Analyzing the usability of travel web sites in Hainan, China: The perspectives of e-buyers and e-lookers

Purpose: This study sets out to investigate the perceptions of e-buyers and e-lookers in Hainan, China on usability performance of China-based travel web sites, an emerging sector of the tourism industry in China. Design/methodology/approach: Data collection was conducted in Hainan, a province in Southern China, in December 2007. A structured questionnaire was used to collect the views of users on different usability dimensions and attributes on China-based travel web sites. Findings: Empirical findings indicated that respondents who only viewed China-based travel web sites had an average usability performance. More importantly, there was no significant difference between e-buyers and e-lookers. Research limitations/implications: The major limitations of the study are the non-random selection of respondents and that the respondents were from one province in China. Originality/value: With the views of 489 respondents, research findings should provide an overview for tourism practitioners to allocate their limited resources on e-business development appropriately.