, Department of Information Management and Marketing, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, 6009, Western Australia

This study explored a small slice of the soaring electronic travel marketplace: how a representative sample of 125 Swiss hotels used Web-based marketing tools. Software agents in conjunction with personal observations benchmarked and analyzed over 200 different Web site criteria (information provision, transaction/reservation functions, communication and customer service, use of advanced Internet technologies, etc.). Results of this study correspond with prior research: most hotel Web sites broadcast static information and provide limited transactional functions. The Web’s marketing potential is in its early stages. Comparing the analyzed hotels, the research found significant differences in Web site tools across hotel category and size, but no differences across geographic or linguistic region. Switzerland

Hotels

Web site analysis

Internet

Introduction

Benchmarking

for example, can outsource their online reservations with Swiss Destination Management (www.sdm.ch) for a 10% commission on each successful booking (Busch, personal communication, 2002). Hailed as the perfect place to sell travel (Higley, 1998), Web sites have moved into first place as the research tool of choice for leisure travelers, displacing friends, families, and travel agencies (Peppers

With hotels spending up to 30% of their room revenues on reservation costs (Connolly, 1999a, p. 29), online reservations can be a valuable cost-saving strategy. This may be especially true for the small and medium-sized hospitality enterprises (SMEs) that lack a larger property’s economies of scale. Swiss hotels,

Address correspondence to Roland Schegg, Lausanne Institute for Hospitality Research (LIHR), Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne (EHL), Le Chalet-à-Gobet, 1000 Lausanne 25, Switzerland. Tel: 0041 21 785 13 24; Fax: 0041 21 785 13 25; E-mail: [email protected]

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SCHEGG ET AL.

and Rogers Group and PhoCus Wright, 2001). The Internet also helps consumers exploit more transparent pricing. Travelers increasingly use the Internet to book a room and circumvent traditional hierarchical distribution structures (McCole, 2000). But this restricted view of the Internet as a standalone sales channel has disappointed many: numerous Web sites generate neither site traffic nor commercial revenue (Porter, 2001). In consequence, various industries are shifting their online strategies towards one-to-one customer interaction and relationship marketing (Gummesson, 1998; Newell, 2000; Reichheld & Shefter, 2000). In this context, Jung and Butler (2000) argue for examining issues such as the Web’s marketing effectiveness, characteristics of a successful Web site, etc. Switzerland has been described as the cradle of modern tourism; its long tradition for high-quality services in travel and tourism dates back to the 19th century. While consistent, efficient management has been a formula for past success, global competition demands that hospitality industry practice encompasses innovation and flexibility and respond to today’s dynamic marketplace (Kunz & Johnson, 2000). Thus, this study explores online marketing strategies in the Swiss hospitality industry. The research uses both software agents and personal observations to “benchmark” (Oertel, Thio, & Feil, 2001) a tourist’s experience in a competitive, Webbased market. The Importance of Internet Marketing for Swiss Hotels Online travel in Europe should almost quadruple from US$2.9 billion in 2000 to over US$10.9 billion in 2002 (PhoCusWright, 2000). A slightly lower estimate has European online sales of US$2.2 billion in 2000—1.2% of the market, up from 0.45% in 1999—nearly doubling to US$4 billion or 2.1% of the market in 2001 (Marcussen, 2001). Excluding packages, hotels snared almost one fifth of these online sales in 2000. Switzerland shows similar Internet growth. In 2001, about half the population or 3.4 million Swiss went online daily (Nielsen NetRatings, 2001). As for businesses, 57% of the Swiss SMEs had Web sites or used e-mail in June 2000, double the number in 1999 (Sieber, 2000). And about one of three

Swiss SMEs had a Web site in 2000, up from 13% in 1999 (Sieber, 2000). With Internet usage at roughly 40% in 2000, however, the Swiss hotel sector lags other industry sectors that have online usage rates up to 97% (Sieber, 2000). Still, Swiss online hotel sales should run in the tens of millions. Using West European online travel market sales and estimating a 3% share of total hotel rooms for Switzerland (Marcussen, 2001), online sales by Swiss hotels project to approximately US$11 million for 2000 and US$20 million in 2001. Hanson (2000, pp. 9–14) suggests that Web sites evolve from a stage one publishing site, to including databases in stage two and personalization in stage three. Given the growing importance of online sales as well as the evolution away from distribution strategies and towards relationship marketing, what stage and how are Swiss hotels using Web sites for marketing? Design of the Benchmarking Study Sampling The sampled hotels came from the Swiss Federal Office for Statistics’ comprehensive list of 7655 Swiss hospitality enterprises at year-end 2000. A random sample, stratified across geographic location (cantons) and linguistic regions (French, Italian, and German), yielded 850 hotels for evaluating Internet penetration rate. The benchmarking analysis used a random and representative subsample of 125 hotels with a Web site. Web Site Penetration Rate for Swiss Hotels Three steps examined if each of the 850 hotels had a Web site. The first step used the hotel’s name and location to query www.switch.ch (the Swiss Academic and Research Network, which manages Switzerland’s “.ch” domain names) for the hotel’s URL. The second step queried the online hotel guide of the Swiss Hotel Association (www.swisshotels.ch), which includes nearly half of all Swiss hotels. As most Web surfers use search engines to find sites (Thelwall, 2000), the third step used the hotel name and location to query two major search engines (www.google.com and www.altavista.com). For practical reasons, only the first two pages of search engine results were considered.

BENCHMARKS OF WEB SITE DESIGN AND MARKETING BY SWISS HOTELS Benchmarking Approach The benchmarking approach combined several concepts in order to evaluate the quality, technological standards, and Web site strategies of the hotel

sites (Frey, 2001; Gilbert, Powell-Perry, & Widijoso, 1999; Misic & Johnson, 1999; Oertel et al., 2001; Standing & Vasudan, 1999). Using over 200 differ-

Table 1 Continued Table 1 Web Site Benchmarking Criteria for the Service Process Dimension (Not Exhaustive) Access & Navigation Presence of intro Entry page Language selection Option for different browser versions Differentiation according to season Language selection Search function Search function with drop-down menu Sitemap Back-button works Forward-button works Main contents as list or buttons Option for different browser versions Differentiation according to season Netscape 4 Compatibility Netscape 3 Compatibility MS Explorer 4 Compatibility MS Explorer 3 Compatibility Entertainment Multimedia hotel presentation Download virtual tours Online Booking Contact e-mail Service hotline Physical address Service hotline Dynamic search of vacancies Vacancy search results as listing Online booking request (form) Confirmed online booking (credit card) Online booking via hotel Online booking via third party Online booking via destination organization (SDM) Online booking via GDS Online cancellation Payment Options Credit card offline Credit card online without secured transfer Credit card without information on secured transaction protocol Credit card with SSL Credit card with SET Bank transfer Incasso Bill Rate Information Static price information (table) Dynamic price information (database with search function) Last minute Special offer Prices in Euro Prices in other European currencies

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General Information People in the hotel Organizationof the hotel Characterization of hotel with photo Locationof hotel with maps Classification of hotel visible Opening periods Short description/history of hotel Niche/positioning/distinction Printables Printables as pdf Guided tour Ticker News Press reports FAQ History Service Information Is information on services existing? Information on services presented as a list Service information database Room service information Information on restaurant services Information on business center services Information on congress/seminar services Information on shopping Information on wellness facilities Information on sport facilities Services for children Cleaning services Information on shuttle bus services Informationon excursions/tours Textual description of services Conditions for use of services Photos illustrating services Webcam illustrating services pdf file illustrating services Video illustrating services Room Information Room information available Room information multilingual Classification (according to price and quality) Photo of room Photo of bathroom Description of room (text) Technical infrastructure (TV, Internet connection, etc.) Webcam Download of pdf Video Quicktime Information for Special Customer Segments Handicaped Children Pets Group booking Nonsmoker

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ent criteria, the Web research classified features on five dimensions, listed in Tables 1–5. Service Processes. This includes everything from the time guests begin buying services to the time that guests leave the property. Translating this concept into cyberspace, the customer has to be able to order and purchase goods or services, make detailed inquiries, receive responses, and perform other activities. Web features relating to service processes include navigation and design, site usability, information provided on the hotel, presentation of room offers and prices, and reservation procedures. Customer Relationships. Database management and communication lets firms track guest preferences and subsequently give them superior value via customized service. Database management and relationship marketing’s forebearer—direct marketing—relies upon customer information (Newell, 2000). Given that a Web site provides additional contact between the firm and customers, hotels can employ Web technologies to enhance their customer database. Examples of online relationship marketing include offering a personal profile based on customer travel preferences, inviting comments via a guest book (Gilbert et al., 1999) and requesting information via an interactive form (Murphy, Forrest, Wotring, & Brymer, 1996).

Table 2 Website Benchmarking Criteria for the Customer Relationship Dimension (Not Exhaustive) Database Management Order brochure Guestbook Data collection for user profiling Use of cookies Communication Newsletter Send a friend (virtual postcards) Virtual community/forum Permission marketing Comments Complaints Praise Suggestions Feedback for Web site Contact email Service hotline Physical address

Value-Added Services. Value-added strategies increase the relationship’s long-term value, giving repeat and occasional customers greater benefits on both current and future transactions. Service recovery strategies can alleviate lapses in service

Table 3 Website Benchmarking Criteria for the Value Creation Dimension (Not Exhaustive) External Links (Added Value) To other hotel of the same chain/same owner To affiliation To industry organization To other local tourism provider To local tourism organizations To regional tourism organization To national tourism organization To external search machines To local organizations (police, etc.) To local offer (movie, etc.) To regional organization (canton, etc.) To external service provider T intermediaries To cultural organization Added Value Buttons/features for specific customer segments Site in German Site in French site in Italian Site in English Site in Spanish Site in Japanese Customization/personalization options Modification of user profile Restricted area for loyal guests Information on Region (Added Value) Tips and tricks Sites to see in the region Local sites to see Cultural offer Events Restaurants Leisure and sport Excursion/tours Climate/weather Snow Time to travel Money/currency converter General information (doctors, etc.) Maps Transport means Time tables for public transport Search function for regional offer Livecam for region Video on region Incentives & Triggers Bonus/coupons Customization of packages Online contest Internet-only offers

BENCHMARKS OF WEB SITE DESIGN AND MARKETING BY SWISS HOTELS

77

Table 4 Web Site Benchmarking Criteria for the Trust Creation Dimension (Not Exhaustive)

Table 5 Web Sites Used to Test Cybermarketing Success of a Hotel Web Site

Implicit Logo/brand Last update Logo/brand/corporate design Web design by URL of Web designer Annulation information during booking process Search function Search function with drop-down menu Netscape 4 Compatibility Netscape 3 Compatibility MS Explorer 4 Compatibility MS Explorer 3 Compatibility Online cancellation Explicit Information on personal data privacy and security Explicit statement on control of personal data https (SSL) Secure http: shttp

Global Hotel and Travel Web Site http://www.travelocity.com/ http://www.expedia.com/ http://www.itn.net/ http://www.hotelguide.com/ http://www.travelnow.com/ Global Search Engine http://www.google.com/ http://www.yahoo.com/ http://www.altavista.com/ http://www.msn.com/ http://www.alltheweb.com/ Swiss Hotel and Travel Web Site http://int.myswitzerland.com http://www.tiscover.ch/ http://www.travelscout24.ch/ http://www.tourisline.ch/ Swiss Search Engine http://search.bluewin.ch/search http://www.search.ch/ http://www.swisssearch.com/

delivery with amendments and compensations for the guest. Creating Trust. The service marketing literature widely discusses trust’s role in creating and building successful customer relationships and confirms consumer concerns about trusting the Internet (e.g., Bauer, Grether, & Leach, 2001; Peppers et al., 2001; Wang, Head, & Archer, 2000). Elements such as safety, credibility, security, and continuity increase the trust in the hotel, and thereby support and encourage customer loyalty. Cybermarketing. Having a Web site and even offering online reservations is but part of a successful online strategy. Potential cyber-guests must first discover a specific hotel Web site amidst millions of other sites (Thelwall, 2000). Without substantial site traffic, there will be little business activity. Promoting Web sites encompasses offline and online actions such as using the Web site address on all collateral material, using meta-tags in the HTML source code, search engine submission, listing in major national and international travel portals, networking with business partners by reciprocal linking, etc. (Collins & Murphy, 2002). Roland Schegg and Thomas Steiner evaluated the 125 hotel Web sites between May and September 2001. They first evaluated Web sites together to improve the reliability of the evaluation process. Post-

benchmarking analyses checked the consistency of the data. In addition to the site evaluation, the site itself and hotel directories provided hotel information such as number of rooms, category, location, and affiliations. Formal Benchmarking With Softbots In addition to examining the sites from a customer’s viewpoint, this benchmarking study gathered technical information such as the use of programming languages, scripts, and secure connections. Because this analysis is near impossible to manually perform, a softbot tackled the task with exploring and parsing techniques normally associated with information-retrieving software agents (Lau, Lee, Lam, & Ho, 2001; Steiner, 1999; Wöber, Scharl, Natter, & Taudes, 2002). Over half a century old, softbots or software robots are widely used in IT nowadays (Bradshaw, 1997). The softbot processes all HTML pages that can be statically or semidynamically accessed through links starting from the top URL. Links hidden in graphics or behind dynamic scripting techniques have not been taken into account. Search criteria were specified within a text file, which was loaded on startup. Several formal criteria (use of meta-tags,

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SCHEGG ET AL. Discussion of the Results Internet Penetration Of the initial 850 hotels, 320 or 38% had their own Web site. This penetration rate is low compared with a 57% Web presence of hotels in London (Louvieris, Jung, & Pandazis, 2001). This study, however, included all Swiss areas (i.e., alpine and rural regions). These results suggest that competitive Swiss touristic regions (such as Graubünden, Zürich, Berner Oberland, and Geneva) have higher penetration rates (Fig. 2). As a comparison, one of three small and medium-sized enterprises in Switzerland had a Web site in June 2000 (Sieber, 2000). Providing a Customer-Centered Service Process

Figure 1. Sample fragment of formal benchmarking report.

mail tags, use of frames, etc.) were used to analyze the HTML pages. At the end of operation, the softbot generated a report containing the counts for each of the criteria, all sublinks visited, dead links, and global Web site statistics (Fig. 1).

Although providing certain navigational ease, the results suggest that most Swiss hotel Web sites were electronic brochures or stage one publishing sites (Hanson, 2000). Furthermore, it seemed that some operators rushed their brochures to the electronic printer as one out of five hotels failed to put the physical as well as the e-mail address on its site (Fig. 3). Few sites provided advanced features such as guided tours, search functions, or seasonal versions. Room information (Fig. 4) was basic in most cases, with a short text description or in-room photo. Views out of the window or from other parts of the room (e.g., bathroom) were less popular. Just three hotels provided moving pictures via Webcams or videos.

Figure 2. Hotel Web site penetration rates by touristic region based on the analysis of a sample of 850 hotels (September 2001).

BENCHMARKS OF WEB SITE DESIGN AND MARKETING BY SWISS HOTELS evaluation of home page 0%

10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%

language selection search function search drop-down menu

37.9% 1.6% 5.6%

conatct e-mail

81.5%

physical address

83.9%

people organisation

19.4% 8.9%

sitemap

12.9%

main contents

79.8%

charact. of hotel with photo

83.9%

location of hotel with maps

61.3%

classification of hotel visible

41.9%

opening periods

20.2%

short description of hotel

32.3%

niche/positioning

23.4%

printables printables as pdf

24.2% 4.0%

eyecatcher option browser versions

14.5% 6.5%

seasonal differentiation

12.1%

service hotline

4.8%

guided tour

4.0%

Figure 3. Evaluation of service process features on the home page (in percent of hotels where those features were observed).

room description features 0.0 10. 20. 30. 40. 50. 60. 70. 80. 90. 100 % 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% .0%

classification (according to price and quality) photos present?

47.6% 86.3%

view out of the room

11.3%

in-room photos

73.4%

photos bathroom

12.9%

description of room (text)

62.1%

info on technical infrastructur webcam

66.1% 0.8%

download of pdf

0.8%

video

0.0%

quicktime

2.4%

Figure 4. Room description features (in percent of hotels where those features were observed).

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SCHEGG ET AL. information in digital form helps collect, analyze, and use customer data (Moon, 1999; Petets, 1997; Wang et al., 2000). Obtrusive and unobtrusive data-gathering features by the analyzed Web sites, however, were minimal (Fig. 6): use of cookies, personal profile option, online guest book, and brochure request. These low frequencies suggest that Swiss hotels have yet to employ the Web’s unique opportunities to enhance customer relations. The Internet, which differs from other media, gives hotels nonstop and inexpensive global exposure. Unlike traditional media that intrusively push messages at a passive audience, online marketers benefit from a customer-controlled pull approach; users participate in the communication process. Yet, these results suggest that this communication capability is also underdeveloped (Fig. 6). Most sites offered feedback via email and about one of three hotels provided general comment forms but very few sites provided complaint forms, Web site feedback forms, and virtual client forums. Less than 1 out of 10 hotels offered online newsletters and just 1 out of 50 implemented viral marketing tools such as virtual postcards (Fig. 6). While over 8 of 10 sites included their email address— hence inviting two-way communication—a recent

In most hotels (79%), room rates were simple, static tables. Few hotels offered dynamic content such as database-driven rate information (3%), last-minute offers (3%), or rates in other currencies (18%). Swiss hotels have ample room to exploit the Web’s potential to disseminate current, accurate, and interactive information. Although online guests demand a convenient and efficient booking process (O’Connor, 2001), a majority of Swiss hotels offered restricted functionality (Fig. 5). The results found that nearly one of two Swiss hotels offered room bookings via a simple reservation form (with 11% guaranteeing the room by credit card). Stage two sites (Hanson, 2000) that offered real-time bookings (checking room availability) via a third party provider (10%) or a tourist destination organization (10%) were less frequent. Customer Relationships Customer information, the foundation of databasedriven relationship marketing (Blattberg & Deighton, 1991), creates value by tailoring messages and offers with the customers’ individual needs. This recognition and personal service influences customers to develop an emotional attachment with the company (Wang et al., 2000). Automatically recording

booking procedures 0%

10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%

online booking request (form)

46.8%

confirmed booking request (credit card)

realtime booking through hotel

11.3%

0.8%

10.5%

realtime booking through third party realtime booking through destination organisation (SDM) realtime booking through GDS

online cancellation options

9.7%

0.0%

20.2%

Figure 5. Analysis of booking features (in percent of hotels where those features were observed).

BENCHMARKS OF WEB SITE DESIGN AND MARKETING BY SWISS HOTELS

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customer relationship features 0.00%

10.00% 20.00% 30.00% 40.00% 50.00% 10.5%

order brochure

8.9%

newsletter send a friend virtual community/forum

2.4% 0.0%

guestbook data collection for user profiling

18.5% 3.2% 4.8%

use of cookies permission marketing

0.0% 37.1%

comments complaints praise suggestions feedback for web site

1.6% 2.4% 0.0% 3.2%

Figure 6. Analysis of customer relationship features (in percent of hotels where those features were observed).

study on 200 Swiss hotels showed that half of them failed to answer a customer’s reservation request in under 24 hours (Frey, Schegg, & Murphy, 2002). Value-Added Services Value-added services include, among other aspects, customization/personalization features as well as special online offers or incentives. But our results show that only a minority of the Swiss hotel Web sites include these types of features (Fig. 7) and therefore failed to offer a personalized, or stage three (Hanson, 2000), Web experience for their guests. For example, just 1 in 20 sites set cookies. Although few Swiss sites provided personalized services for their visitors, many sites provided valueadded information services (Fig. 8) such as location maps, information on regional and local tourist sites, sports and cultural events, as well as public transport information. The Swiss hotel sites left other services, such as currency converters or weather reports, largely untapped. Creating Trust Although ensuring an environment of online trust is critical (Bauer et al., 2000), this research found few explicit trust features. Only 1.6% of the sites

noted how they handled the client’s personal information and 5.6% revealed how the client can control his personal data. All hotels offering real-time booking used the secured transaction protocols SSL and gave security information. Previous research (e.g., Cheskin Research, 1999) shows that explicit privacy promises, such as privacy statements, inspire and maintain consumer trust. Furthermore, consumers hesitate to provide credit card details over the Internet, as they judge it risky. Offering a secure (encrypted) method for transaction via the Web can have a positive impact on consumers’ willingness to disclose their credit card information (Cheskin Research, 1999). Therefore, by ignoring these major trust concerns, Swiss hotels risk damaging customer relations. Cybermarketing A few indicators gauged the hotel sites’ online promotion. Their presence in global travel portals such as expedia.com (16%) and travelocity.com (7%) was low, but the hotel-specific hotelguide.com listed more (34%) Swiss hotels. The results were slightly better for Swiss travel portals such as myswitzerland.ch (21%), tiscover.ch (44%), and travelscout.ch (48%). However, the hotels showed a

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SCHEGG ET AL. features related to customisation/personalisation options and special offers/incentives 0%

5%

bonus/coupons

10%

15%

20%

6.5%

customization of packages

9.7%

restricted area for loyal guests

4.0%

customization / personalization

7.3%

modification of user profile

4.0%

contest

4.8%

Internet only offers

4.8%

buttons/features for specific customer segments

12.9%

Figure 7. Analysis of value-added service features (in percent of hotels where those features were observed).

regional information 0.0%

20.0%

40.0%

sites to see in the region

28.2%

cultural offer

20.2%

events

21.8%

restaurants

18.5%

leisure and sport

35.5%

excursion / tours

16.9%

climate/ wheather snow

money / currency converter

11.3% 4.8% 7.3% 3.2%

general information (doctors, etc.)

10.5%

maps

62.1%

transport means

33.1%

time tables for public transport search function livecam for region video on region

80.0%

34.7%

local sites to see

time to travel

60.0%

16.9% 0.0% 3.2% 1.6%

Figure 8. Analysis of value-added service features: regional information provision (in percent of hotels where those features were observed).

BENCHMARKS OF WEB SITE DESIGN AND MARKETING BY SWISS HOTELS stronger presence in international [google.com (96%), yahoo.com (86%), altavista.com (86%), and msn.com (79%)] and national [bluewin.ch (85%) and swisssearch.ch (72%)] search engines. Just 15 of the 125 hotels had links from more than 10 other Web sites (based on an advanced feature of the Google search engine that counts hyperlinks to a specific Web site), suggesting an underdeveloped networking strategy. Even though a potential client may find the hotel with a search engine, the weak presence of Swiss hotels in international or national destination travel portals reduces the potential to drive traffic to the hotels’ sites. Only 8 out of 125 hotels were referenced in more than 14 of the 17 assessed portals. Formal Aspects The technical analysis of the Swiss hotel sites with a commercial site evaluation tool provided by Netscape (websitegarage.netscape.com), which calculates download time based on a Web page’s total file size, revealed a disturbing number: an average download time for the 125 sampled sites of 19 seconds over the typical 56K-modem. A Zona Research study concluded that slow-loading pages accounted for the majority of abandoned Web transactions (Zona Research, 2001). The study, which found that dial-up users as well as broadband (much faster connection) users abandoned due to slow downloads, noted that an 18-second download was too time consuming. Almost four of five sites were compatible with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 4.0, but only three of five sites met Netscape 4.0 requirements. Backward compatibility was worse: 36% of the sites were fully compatible with Internet Explorer 3.0 and 29% with Netscape 3.0. Due to technical features such as dynamic links, applying the benchmarking softbot to all sites was not possible. Applying the sofbot to a subsample (50) of the Swiss hotel sites showed that 32% use meta-tags to reference their contents with keywords. The softbot found an average of 32 pages per hotel site and nine external links. Five sites had dead links, about three out of five sites used forms, and an equal number used an outdated and clunky navigational feature known as frames (Nielsen, 1996).

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Theoretical Interpretation of Results Diffusion of Innovation Diffusion of innovations (Rogers, 1995) describes technology adoption and helps explain Web site use by Swiss hoteliers. As individuals and organizations adopt innovations over time, effective hotel Web sites are in the early stage. Innovation characteristics, adopter characteristics, and social influences shape the innovation’s speed of adoption by individuals. Rogers (1995) and others (Abrahamson, 1991; Fichman, 2000) have subsequently applied this model to organizations, noting that it is less applicable. While individuals often make optional innovation decisions, organizations decide authoritatively or collectively. Such factors as individual (leader) characteristics and internal/external structure influence organizational innovativeness (Rogers, 1995). Most organizational research has focused on the stage of adoption or innovation itself, but these could be secondary compared to organizational characteristics. Researchers call for more investigation into assimilating the innovation (Fichman, 2000), bandwagon effects (Abrahamson, 1991; Fichman, 2000), and organization characteristics related to adoption including age, size, type, strategic orientation, and scope for innovation (Abrahamson, 1991; Rogers, 1995; Sieber, 2000; Soutar, Allen, & Long, 2000; Wolfe, 1994). Hotel characteristics studied include lodging segment, location, hotel size, product type, and brand affiliation (Frey et al., 2002; Gherissi, Schegg, & Murphy, 2002; Siguaw, Enz, & Namiasivayam, 2000). It should be noted that having many Web site features differs from having the right Web site features or using the features correctly. Organizational diffusion is a two-phased process, initiation followed by implementation—the mutual adaptation of the innovation and the organization (Rogers, 1995; Wolfe, 1994). Differences between an organization’s technology-sensing capability and technology-response capability, however, lead to an “assimilation gap”—the difference between acquisition and deployment of an innovation (Fichman & Kemerer, 1999; Srinivasan, Lilen, & Rangaswamy, 2001). This gap may be a “bandwagon effect,” whereby social emulation and competition pressure organizations to adopt new technologies for fear of being different or performing below average (Mansfield,

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SCHEGG ET AL.

1968). This fear leads to generalized adoption of innovations even when profitability is uncertain (Abrahamson & Rosenkopf, 1993; Baptista, 1999).

have more Web site features than hotels in mountain, lake, or other areas. H4: Based on linguistic region, Web site features will differ.

Hypothesis Development Frey et al. (2002) found that the quality of electronic customer service by Swiss hotels differed by hotel size, hotel category, linguistic regions, and online relationship marketing tools. This study used a representative sample of Swiss hotels to test Rogers’ theory with respect to hotel size and category, and to explore geographic and linguistic location. The scores in each of the five benchmarking dimensions and a sum of the individual dimensions assessed overall Web site features. As noted earlier, this is a measure of a hotel’s initiation to Web site features, not implementation of Web site features. Research has shown that organization size relates positively to adoption, as economies of scale enhance the feasibility of adoption and larger organizations have a stronger need for strategic planning (Kimberly & Evanisko, 1981; Rogers, 1995). Similarly, larger US hotels tended to adopt technology more (Siguaw et al., 2000) and larger Swiss and Tunisian hotels provided better electronic service (Frey et al., 2002; Gherissi et al., 2002). Stiff competition and increasingly demanding customers have made US luxury-class and city hotels early adopters of technology (Siguaw et al., 2000). Swiss luxury-class hotels and hotels located in the city should therefore have more Web site features. One in four Swiss small and medium-sized businesses in the French region with Web sites compared with one of two in the German region (Salvisberg, Klarer, & Sacchi, 2001) illustrate research by ATKearney (2000) suggesting that cultural factors influence Internet adoption. This same cultural effect should be found in the features on hotel Web sites in different Swiss linguistic regions. H1: Based on number of rooms, larger hotels will have more Web site features than smaller hotels. H2: Based on hotel category, higher rated hotels will have more Web site features than lower rated hotels. H3: Based on geographic location, city hotels will

Results of the Five-Dimensional Benchmarking Approach. The average values for the various benchmarking dimensions in Table 6 show low scores (mean values generally between 5% and 30%) for most sites. Hypothesis Testing One-way ANOVA and post hoc comparison tests using Games-Howell’s method, well adapted for unequal variances and sample size (Toothacker, 1993, p. 66), evaluated significant group differences at p < 0.05. The groups were hotel size (1–40 and >40 rooms), hotel category (budget, mid-range, or luxury), geographic location (city, mountains, lake, or other), and linguistic region (German, French, or Italian). Table 7 presents the results. Significant differences in all but one feature— customer relationships—across hotel size supported hypothesis 1. Larger hotels had significantly more features than smaller hotels. The results supported hypothesis 2 on all features. Higher rated hotels had significantly more features than lower rated hotels. There was support for hypothesis 3, as city hotels had significantly more cybermarketing features than the other geographic locations. Although the French and German sites consistently had more features than the Italian sites, there were no statistically significant differences across linguistic region. This fails to support hypotheses 4. Conclusions Analyzing hotel Web sites from a relationship marketing perspective implicitly assumes that hotels have taken their online presence through both the initiation and implementation stages of organizational diffusion. The use of certain Web features and characteristics might occur, however, without the strategic intention to develop relationship marketing. Furthermore, this research method failed to examine the integration of Web site marketing activities with the hotel’s overall marketing strategy (if applicable) and with other business functions. As such, the discussion of underlying reasons for these

BENCHMARKS OF WEB SITE DESIGN AND MARKETING BY SWISS HOTELS Table 6 Overall Benchmarking Scores of Subdimensions and Dimensions Overall Min.

Max.

Mean

Service Process Access & navigation Entertainment Information Online booking

5.6% 0.0% 0.0% 3.2%

61.1% 50.0% 53.3% 41.9%

35.1% 8.1% 22.5% 18.7%

Customer Relationships Communication Database mgt.

0.0% 0.0%

50.0% 75.0%

17.6% 9.3%

Value Creations Added value services Incentives & triggers

0.0% 0.0%

60.4% 75.0%

16.5% 6.5%

Trust Implicit trust feature Explicit trust feature

6.3% 0.0%

62.5% 80.0%

29.5% 9.8%

Cybermarketing

Min.

Max.

Mean

3.5%

44.2%

23.0%

0.0%

44.4%

15.7%

0.0%

54.7%

15.5%

4.8%

57.1%

24.8%

0.0%

89.5%

49.4%

Values in percent of theoretical maximal score for each dimension or subdimension.

Table 7 ANOVA Test for Independent Variables, Benchmarking Dimensions

Category Budget Middle class High class F Significance Location City Lake zone Mountain resort Other F Significance Linguistic Region German French Italian F Significance Size 1–40 rooms >40 rooms F Significance

Customer Relationships

Trust

Cybermarketing

Service Process

Value Creation

Total Features

12.3% 15.7% 19.4% 5.774 0.004

20.2% 24.1% 30.9% 9.228 0.000

43.8% 46.9% 60.1% 10.613 0.000

18.0% 21.9% 30.2% 20.971 0.000

12.7% 14.6% 20.0% 3.466 0.034

17.6% 21.5% 29.9% 20.512 0.000

15.2% 15.4% 16.3% 15.2% 0.138 0.937

27.6% 25.1% 25.7% 21.2% 1.561 0.202

62.1% 46.4% 50.3% 43.5% 4.963 0.003

26.6% 22.8% 22.9% 21.4% 1.107 0.349

20.4% 16.4% 14.9% 13.0% 1.354 0.260

27.7% 22.4% 22.5% 20.1% 2.355 0.075

16.1% 14.7% 12.0% 0.787 0.457

25.2% 25.5% 15.9% 2.280 0.107

49.8% 49.9% 42.1% 0.620 0.539

22.8% 24.9% 20.2% 0.717 0.490

15.8% 16.8% 6.3% 1.973 0.144

22.7% 24.0% 16.9% 1.411 0.248

15.4% 16.3% 0.276 0.6

22.4% 29.4% 13.199 0.000

45.2% 57.4% 17.781 0.000

20.7% 27.2% 16.622 0.000

13.2% 19.8% 9.118 0.003

20.0% 27.5% 22.449 0.000

Bold figures indicate statistically significant differences.

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findings—such as staffing issues, cost, and time, etc.—remain hypothetical. Given the rapid pace of Internet technology evolution, new features will fit into the proposed benchmarking model, and others, identified in the present study, are likely to become obsolete. Thus, the applied checklist provides neither an exhaustive nor a definitive list of such marketing features. Marketing is also about making promises. While the identified dimensions are critical to a successful Internet presence, they do not make up for poor fulfillment, poor customer relationship management, or poor service in the offline world. This study explored current Web technologies used by Swiss hotels. While only applicable to Switzerland and subject to the difficulties of Web site content analysis (McMillan, 2000), these results are consistent with prior research: Hotel sites primarily broadcast static information and provide limited transactional functions (Gilbert et al., 1999; Murphy et al., 1996). This format corresponds to the first of three stages—publishing sites, databases/forms, and personalization—of Web site evolution (Hanson, 2000). These findings may result from the predominant “me too” strategies underlying Web site developments during the “Internet hype” of the past few years (Connolly, 1999b). Consistent with previous research on bandwagon effects (Abrahamson & Rosenkopf, 1993; Baptista, 1999; Mansfield, 1968) and assimilation gaps (Fichman & Kemerer, 1999; Srinivasan et al., 2001), Grönroos (2000) found that careful planning rarely preceded the establishment of a Web site. Being on the Internet is more important than a justification for being there. A portfolio approach (Louvieris et al., 2001)— strategically including the site on a chain Web site and other third-party sites—to Web presence is a starting solution for improving Web sites. Another option is affiliating with an online booking system. Swiss Destination Management (www.sdm.ch), a Swiss market leader, provides access to their reservation system in exchange for a 10% commission on each successful booking (Busch, personal communication, 2002). This commission compares favorably with the 8–10% that travel agencies normally charge (O’Connor, 2001). More widespread quality standards and aggressive marketing may explain the better performance

of Web sites of larger and higher class hotels. Pechlaner, Rienzner, Matzler, and Osti (2002) found that management’s attitude towards the Internet plays an important role in using this technology in a hotel. Their stronger links to the globalized economy, financial resources and management, and marketing expertise helps larger and higher class hotels recognize the Internet’s strategic importance and implement strategies. Today’s hotel managers consider maintaining Web sites as too time consuming (Connolly, 1999b) and few managers using technology have attended IT courses in the last years (Main, 2001). Undoubtedly, their Web sites reflect such attitudes and behavior. The small, often family-run budget hotels typically lack resources and advanced management and marketing skills (Marvel, 2001). This also suggests that typical Swiss SME hotels have overlooked the requisite planning and subsequently face implementation problems (Wildemuth, 1992). Online customers rarely distinguish between physical and Web-based transactions: both are elements of their total experience with the company (Sindell, 2000). An unsatisfactory Web site encounter may influence a hotel’s brand image and existing customer relations (Peppers et al., 2001). As the travel industry represents one of the most competitive eBusiness arenas, reluctant attitudes could provoke outsiders into the market. Third parties have begun to dominate how hotel products are sold online (O’Connor, 2001), and hotel managers should pay more attention to online distribution and the needs of both their clients and channel partners. To stand still risks being surpassed by competitors. At the same time, Web site features cost money and require maintenance. Effective email use may prove to offer a better return on technology investments than added Web site features (Frey et al., 2002; Gherissi et al., 2002). Operators must distinguish between adding every possible feature and strategically planning their sites to meet online customer demands. Log file analysis (Murphy, Hofacker, & Bennett, 2001) helps show how customers behave on a site. Similar to Gherissi et al. (2002) and Frey et al. (2002), who found that the quality of electronic customer service by Tunisian and Swiss hoteliers, respectively, related to organizational characteristics

BENCHMARKS OF WEB SITE DESIGN AND MARKETING BY SWISS HOTELS (i.e., hotel size and hotel category), these same characteristics relate to Web site features. A study of Swiss Internet use by 2353 small and medium-sized enterprises showed similar patterns (Sieber, 2000). Internet diffusion correlated positively with enterprise size as in this study. This complements research of US hotels by Siguaw et al. (2000), who found that hotel characteristics influenced technology adoption. Further Research In addition to benchmarking hotel Web sites in other countries and longitudinal studies in Switzerland, future research could explore what features customers seek in a hotel Web site. Given the consumers’ preferences, what features give the better returns for investments in time and money? As hotels continue to upgrade their Web sites, future research could explore possible relationships between Web site features and electronic customer service or eService. Do automated email reply systems or customer relationship management tools enhance eService? Future research could also explore hotels’ current eService: how do hotels respond to email from guests? Another promising aspect to address is possible synergies from joint marketing activities with partner hotels in the same chain, same destination, or same affiliation. What benefits could stem from Internet-based consortia, including increased traffic on the site? This study examined, among other aspects, using Web sites for relationships with consumers. Future research could examine how hotels use their Web site as an internal marketing tool to build long-term relationships with their employees or to develop long-term relationships with channel members and other business partners. On a formal level, the implementation techniques for Web sites change rapidly. If formal aspects are to be analyzed by software agents, the latter must evolve with the emergence of new tools, such as flash techniques, dynamic scripting, XML streams, etc. However, specific links “hidden” (e.g., in graphics or generated on the fly by server-side scripts) will always be hard to handle for a softbot. Artificial intelligence techniques will probably be needed to address these issues.

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Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank the University of Applied Sciences of Western Switzerland (HES-SO) for the research grant and the Swiss Federal Statistical Office as well as the Swiss Hotel Association for providing data. Roland Schegg is research associate at the Lausanne Institute for Hospitality Research (LIHR). He earned his B.S. from the Swiss Federal Institute for Technology in Zürich and his Ph.D. from the University of Geneva. His main research interests are the influence of new technologies on the hospitality industry.

Thomas Steiner finished his Ph.D. in Business Information Systems at the University of Lausanne in 1999 on Distributed Software Agents for WWW-based Destination Information Systems. Since 2000 he has worked for the University of Applied Sciences Valais (Switzerland) where he teaches “Distributed Databases” and “Object Oriented Programming” and gives seminar lectures for “Intelligent Agents,” “Mobile Code,” as well as “Benchmarking & Best Practice Networks.”

Susanne Frey finished her B.S. at the Ecole Hôtelière de Lausanne, where she participated in Lausanne Institute for Hospitality Research projects. After her June 2001 graduation, she moved to New York and works now as an associate consultant for HVS International (Hotel Valuation Services).

Jamie Murphy, an Associate Professor at the University of Western Australia’s Department of Information Management and Marketing, is interested in researching effective use of the Internet. He earned an M.S. and Ph.D. from Florida State University along with a University of Florida B.A. and Michigan State University M.B.A. His background includes teaching and marketing experience in Australia, Canada, China, Switzerland, and the US. He also lectures annually at the Ecole Hôtelière de Lausanne. References Abrahamson, E. (1991). Managerial fads and fashions: The diffusion and rejection of innovation. Academy of Management Review, 16(3), 586–612. Abrahamson, E., & Rosenkopf, L. (1993). Institutional and competitive bandwagons: Using mathematical modelling as a tool to explore innovation diffusion. Academy of Management Review, 18(3), 487–517. ATKearney Incorporation. (2000). Satisfying the experienced on-line shopper. Global E-Shopping Survey. http:// www.atkearney.com/pdf/eng/E-shopping_survey.pdf

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