Study and Evaluation of Tourism Websites based on User Perspective

Abstract

A well-designed website is mandatory for good marketing and proper tourism business. This research considers Nepal as a domain of study and specifically explores welcomenepal.com, the official tourism portal as a reference for the study. The work is based on the study of the existing literature, user-survey, and technical testing of the website using open-source testing tools to identify user perspective, design issues, website architecture and design quality of the tourism website. A population size of 400 respondents, which consist of both domestic and international tourist, are considered for the survey. Data is received from 360 respondents, which is analyzed using statistical tests like Cronbach’s alpha, Pearson’s correlation, cross-tabulations, bars charts and graphs to draw inferences and consclusion. The software-based test results serve as another important parameter for the evaluation of the current official website. This study brings out core needs of the tourist in terms of expectations from a tourism website and access technical quality of the current portal to provide necessary feedback and suggestions. The government officials, business houses, and web designers can utilize this work as a knowledge base to build tourism websites, which are user-centric. Further, the work is specifically important for Nepal government and tourism officials to identify shortcomings in their current website and make improvements for better design and user adaptability in future.