Innovation features in the hotel industry: Croatian hotel websites

Abstract

Abstract The hotel industry undeniably holds strong market power. Its economic impact can affect the infrastructural, economic, and digital development of a particular region. In addition to numerous advantages, digital development has also posed certain challenges for the hotel industry, such as fierce competition and a struggle for market power, which in turn lead to constant searching for new beneficial solutions. Hotel websites need to be of good quality to have a positive impact on profitability. Quality websites are functional and useful, and innovation is a common factor observed when testing quality. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the innovation activity of Croatian hotel websites. Two methods were used for research purposes: the e-MICA framework and content analysis. Descriptive statistics and the significance of Chi-squared tests were used to analyse the results. Research findings suggest that Croatian hotels have adopted innovative features on their websites modestly: mostly, 5-star hotels, hotel chains, and foreign-owned hotels as well as hotels focused strategically on direct sales channels. The obtained results are important for future research which should analyse the issue in more depth. Furthermore, hoteliers could also benefit from these results, and use them to their advantage in order to revise and improve their existing strategies.