| The development of e-commerce is stimulating the traditional travel agencies to adopt internet marketing; one available option is to establish websites. With the number of travel agency websites growing, the website quality is posing as one big problem, which calls for further research. The lack of empirical study in this field makes it meaningful to examine consumer perceptions of website quality.Based on the relevant literature and interview results, a preliminary construct model of website quality is proposed, which implies that website quality is composed of 3 dimensions: system quality, information quality and service interaction. System quality consists of accessibility, navigability and web appearance; information quality consists of information accuracy, relevance and understandability; service interaction consists of trust, interactivity and online transaction. On the basis of the construct model, the conceptual framework and research hypotheses are given.The survey questionnaire is designed according to interview results as well as previous website quality instruments. Data collection is conducted consisting of 169 travel agency websites users; statistical analysis is adopted to test research hypotheses. The empirical study leads to the attainment of 5 critical dimensions of website quality: information quality, fundamental support, users' trust, online service, and web appearance, among which information quality is regarded as the most important dimension. The study also indicates that a big discrepancy exists between users' expectation and perception of website quality; and users with different attributes hold different opinions of some dimensions of website quality.In the final section, general policy suggestions about the website quality improvement in travel agency industry are provided, followed by specific proposals on the 5 critical dimensions of website quality, i.e. information quality, fundamental support, users' trust, online service, and web appearance. |
PDF Full Text Request