Assessing Website Effectiveness of Airline Companies

Within the tourism industry, hotels and airlines are encouraging potential customers to make their reservations online. Because of the significant setup costs involved in website development, assessing online behaviour and website effectiveness is necessary. This paper explores the factors influencing online shopping. Moreover, by using three airline company websites as an indicative example, the research identifies whether website best practice principles are utilised and examines visitors’ perceptions of their effectiveness. Further, the results of the current study are compared with the results of a previous study carried out in a similar field to identify similarities/differences over time. Information was collected from both secondary and primary sources. Primary sources included structured interviews, from which 180 responses were collected. The results show that the factors considered when purchasing online are comparable, but with some significant differences, implying that consumers are more confident engaging in online shopping. The limitations of the study are restricted to the non-probability sampling method used. Practitioners are able to use the results from the study as suggested guidelines for their promotional efforts. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-1861-9.ch002