5. Website Effectiveness for Tourism Accommodation Companies

Being well positioned among the Internet search results of potential clients can be an important choice criterion for the customer. In this work, we analyse the online visibility concept, alongside with the Web design, taking into account the different search strategies of Internet users and proposing a method to measure website effectiveness for small- and medium-sized accommodation companies. Current online visibility measurement methods are based on measuring the number of links from other websites, listings in online directories, and online search visibility. These methods are focused on brand visibility but they do not take into account average customer search preferences. In this study, we propose a method based on the Internet search results of a potential customer sample, taking into account the information sought and the habits of the average customer. The method was tested measuring the online visibility of a sample of small- and medium-sized hotels. The conclusions extracted from this test are that the difficulties found in an objective procedure for imitating an actual costumer’s search behaviour can be overcome by the evaluation of online visibility by real costumers.