Developing a localisation indicator for chain hotel websites: a Greek case study

Authors:
Dimitris Kanellopoulos;Fotis Lazarinis
Affiliations:
Department of Tourism Management, Technological Educational Institute of Patras, GR 26334, Patras, Greece.;Department of Applied Informatics, Technological Educational Institute of Mesolonghi, GR 30200, Mesolonghi, Greece
Venue:
International Journal of Business Information Systems
Year:
2010

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Abstract

Web visitors differ across regional, linguistic and country boundaries and their requirements are strongly influenced by their local cultural perspective. The localisation of a website is the process of adapting it to a particular language, culture and desired local 'look and feel'. In this paper, we introduce an evaluation model (of information quality) for measuring the localisation of hotel websites. We developed this model on the basis of a conceptual framework consisting of four major hotel website dimensions: Power Distance (PD), Individualism/Collectivism (IC), Masculinity/Femininity (MF) and Uncertainty Avoidance (UA). Finally, we used this model to measure the localisation of 30 chain hotel websites operating in Greece. The findings of the study show significant differences in the localisation scores for all dimensions among the investigated websites. This research is of interest to hotel practitioners and researchers, as the findings provide what is believed to be a useful starting point for the development of further quantitative measurements for hotel website localisation.