A Comparison of Chinese and International Online User Perceptions of the Usefulness of Hotel Websites more

Information Technology & Tourism, Vol. 11 pp. 329-340 Printed in the USA. All rights reserved. Copyright © 2010 Cognizant Comm. Corp. 1098-3058/10 $60.00 + .00 DOI: 10.3727/109830510X12670455864320 www.cognizantcommunication.com A COMPARISON OF CHINESE AND INTERNATIONAL ONLINE USER PERCEPTIONS OF THE USEFULNESS OF HOTEL WEBSITES1 SHANSHAN QI,* ROB LAW,* and DEVflTRIOS BUHALISf *School of Hotel and Tourism Management, The Hong Kong Polytechnic Umvfcrsity, Hong Kong fSchool of Services Management, Bournemouth University, UK • The Internet has had a large impact on the tourism industry in which many travelers have been, and will be, using it to search for travel products and compare prices. The unprecedented growth of China's online market renders more online Chinese users to use the Internet to search and purchase tourism-related services and products. Hence, it is crucial to understand China's online users and how they act as compared to international users. The aim of this research is to do an initial study to compare the difference in perceptions of functionality and usability between China and international online users qn the usefulness of hotel websites. Empirical findings revealed that the two groups of users do not exhibit significant differences in perceptions in most of the included attributes. Additionally, many users would like to use weblogs or social networks to share their travel experiences. Findings of this study would be beneficial to readers from better understanding the Chinese online users. Industrial practitioners may also consider using the recommendations to improve their websites. Key words: Hotel; Hotel website; Website design; Usability; China Introduction Information search and purchase behaviors of hotel customers have changed dramatically in the Internet era with more people searching and book- ing hotel rooms online (Chung & Law, 2003). At present, many hotels have already realized the im- portance of utilizing the Internet to remain com- petitive in the industry (Buhalis & Law, 2008). As such, most hotels have established their own websites. These hoteliers expect that their own websites can be used as an effective advertising and direct marketing tool that helps them promote sales and attract more consumers (Au Yeung & Law, 2006). Along with the increasing number of hotel websites, the number of online users is grow- ing rapidly. In China, according to the report of CNNIC (China Internet Network Information Cen- tre, 2008), by June of 2008 the number of Internet users has reached 253 million, as compared to the corresponding number of 116 million in 2004. With the largest population in the world, China 'An earlier version of this article was published in the proceedings of ENTER2009. Address correspondence to ShanShan Qi, School of Hotel and Tourism Management, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong. Tel: 34003147; Fax: 2362 9362; E-mail: Shan.qi@polyu.edu.hk 329 330 QI, LAW, AND BUHALIS has become the world's biggest online market, es- pecially in the eTourism market, which has plenty of potential users. Although various studies have been conducted to examine consumers' perception of website per- formance in the context of consumer satisfaction and importance of service quality, most of these studies had concentrated on the Western markets (Kim, Ma, & Kim, 2006). In the existing litera- ture, only a few studies had investigated the Chi- nese online tourism and hospitality market. Still, it was found that the characteristics of Chinese on- line consumers include: i) preference of participat- ing in online discussion to seek information for products recommendation (Fong & Burton, 2008); ii) using multimedia to present products could at- tract more online consumers in China (Bai, Law, & Wen, 2008); and, iii) China's online users do not seem to care much on whether a website pro- vides an online payment system (Li & Buhalis, 2006). In addition, Fong and Burton (2008) stated that online consumers in mainland China are very different from Western users, including those from Hong Kong and Singapore (Wee & Ramachandra, 2000). It is, thus, crucial to better understand Chi- na's online hotel industry and the industry's poten- tial consumers, as well as to find out their motiva- tions of using a hotel website and whether the factors from a Western perspective are applicable to China's online hotel industry. In spite of China's huge potential tourism and online tourism market, published articles rarely fo- cused on finding out what Chinese online users' perceptions are on hotel websites and how they act as compared to international users. Qi, Law, and Buhalis (2009) compared the differences between Chinese and non-Chinese users' online travel be- haviors. However, their findings are not detailed enough to understand the users' behaviors. This research extends Qi et al.'s (2009) work by focus- ing on a more comprehensive explanation of web- site functionality and usability with more appro- priate statistical analyses. The objective of this research is to make an attempt to initially deter- mining the perceptions on hotel websites from the perspective of Chinese and international users; two subobjectives are to compare and contrast the perceptions between Chinese and international on- line users on the usefulness of hotel websites, and to offer practical recommendations for hotel web- site improvements. Literature Review Ever since the late 1990s, different published articles have presented various approaches to im- prove commercial websites and have determined the factors that might influence online service quality, consumer online perceptions, and deci- sion-making process on eBusiness (Law & Hsu, 2006). Lu and Yeung (1998) pointed out that the usefulness of a website comprises website func- tionality and usability. While functionality refers to contents of a website, usability involves the website design or ease, of use (Nielsen, 1993). Both website functionality and usability could thus affect consumer online behaviors. Prior studies on website evaluations have assessed website func- tionality and usability, and indicated the impor- tance of different dimensions to different groups of consumers. For instance, Jeong and Lambert (2001) stated that consumers perceive the quality of information about products and services as the most crucial factor on online decision making. Ad- ditionally, a website with poor interface design cannot attract consumers (Perdue, 2001). More- over, Roy, Dewit, and Aubert (2001) stated that the quality or usability of interface design is a key factor in the establishment of trust toward a web- site. Szymanski and Hise (2000) determined that online satisfaction can be influenced by consum- ers' perceptions of online convenience, product in- formation, site design, and financial security. A good website should, therefore, present rich infor- mation, ease of use, and efficiency to consumers (Au Yeung & Law, 2006; Chung & Law, 2003; Lu & Yeung, 1998). Law (2007) indicated that there is no existing standardized website attributes or guidelines to in- corporate web design and contents into the context of tourism. With the growing importance of web- site evaluations and the large potential market of eTourism in China, the perception of China's on- line consumers renders its importance to both in- dustrial applications and academic research. To compare the differences between China's and in- ternational online users would thus help suppliers on their website improvement. However, the exist- COMPARISON OF CHINESE AND INTERNATIONAL ONLINE USER PERCEPTIONS 331 in'g tourism literature has a very limited number of published articles, if any, that compared and con- trasted the perceptions of Chinese users and inter- national users on hotel website attributes. In this study, the functionality attributes were mainly adopted from prior studies of Chung and Law (2003), Gilbert, Powell-Perry, and Widijoso (1999), and Ham (2004). These factors included: i) reservation information, which was how cus- tomers can book a hotel room online; ii) facility information, which presented how a hotelier pro- vides hotel facilities online; iii) contact informa- tion, which included contact details of a hotel; iv) website management, for the attributes that were related to maintaining a hotel website; v) sur- rounding information, which referred to the desti- nation information near a hotel; and vi) accessibil- ity, which was about how easy an online user can reach a certain hotel website. The attributes within each functionality factor were displayed in Table 1. The usability attributes (or factors) were pri- marily adopted from prior studies of Au Yueng and Law (2006), Kim and Kim (2004), Nielsen (1993), Murphy, Schegg, and Olaru (2006), Schmidt, Cantallops, and Santos (2008), as well as Zafiro- poulos and Vrana (2006). These usability factors included: i) navigation, which referred to how consumers can easily go back and forth between different pages; ii) website friendliness, which per- tained to the website's ease of use; iii) playfulness/ joy of use, which presented how a hotel website can interact with consumers and entertain the con- sumers; and iv) overall layout and appearance, which determined a website's overall performance and features arrangement. The attributes within each usability factor are displayed in Table 2. Methodology A focus group discussion was conducted for pretesting the questionnaire. The focus group was formed by three doctoral students in hotel and tourism management. Based on the feedback col- lected during the pretesting period, a questionnaire was finalized. The questionnaire consisted of two sections. The first section was to obtain a respon- dent's demographics as well as online and travel experiences. The second section used two ques- tions to measure respondents' perceived impor- tance of website usability and functionality. Re- spondents were asked to rate the importance of each attribute using a 5-point Likert scale (1 = least important; 5 = most important). Additionally, the respondents could choose NA/NO (Not Appli- cable/No Opinion). A quota sample was then selected in this re- search for primary data collection (Sekaran, 2003). A sample size of 100 was determined as appro- priate in this exploratory study. Respondents were assigned to two groups in this study, with 50 Chi- nese users and 50 international users of hotel web- sites. The questionnaire was distributed on the In- ternet. On the basis of the English questionnaire, a Chinese version was prepared for Chinese-speaking respondents. One hundred! usable questionnaires were collected at the end of July, 2008 from dif- ferent geographical areas (Fig. 1). Findings As shown in Table 3, the percentage of male and female respondents was similar. In addition, most respondents were in the age group of 26-35 years old. This result matched with the findings from Yip and Law's (2002) study, which showed people who used the Internet to search online in- formation, including travel-related information, are young. In this study, Chinese users were slightly younger than international users. In the 46-55-year-old age group, there were signifi- cantly more international respondent. In terms of education level, most respondents were bachelor degree holders or had completed their postgradu- ate degrees. This finding also matches with Yip and Law's (2002) work, which indicated Internet users tend to be highly educated. Also, the interna- tional respondents tended to be widely distributed among different income groups and there was a significant difference between Chinese and inter- national respondents in terms of family income. The wide distribution of income groups for inter- national respondents was likely due to the unequal economic development in different geographical regions. Travel Experience of the Respondents Table 4 presents the travel experiences of Chi- nese and international users of hotel websites. As 332 QI, LAW, AND BUHALIS Table 1 Functionality Attributes References Reservation information 1. Room rate 2. Availability check 3. Online reservation system 4. Refund function 5. Book products from a variety of distribution channels 6. Online cancellation 7. Transaction (transfer payment) 8. Price ranges of different products/services 9. Online booking confirmation Facility information 10. Hotel introduction 11. Hotel address 12. Mapped location of the hotel 13. Facilities information 14. Availability of virtual tours or video files of the hotel 15. Promotion of products 16. Multimedia is combined with web-based representation 17. Product warranty/legality Contact information 18. Contact information of hotel 19. Employee web page 20. Feedback of customers 21. Comments or reply function for consumers' questions Website management 22. Timeliness of information/regular updating 23. information credibility 24. Speed of transactions 25. Provision of related web links 26. Download/print function ' 27. Option for different browser versions 28. Staff directory search 29. Customized news report 30. Newsletter 31. Create or modify personal profile Surrounding information 32. Weather report 33. Destination information Accessibility 34. Ranking result of search engine 35. Download speed of webpage Chung Chung Chung Chung Chung Chung Chung Chung Chung Chung Chung Chung Chung Chung Chung Chung Chung and Law and Law and Law and Law and Law and Law and Law and Law and Law and Law and Law and Law and Law and Law and Law and Law and Law (2003) (2003) (2003) (2003) (2003) (2003) (2003) (2003) (2003) (2003) (2003) (2003) (2003) (2QQ§L (2003) (2003) (2003) Chung and Law (2003) Chung and Law (2003) Chung and Law (2003) Chung and Law (2003) Chung and Law (2003) Chung and Law (2003) Chung and Law (2003) Chung and Law (2003) Chung and Law (2003) Chung and Law (2003) Chung and Law (2003) Gilbert Powell-Perry and Widijoso (1999) Gilbert Powell-Perry and Widijoso (1999) Gilbert Powell-Perry and Widijoso (1999) Chung and Law (2003) Chung and Law (2003) Ham (2004) Chung and Law (2003) indicated in Table 2, respondents had a diverse range of domestic travel experiences. Most re- spondents had traveled once or twice within the past 2 years. A few respondents had traveled for more than five times in domestic destinations in the past 2 years. Apparently, the Chinese and in- ternational users have significant differences on their domestic travel experiences. The interna- tional respondents have lower travel experience than their Chinese counterparts. This might be caused by their age. The Chinese respondents were younger, and young adults tended to have more chance or more likely to spend holidays in different places than middle age people who have families to look after. In terms of overseas travel experience, 58% of the respondents had traveled once or twice in the past 2 years. In addition, findings of this study showed there was a significant difference between these two groups of respondents in overseas travel, in which international users had traveled more of- ten than Chinese respondents. Such a difference could be due to the variance in disposable income levels. COMPARISON OF CHINESE AND INTERNATIONAL ONLINE USER PERCEPTIONS Table 2 Usability Attributes References Navigation 1. Navigation system 2. Website internal navigability 3. Backward/forward icon 4. Back to main page 5. Search internal information Website friendliness (ease of use) 6. Text comprehension 7. Transaction utility 8. Website learnabiliry 9. The color of hyperlinks will be changed after use 10. Multiple language versions of website 11. Downloading speed 12. Design and appearance of multimedia/ virtual tours 13. Moving address Playfulness/joy of use 14. Entertainment within a website 15. Personalization website system 16. Interactivity between consumers and website 17. Interactivity among consumers Overall layout and appearance 18. Overall visual appearance of interface 19. Web page design uses aesthetic/artistic theory 20. Sign or Logo of website uses aesthetic/artistic theory 21. Graphic layout 22. Internal search engine design 23. Clarity of text colors 24. Font size of text 25. Design of transaction function 26. Logical design of the*-website 27. Length of each page 28. Text content includes design of title and subtitle 29. Website has its own characteristics Au Yueng and Law (2003) Au Yueng and Law (2003) Au Yueng and Law (2003) Au Yueng and Law (2003) Au Yueng and Law (2003) Au Yueng and Law (2003) Kim and Kim (2004) Nielsen (1993) Au Yueng and Law (2006) Zafiropolos and Vrana (2006) Au Yueng and Law (2003) Au Yueng and Law (2003) Au Yueng and Law (2003) Zafiropolos and-Vrana (2006) Murphy et al. (2006) Murphy et al. (2006) Murphy et al. (2006) Zafiropolos and Vrana (2006) Schmidt et al. (2008) Schmidt et al. (2008) Au Yueng and Law (2003) Schmidt et al. (2008) Au Yueng and Law (2003) Schmidt et al. (2008) Schmidt et al. (2008) Schmidt et al. (2008) Au Yueng and Law (2003) Au Yueng and Law (2003) Schmidt et al. (2008) Ht in m m I si Q. c o a. Q)" c 3 a. 01 03 Figure 1. Origin of respondents. 334 QI, LAW, AND BUHALIS Table 3 Demographic Profile Respondents Chinese International Overall %2 df p-Value Gender (N= 100) 0.04 1 0.841 Male 23 (23%) 22 (22%) 45% Female 27 (27%) 28 (28%) 55% Age (N= 100) 15.517 2 0.000* 25 or less 16(16%) 8 (8%) 24% 26-35 33 (33%) 27 (27%) 60% 46-55 1 (1%) 15 (15%) 16% Education (W= 100) 4.248 3 0.236 Less than secondary/high school 1 (1%) 1 07 1% Completed secondary/high school 1 (1%) 1% Some college or university 3 (3%) 1 (1%) 4% Completed college/university diploma degree 21 (21%) 20 (20%) 41% Completed postgraduate degree 25 (25%) 28 (28%) 53% Monthly family income (US$) (N = 100) 56.T73ri 8_ 0.000* Less than 1,000 26 (26%) 4 (4%) 30% 1,001-2,000 6 (6%) 4 (4%) 10 2,001-3,000 16 (16%) 16% 3,001-4,000 7 (7%) 7% 4,001-5,000 5 (5%) 5% 6,001-7,000 2 (2%) 2% 7,001-8,000 4 (4%) 4% 8,001 or above 1 d%) 1% Refusal/other 18 (18%) 7 (7%) 25% ♦Significant at a < 0.05. Table 4 Travel Experiences Respondents Chinese International Overall %2 df p-Value Domestic travel experience 21.114 9 0.012* None 5 (5%) 9 (9%) 14% Once 12 (12%) 11(11%) 23% Twice 17 (17%) 6 (6%) 23% Three times 6 (6%) 9 (9%) 15% Four times 1 (1%) 9 (9%) 10% Five times 5 (5%) 5% Six times 1 (1%) 1 (1%) 2% Seven times 1 (1%) 1% Eight times 1 (1%) 1% 10 or more than 10 times 2 (2%) 4 (4%) 6% Overseas travel experience 20.211 7 0.005* None 14 (14%) 8 (8%) 22% Once 14 (14%) 10 (10%) 24% Twice 1 (1%) 17 (17%) 34% Three times 2 (2%) 2 (2%) 4% Four times 2 (2%) 8 (8%) 10% Five times 1 d%) 1 (1%) 2% Six times 2 (2%) 2% Seven times 2 (2%) 2% ♦Significant at a < 0.05. COMPARISON OF CHINESE AND INTERNATIONAL ONLINE USER PERCEPTIONS 335 Online Experience of Respondents No significant difference was found (Table 5) for online experiences. In other words, Chinese and international respondents had similar online experiences. In particular, 95% of the respondents had more than 3 years of experience in using the Internet, and most of them used the Internet for more than 30 hours per week. As weblogs are be- coming more popular (Pan, MacLaurin, & Crotts, 2006), people tend to create their blogs for various reasons (Nardi, Schiano, Gumbrecht, & Swartz, 2004). This research divided personal blogs into four types of diary style, travel blog, news record, and others. Table 5 indicated that 74% of the re- spondents had their own weblogs or used a social network. Additionally, most respondents used di- ary-style weblogs or social networks, and 16% of the respondents used their weblogs or social net- work combining with travel blogs. Also, some re- spondents indicated that they used their weblogs or social networks in other styles such as using photo albums to present their profiles and record academic information. For the preference of using tourism-related websites, only 4% of the respondents had not used any tourism-related websites. During a travel plan- ning process, most respondents visited travel Table 5 Online Experience Respondents Chinese International Overall %2 4f p-Value Own a personal Weblog/social network 16.560 0.056 Do not have any 11 (11%) 15 (15%) 26% Diary style 25 (25%) 11(11%) 36% Travel blog 3 (3%) 5 (5%) 8% News record 4 (4%) 2 (2%) 6% Others 4 (4%) 12 (12%) 16% Diary/travel blog ' 1 (1%) 2 (2%) 3% Diary/travel blog/others 1 d%) 2 (2%) 3% Travel blog/news record/others 1 (1%) 1 d%) 2% Year of using the Internet Less than 1 year 1-3 years 2 (2%) 1 d%) 3% More than 3 years 48 (48%) 47 (47%) 95% Online hours per week Less than 11 hours 3 (3%) 3 (3%) 6% 11-20 hours 5 (5%) 14 (14%) 19% 21-30 hours 7 (7%) 19 (19%) 26% More than 30 hours 35 (35%) 23 (23%) 58% Preference of using tourism-related websites Never used 2 (2%) 2 (2%) 4% Travel agency 7 (7%) 6 (6%) 13% Hotel website 2 (2%) 3 (3%) 5% Destination website 10 (10%) 2 (2%) 12% Airline 1 d%) 6 (6%) 7% Others 4 (4%) 2 (2%) 6% Travel agency/hotel 3 (3%) 1 d%) 4% Travel agency/destination 1 d%) 1 (1%) 2% Travel agency/airline 1 d%) 1 d%) 2% Hotel/destination 2 (2%) 1 (1%) 3% Destination/airline 4 (4%) 1 d%) 5% Travel agency/hotel/destination 1 d%) 1 (1%) 2% Travel agency/hotel/airline 1 (1%) 1 (1%) 2% Travel agency/destination/airline 5 (5%) 6 (6%) 11% Hotel/destination/others 1 (1%) 1 d%) 2% Travel agency/hotel/destination/airline 4 (4%) 13 (13%) 17% Travel agency/hotel/destination/airline/others 1 d%) 2 (2%) 3% 2.344 7.215 29.504 20 0.504 0.064 0.078 336 QI, LAW, AND BUHALIS agency- websites or visited all kinds tourism- related websites (Travel agency/Hotel/Destination/ Airline). Moreover, 9% of the respondents men- tioned other sources that they used to search for travel information like travel forums and travel blogs. Perceived Website Usability and Functionality Importance Importance of Website Usability. Table 6 pre- sents Chinese and international respondents' per- ceptions on website usability attributes. As indi- cated in Table 6, individual attributes received mean values ranged from 3.02 to 4.51. This, in turn, indicates that the respondents considered us- ability on hotel websites as fairly important. In particular, text comprehension, transaction utility, downloading speed of website items, and naviga- tion system were the most important ones among all usability attributes. In contrast, attributes of en- tertainment within a website and personalization website system were considered as the least im- portant usability attributes. When the perceptions of the respondents were individually considered, the perceived overall mean score of all usability Table 6 Perceived Usability Importance Chinese Respondents International Respondents Overall Usability Attributes N Mean SD N Mean SD N Mean SD Sig. Navigation Navigation system 49 4.33 0.851 50 4.16 0.912 99 4.24 0.882 -0.939 0.350 Website internal navigability 50 4.24 0.716 50 4.10 0.886 100 4.17 0.805 -0.869 0.387 Backward/forward icon 49 3.57 1.225 50 3.80 1.088 99 3.69 1.157 0.982 0.328 Back to main page 50 3.80 1.161 49 3.90 1.085 99 3.85 1.119 0.434 0.666 Search internal information 50 4.24 0.797 49 4.02 1.051 99 4.13 0.933 -1.173 0.244 Website friendliness (ease of use) Text comprehension 50 4.46 0.676 50 4.56 0.787 100 4.51 0.732 0.682 0.497 Transaction utility 50 4.40 0.700 46 4.30 0.866 96 4.35 0.781 -0.597 0.552 Website learnability 50 3.74 0.965 49 4.02 1.145 99 3.88 1.062 1.318 0.190 The color of hyperlinks will be changed after use 48 3.27 1.317 49 3.49 1.192 97 3.38 1.254 0.859 0.393 Multiple language versions of website 49 4.04 1.020 48 3.88 0.959 97 3.96 0.989 -0.824 0.412 Downloading speed 49 4.31 0.742 50 4.30 0.839 99 4.30 0.788 -0.038 0.969 Design and appearance of multimedia/ virtual tours 49 3.47 1.082 50 3.36 0.964 99 3.41 1.020 -0.531 0.596 Moving address 48 3.69 1.055 47 3.36 1.169 95 3.53 1.119 -1.427 0.157 Playfulness/joy of use Entertainment within a website 50 3.16 1.076 50 2.88 1.023 100 3.02 1.054 -1.334 0.185 Personalization website system 50 3.14 1.050 50 3.10 1.015 100 3.12 1.028 -0.194 0.847 Interactivity between consumers and website 50 3.66 0.982 50 3.50 1.035 100 3.58 1.007 -0.793 0.430 Interactivity among consumers 50 4.36 0.834 49 3.45 1.081 99 3.91 4.219 -1.075 0.285 Overall layout and appearance Overall visual appearance of interface 49 3.96 0.841 50 3.74 0.828 99 3.85 0.837 -1.307 0.194 Web page design uses aesthetic/artistic theory 50 3.82 0.850 50 3.54 1.034 100 3.68 0.952 -1.479 0.142 Sign or logo of website uses aesthetic/artistic theory 50 3.70 1.055 47 3.53 0.952 97 3.62 1.005 -0.822 0.413 Graphic layout 50 3.86 1.050 50 3.68 0.957 100 3.77 1.004 -0.896 0.373 Internal search engine design 49 3.96 0.935 47 3.53 0.997 96 3.75 0.984 -2.168 0.033* Clarity of text colors 50 4.12 0.872 49 3.80 0.912 99 3.96 0.903 -1.807 0.074 Font size of text 49 3.88 0.971 48 3.48 0.945 97 3.68 0.974 -2.047 0.043* Design of transaction function 49 3.90 0.895 47 3.72 1.015 96 3.81 0.955 -0.894 0.373 Logical design of the website 50 3.96 0.947 47 3.94 1.009 97 3.95 0.972 -0.120 0.905 Length of each page 49 3.43 1.041 50 3.86 0.969 99 3.65 1.023 2.135 0.035* Text content includes design of title and subtitle 50 3.52 1.015 49 3.76 0.855 99 3.64 0.942 1.245 0.216 Website has its own characteristics 50 3.72 1.161 50 3.60 1.195 100 3.66 1.174 -0.509 0.612 ♦Significant at a < 0.05. COMPARISON OF CHINESE AND INTERNATIONAL ONLINE USER PERCEPTIONS 337 attributes was 3.85 for Chinese respondents and 3.73 for international respondents. Most impor- tantly, according to the statistical results among all the usability attributes, internal search engine design, length of each page, and front size of text have a high chance to have significant difference between the perceptions of the two groups of users. The attributes of internal search engine design and front size of text were perceived to have high importance by Chinese respondents. This finding indicated that Chinese respondents are more con- cerned about searching for the right information and viewing text clearly. In contrast, the interna- tional respondents had a high expectation on the length of web page. Importance of Website Functionality. Table 7 shows the perception of respondents on the func- tionality attributes. Similar to the usability attributes, respondents generally viewed the functionality at- tributes as important. The perceived importance of functionality attributes ranged between 3.04 and 4.62. Examples of the perceived important attri- butes included room rate, online reservation sys- tem, transaction (transfer payment), online book- ing confirmation, and mapped location of the hotel. Employee web page, newsletters, and staff directory search were some examples of the less important attributes. When the perceptions of Chinese and interna- tional respondents were separately considered, based on the statistical results, these two groups of respondents had a high chance to have signifi- cantly different views on seven functionality attri- butes. Chinese respondents perceived that the functionality attributes of room rate, book prod- ucts from a variety of distribution channels, infor- mation credibility, comments or reply function for consumers' questions, product warranty/legality, transaction (transfer payment), and destination in- formation were significantly more important than international respondents. The finding demon- strated that Chinese online users pay more atten- tion to product information. This is likely due to the fact that China's business market still keeps trading as a way of "pay off in cash on goods" arrival§ (Li & Buhalis, 2006). Therefore, search- ing and gathering more product information like multimedia and virtual tours may help Chinese on- line users know more about a hotel. Bai et al. (2008) advocated that using multimedia on travel websites could help suppliers promote their prod- ucts. In addition, the guaranteed secured online payment system may encourage Chinese online users to pay through the Internet. Employee web pages and staff directory search attributes, however, were not perceived signifi- cantly different between these two groups of re- spondents. According to the average value of these two attributes, they were perceived much less im- portant for Chinese respondents. This indicates that international online users may not only search for travel information but they also pay attention to other information. Interestingly, Chinese online users were more conceMiaied. on their original purpose. As travel product buyers or browsers, they were less interrupted by other information that was not directly related to their target. The perceived average value across all functionality at- tributes was 4.14 for Chinese respondents and 3.85 for international respondents. Apparently, Chinese respondents have a higher expectation of website functionality attributes than their interna- tional counterparts. Conclusions This research has investigated the difference in perceptions between Chinese and international us- ers of hotel website in terms of usefulness, which is defined to comprise usability and functionality. The participated Chinese users were similar to in- ternational users in demographic variables. Most of them were highly educated young people with more than 3 years of online experience. Age distri- bution and income levels, however, exhibited sig- nificant difference between Chinese and interna- tional respondents. Specifically, the Chinese online users were younger than international users. This could be due to the fact that the Internet was intro- duced to China at the beginning of 1990s. In the travel experience aspect, most of the respondents have had international or domestic travel experi- ences. Chinese users may have high expectations on hotel websites. The results also indicated that 12% of the Chinese respondents would like to share their travel experiences on their weblogs or social networks. Hotel website designers should 338 QI, LAW, AND BUHALIS Table 7 Perceived Functionality Importance Chinese Respondents International Respondents Overall Functionality Attributes N Mean SD N Mean SD N Mean SD Sie. 0.784 0.888 0.776 0.805 0.794 1.028 0.912 Reservation information Room rate 50 4.70 0.544 50 4.38 0.805 100 4.54 Availability check 50 4.00 1.069 50 4.16 1.149 100 4.08 Online reservation system 49 4.57 0.736 49 4.41 0.977 98 4.49 Refund function 50 4.32 0.741 49 4.18 0.972 99 4.25 Book products from a variety of distribution channels 50 4.52 0.614 48 4.13 0.89 98 4.33 OnUne cancellation 50 4.36 0.749 49 4.27 1.016 99 4.31 Transaction (transfer payment) 49 4.65 0.561 49 4.27 0.908 98 4.46 Price ranges of different products/services 50 4.46 0.706 50 4.36 0.898 100 4.41 Online booking confirmation 50 4.74 0.527 49 4.45 0.980 99 4.60 Facility information .. Hotel introduction 50 4.32 0.741 50 4.16 0.766 lMU.24. Hotel address 50 4.64 0.563 50 4.42 0.906 100 4.53 Mapped location of the hotel 50 4.68 0.587 50 4.56 0.787 100 4.62 Facilities information 50 4.46 0.706 50 4.42 0.642 100 4.44 Availability of virtual tours or video files of the hotel 50 3.76 0.870 50 3.62 1.105 100 3.69 Promotion of products 50 4.48 0.707 50 4.22 0.864 100 4.35 Multimedia is combined with web-based representation 50 3.74 0.922 50 3.68 1.133 100 3.71 Product warranty/legality 50 4.34 0.848 48 3.75 0.887 98 4.05 Contact information Contact information of hotel 50 4.42 0.702 49 4.29 0.957 99 4.35 0.837 Employee web page 49 2.96 1.060 50 3.12 1.304 99 3.04 1.186 Feedback of customers } 50 4.14 0.857 50 3.84 0.934 100 3.99 0.904 Comments or reply function for consumers' questions Website management Timeliness of information/regular updating 49 4.39 0.671 48 4.21 0.988 97 4.30 Information credibility 50 4.50 0.647 46 4.15 1.010 96 4.33 Speed of transactions 49 4.45 0.647 49 4.20 0.935 98 4.33 Provision of related web links 50 3.70 0.953 50 3.34 1.081 100 3.52 Download/print function 50 3.78 1.055 50 3.44 1.163 100 3.61 Option for different browser versions 50 3.60 1.107 48 3.65 1.041 98 3.62 Staff directory search 48 3.02 1.082 47 3.21 1.267 95 3.12 Customized news report 49 3.39 1.017 47 3.47 0.975 96 3.43 Newsletter 50 3.10 1.147 47 3.17 0.985 97 3.13 Create or modify personal profile 50 4.02 0.795 49 3.76 0.990 99 3.89 Surrounding information Weather report 50 3.70 1.165 50 3.22 1.148 100 3.46 Destination information 50 4.50 0.614 49 4.20 0.841 99 4.35 Accessibility Ranking result of search engine 49 3.96 0.912 50 4.00 0.926 99 3.98 Download speed of webpage 50 4.22 0.954 49 4.53 0.739 99 4.37 0.702 -2.328 0.022* 1.107 0.721 0.473 0.864 -0.934 0.353 0.861 -0.786 0.434 -2.566 -0.528 -2.544 -0.619 -1.845 0.012* 0.598 0.013* 0.537 0.071 0.754 -1.062 0.291 0.758 -1.459 0.148 0.693 -0.865 0.389 0.671 -0.296 0.768 0.992 -0.704 0.796 -1.647 -0.291 -3.366 -0.797 0.673 -1.673 0.483 0.103 0.772 0.001* 0.428 0.502 0.097 50 4.28 0.809 50 3.68 1.039 100 3.98 0.974 -3.222 0.002* 0.844 0.854 0.809 1.030 1.118 1.070 1.175 0.992 1.067 0.902 1.176 0.747 0.915 0.864 -1.048 -2.025 -1.507 -1.767 -1.531 0.211 0.795 0.395 0.322 -1.469 -2.075 -2.002 0.221 1.809 0.3 0.046* 0.135 0.08 0.129 0.833 0.430 0.694 0.748 0.145 0.41 0.048* 0.826 0.074 *Significant at a < 0.05. COMPARISON OF CHINESE AND INTERNATIONAL ONLINE USER PERCEPTIONS 339 understand the expectations from Chinese online users and pay attention to their website perfor- mance by meeting the needs of their target users. Because Chinese online users are more likely to seek recommendations from the Internet (Fong & Burton, 2008), poor usefulness of a hotel website is likely to receive negative comments, negatively affecting its online reservations. According to the findings from this research, hotel websites' functionality and usability were both perceived as important for Chinese and inter- national users. This strongly hints that hoteliers should keep improving their own websites in these two dimensions in order to remain competitive. More importantly, this research found significant difference between Chinese and international us- ers on three attributes of usability. Hoteliers, there- fore, need to treat these two groups of users sepa- rately according to internal search engine design, font size of text, and the length of web page. For example, on the Chinese version of a website, it should keep the internal search engine working ac- curately and ensure that the font size of text can be read properly. For the international respondents, hoteliers should modify their web pages to a proper length to present comprehensive information that will not make consumers get bored or confused. Another important and sensible approach for ho- teliers would be to ensure that their own websites have good performance on text comprehension, transaction utility, downloading speed, and navi- gation system. Additionally, these two groups of respondents did not have significant differences on most func- tionality attributes. Still, the Chinese respondents were more interested to gain detailed information from hotel websites. In other words, Chinese users perceive hotel information as more important than international users. Therefore, hotel website own- ers can provide more multimedia information that is related to hotel products, such as hotel rooms and facilities, in order to assist Chinese online us- ers to know more about the hotel. A guaranteed secured payment system and qualified hotel facili- ties are also very useful to attract Chinese travel- ers. International users considered communication functions of hotel websites more important, partic- ularly on the attributes of employee pages and staff directory search. This indicates that interna- tional online users may not only search hotel in- formation but also pay attention to other related information. Hoteliers should, therefore, ensure the availability of effective online communication functions. In contrast, Chinese users are more in- terested in searching hotel information. As such, if hoteliers plan to establish a Chinese version of their websites, they should provide as much infor- mation on hotel products as possible but the ef- forts on employee pages and staff directory search can be minimized. This exploratory study made an initial attempt to investigate the perceptions of Chinese and inter- national users on hotel website usefulness. It found some differences between these two groups of users on online searcfLEsehavior and their per- ception differences among different functionality and usability attributes. This research is still at a beginning stage on the issue and some related questions on hotel website development have not been answered, which surely deserved efforts from future research. As such, this research has a major limitation of small sample. Still, with the limited number of respondents in this research, the instrument on hotel website functionality and us- ability factors was validated through a focus group discussion. A future study could repeat the re- search with a larger sample in order to do a factor analysis on the collected data. In addition, a future study can focus on more geographical regions for a more comparative analysis. Biographical Notes Shanshan Qi is a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Hotel & Tourism Management of . Hong Kong Polytechnic Univer- sity. She specializes in e-tourism and tourism/hospitality website evaluations. Rob Law is a Professor of Technology Management. He has worked in Canada and Hong Kong in both industry and academia. Prior to joining The Hong Kong Polytechnic University in 1995, he worked in the Saskatchewan Insti- tute of Applied Science and Technology, University of Re- gina, and Bell Northern Research/Northern Telecom in Canada. Dr. Law is an active researcher. He has received 10+ research-related awards and honors, as well as HK$10+ million external and internal research grants. He has authored/coauthored 70+ refereed articles in first-tier journals. To serve the international academic community, Dr. Law has worked for 50+ research journals and 70 inter- national conferences. 340 QI, LAW, AND BUHALIS Dimitrios Buhalis is currently Established Chair in Tour- ism, Deputy Director of the International Centre for Tour- ism and Hospitality Research at Bournemouth University and Professorial Observer at the Bournemouth University Senate. Professor Buhalis is leading eTourism research and is working with the Bournemouth team for introducing technology in all aspects of tourism research and teaching. References Au Yeung, T., & Law, R., (2006). Evaluation of usability: A study of hotel web sites in Hong Kong. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, 30(4), 1-22. Bai, B., Law, R., & Wen, I., (2008). The impact of website quality on customer satisfaction and purchase inten- tions: Evidence from Chinese online visitors. Interna- tional Journal of Hospitality Management, 27(3), 391— 402. 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