Tourist Expectations Toward Travel And Tourism Websites In Thailand

Abstract

As there is still only limited research about expectations and preferences of travel and tourism websites, the aim of the paper is to enhance this body of knowledge by providing theoretical and empirical evidences about tourists’ expectations and preferences toward the roles of functionality/usability factors and quality of information of Thai travel tourism websites. A total 415 tourists were investigated by a structured questionnaire. The empirical findings indicated that 1) there was significant difference of tourists’ expectation between functionality/usability factors and quality of information of travel tourism websites at statistic level of 0.05. 2) tourists had expectation and preference on quality of information factor higher than functionality/usability factors 3) the three attributes most expected for functionality/usability factors were ease of physical access to the website, less response time, and easy access to specific detail within the website 4) the three attributes most expected for quality of information were current reliable information, useful sufficient information about tourism products/services and travel facilities including detailed and comprehensive coverage of travel tourism information.