Corporate identity communication on corporate websites : evidence from the Hong Kong hotel industry

In today’s competitive business environment, corporate identity communication has become prominent and a useful strategy for gaining competitive advantage. The role of corporate websites in communicating corporate identity has also been underscored but there have been limited empirical studies investigating the actual usage of corporate websites in communicating corporate identities of hotels. To contribute to this scarce stream of research, this study identified the core elements of corporate identity from the literature and applied them to evaluate the websites’ content of 123 hotels in Hong Kong. The results indicated that, corporate identity elements relating to design such as logo and slogan were the commonly reported; but identity elements regarding corporate culture, corporate behaviour and corporate strategy were scarcely communicated by more than 60 % of the hotels. Significant differences were also found between chain-affiliated hotels and independent hotels. From a practical standpoint, these results can be used to enrich the contents of corporate websites.