An investigation of consumer behavior on websites for members of historic hotels in Norway, located in rural areas: website factors that could affect web-revenue

Abstract

Internet has become a significant part of hotels’ strategies. The rapid development of the availability and possibilities on the Internet has created a new and important sales channel for hotels. Internet has become one of the main channels for locating and booking hotel rooms, and tourism is considered to be one of the industries that is gaining most transaction volume on the Internet. Due to the increasing power of third-party websites like Expedia, these sites demand more commission from the hotels. Hotels are therefore urging to regain traffic to and reservations through their own websites. This study investigates how hotels in The Historic Hotels of Norway, located in rural areas, could increase their web-revenue. It is assumed that price is a less effective tool to attract customers to rural areas. It is further assumed that other Internet Marketing strategies could increase web-revenue for such hotels. ‘Content’, ‘design’ and ‘usability’ were assumed to be such factors, and were chosen as basis for the literature review that to a large degree confirmed these assumptions. Based on these assumptions and the literature review, a multi-relationship research model was constructed including these three factors. The data used in this research was gathered from Google Analytics, a web analytic tool that measures website performance. These data showed interesting characteristics of website behavior, but was not ideal to attempt to confirm the articulated model. The data showed that the websites used in the research had somewhat varying performance in the three chosen factors, but it did however not identify any relation to the booking figures for each hotel. In other words, there was found no relationship between the factors and the effectiveness of the websites in regards to online bookings. Further research should be undertaken, with the inclusion of other qualitative or quantitative data collected from actual visitors. This research could be used as a supplement for such studies.