Website Development and Evaluation in the Chinese Tourism Industry

— The web-based technologies have become a strategic necessity for tourism organizations. Through switching to online services, tourism organizations are achieving better positions in the digital-based competitive market. The Chinese tourism industry is investing in the development of a ‘Golden Tourism Project’ which includes tourism E-commerce website development and evaluation as one of main parts. This study investigates tourism E-commerce website development in China from three perspectives: the tourism website functionality, the tourism website user and the tourism website provider. Based on a web search and a questionnaire survey, this paper analyses the distribution and classifications of tourism websites, explores the functionality of these websites, and assesses user satisfaction for current tourism websites. The results show that the majority of tourism website providers are regional tourism destination organizations that mainly provide comprehensive local tourism information and services. The results also show the level of regional economic development has a significant impact on the construction of these local tourism websites. It is found that obtaining information is still the main aim of web users, however, the difficulties are slow Internet access. Finally, through a web master interview, this paper discusses the main barriers in developing high quality websites for tourism organizations in China.