ارزیابی عملکرد کیفیت اطلاعات وب سایت های گردشگری از چهار نام تجاری (برند) مقصد جهانی : پکن، هنگ کنگ، شانگهای و تایپه

Some tourists only have a slight idea of where they want to go on a holiday when planning starts. Such tourists or their travel partners are likely to look for information for making a final travel decision. As the web becomes an increasingly popular information source, tourism destination websites can play a critical role in destination choice. A rubric for comparing tourism websites put forward by Dion and Woodside (2010) is used and ideas for enhancing the rubric are introduced utilizing a growing literature. Comparisons are made for the tourism websites of Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, and Taipei. Analysis involves considering websites' quality and usefulness. The study indicates that Hong Kong's site is best while Beijing has the most room for improvement. The paper concludes with implications of the research for website analysis. The discussion includes contributions to the value of criteria for websites found in the literature but not covered in an information-quality performance rubric.

Internet tourism research has a variety of thrusts involving both theory and practice (e.g., see Cho and Fesenmaier, 2001; Zins, 2007). Supporting indirect experience of tourism products is an important issue. Simulation of real visits can lead to a strong feeling of destination image (Cho, Wang, & Fesenmaier, 2002). Therefore, the worldwide web (WWW) is playing an increasing role in destination marketing since offline information does not allow the flexible interaction the Web allows (Buhalis & Law, 2008). Recognizing the potential role of the WWW in influencing decisions about visiting destinations, Dion and Woodside (2010) propose a rubric for assessing destinations' websites. They apply the rubric with special consideration of countries and regulations involving tourism. The rubric involves enumerating attributes of websites to see how destinations compare. Additional researchers apply the Dion and Woodside (2010) rubric to evaluate tourism websites for cities (Woolsey, 2011), states in the USA as destinations (Knoerr & Megehee, 2011), and Mediterranean destinations (Fryc, 2010). However, the study here is the first to apply the methodology to global destination brands in nearby competitive proximities in Asia.

Years ago tourists had to trust travel agents or get recommendations by word of mouth when they had to decide their trip destinations. Nowadays, however, the internet is available to most everyone and anyone can look for tourism destinations on their own. Potential tourists are able to take a look at destination websites; so, these websites are vital advertising channels. The official websites are not the only ones at potential tourists' disposal. However, they are the ones that officially represent the cities and have the most impact on visitors. Thus, the more attractive and useful an official destination website is, the more likelihood to turn a potential tourist into an actual tourist. In fact, it happens that the highest ranked city (Hong Kong) is the one with the greatest number of tourists among the four cities compared in this study.