Online Competitive Information Space for Hotels: An Information Search Perspective

With the continuous growth of the Internet and emergent channels in online marketing and distribution, it is important to understand the new technological environment for the hotel industry. The goal of this study was to investigate the competitive information space for hotels reflected via one of the dominant search tools on the Internet (i.e., Google). A series of content analysis and data mining exercises were conducted to examine the composition and structure of the information space as well as the visibility of hotel websites among Google search results. Results of this study clearly show that hotels are facing challenges when competing with other websites in gaining online customers' attention. Also, it demonstrates the gaps existing among hotel brands in terms of their visibility to online customers. Implications for online marketing and distribution strategy for the hotel industry are discussed.