Comparisons between Tourism Websites - Term Paper Example

Comparisons between Tourism Websites Introduction Tourism websites are e-commerce web portals that are aimed at making the tourism sites, hotels and restaurants sell highly in comparison with other competitors, ensure trust to the online visitors, and always are for efficient and effective communication between business and business and business and customers. 1.1. Informative The biggest issues leading to customers’ disputes regarding the e-commerce services include any discrepancies between the advertised qualities of the tourisms’ merchandise or services and the perceptions customers get upon receiving such offered services and goods, possible and easy reach to the tourism industries’ customer care support by the customers, and the tourism policies that are not prominently displayed and/ or sufficiently communicated to the customers. In this respect, Qatar Tourism Authority rates the highest. Qatar Tourism Authority website provides quick preview icons demarking each and every location with its suitable events i.e. meeting events, cultural practices, educational routine, sports, and leisure. In addition, there is the provision of activities/ events calendar that enables for effective time budgeting or scheduling. Qatar also provides its information in two languages (English and Arab), hence allowing for maximum readership. Second is Tourist Information UK Website, then Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing, and lastly the Jordan Tourism. 1.2. Authors’ identification and their contacts Customers’ inquiries and disputes can significantly reduce incase there are: accurate description of products and services; prominent display of the customers’ service telephone numbers and email address; ensured development and communication of customer-friendly return, refund and cancellation policies; possibility of sending pre-billing notification for recurring transactions; development of a clear shipping policy and ensuring possibility of access from each webpage; fully disclosing the billing practices; stating the transaction currency, stating home country, listing any export restrictions; developing and displaying the available privacy statements; purchasing a brand-name SSL Certificate and displaying their logo on the tourism website; institutional registration with the BBBOnLine and display their seal on the websites; and signing up with the secure security scan vendors and displaying logos on the websites. 2. Appropriate and informative illustrations Each and every site has to be concise but communicative in its illustrations and pictorial demonstrations. Website visitors/ audience do look for information necessary in decision making; hence all that is presented to them should be informative and relevant. In this regard, visitors’ confidence can be worn by: short and organized contents which are in clearly labeled topics and sub-topics of small paragraphs; up-to-date information, effective communications that agitate possibilities/ positivity; and exercising of professionalism in the presentation. For the purposes of appropriate and well informed and illustrated contents, Tourist Information UK website is ranked highest because of the inclusion of pictorial illustrations which are supported by brief explanations. Second to it is the Qatar Tourism Authority, then Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing, and finally Jordan Tourism which simply provides links and static background pictures. 3. Layout attractiveness, consistency, and ease of navigation As such, tourism institutes’ e-commerce websites do face a number of challenges with regards to navigation because of the some times’ numerous products/ services that are to be all presented on the strategic interfaces or web pages. In this view therefore, larger websites should take note of the navigation complexities from the customers’ or visitors’ perspective since finding out whatever they actually need will at times prove to be increasingly difficult upon provision of more options. Web designers have to consider how an average visitor would attempt to obtain any particular product or service. The aspect of navigation actually pauses a difficult scrutiny because although it is fundamental for making it easy on visitors to find whatever they need, there is still the desire to allow them to search through the web pages. Regarding the page layout attractiveness and consistency, tourism websites designing should take into considerations the style of services and products that they will be dealing with in any particular situation or location. If the presented design style does not match well with whatever is actually on the ground, visitors may have disconnect and such visitors may end up having hard times in trying to relate all the presented products and services, and determining if it is right for them. 4. Concise introduction with a summary of the site’s purpose A concise introduction on the website’s homepage gives highlight on the aims and main objectives of the site. It is relatively important to consider this perception as a web developer so as to enable visitors to the site to have a clear function of the site without having to open up so many WebPages to realize for themselves the main intent of the portal. Qatar Tourism Authority is again best on this. In just a paragraph, the web developer ensured to start by giving a warm welcome to the Qatar Tourism Authority website visitors, followed by information on its services, locations, and facilities available (http://www.qatartourism.gov.qa). Tourist Information UK is second by giving a summary though in very many sentences. The third is Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing, and finally the Jordan Tourism website. 5. Multiple links from the introductory page to the main sub-topics Multiple links from the introductory page to the main sub-topic is well provided for in the Qatar Tourism Authority, Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing, and Tourist Information UK. However, Jordan Tourism Website does not fully exploit this functionality to enhance its easy and faster navigation capabilities. 6. Text legibility (size and contrast) As commercial website, aesthetics and purchasing factors are quite a major concern, beside chromatic text/ background combinations which must also be applied (Ali, A. N. and Marsden, P. H., 2003, pp. 224-226). The idea of chromatic colors have the advantage of ensuring that each tourism site is likely to lead viewers to lead viewers to see a site as more visually pleasing and stimulating, hence attracting relatively more visitors. The commercial idea here is that these colors can potentially lead a viewer to the intention of preferring one tourism site and not the other. A combination with a good color contrast is in most cases liked than that with minimal or no contrast at all because of very good legibility ensured (Bruce, M. and Foster, J., 1982, pp. 386). 7. Development of the linked sub-topics Link sub-topics are quick links to very precise topic areas of possible search by the visitors to the website. All these websites are well broken down into the possible sub-topics for the purposes for which each organization/ tourism industry had. To a level that is satisfactory, they provide easy and quick links as is the requirement of any visitors. 8. Link functionality All the four websites provided complete links to other web pages. Therefore, they are all confirmed to be good and efficient. 9. How objective is the website? Qatar Tourism Authority website provides a platform that easily and quickly gets one/ a visitor through the available facilities, possible tourism locations/ sites, possible cultural and traditional practices, and the general expectations of any tourist upon visitation of the highlighted regions of their country. Tourist Information UK Website provides the aim of the organization, their services, and possible regions of visitations as a tourist, and packages offered in conjunction with the basic facilitations. Dubai Tourism also provide the vision statement of 2020, information on the Riyadh Travel Fair 2013, Dubai Heritage Sites complete transfer accounts/ information, and the participation of DTCM at the Gulf International Business Travel Mart of 2013 (http://www.dubaitourism.ae). In addition, this site gives background accounts of its membership, departments, and governance e.t.c. the last one which is Jordan Tourism rather provides some history of its origination, the common landmarks and regions of visitation. 10. Overall message of the website Tourist Information UK provides the most comprehensive and well done website, with good designs, well written explanation of each and every picture, quick and complete links to additional information relating to particular information, and a balanced interface. Good contrast is ensured, although some quick link titles are in smaller writings that can be hard to read for other individuals (http://www.tourist-information-uk.com). Qatar Tourism Authority is another very well done website, in terms of the interface balance, good images used, accurate and complete links used, more navigation applications i.e. the search option, and the additional event calendar. However, there are some elements of poor contrast between some writings i.e. the ‘Calendar of Events’ and its background color (Bouma, H, 1980, pp.101-114). This makes the writings not to explicitly standout for better readership by everyone who visits the site and is interested in reading such information. This site also has some destructive applications that are likely to derail visitors to the site and further influence their concentration and attraction to the site. Dubai Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing Website is quite well balanced. Although the home page is brief in content, the quick links provided give much more and detailed information that can successfully satisfy the information requirement regarding any information needs. Some irrelevancies are however true with the site. Such irrelevancies include the scrolling information of may be the associate logo symbols ant the bottom of the home page of the site. This site lacks the impressive features that such a tourism attraction website should have to as to ensure as many visitors as possible, hence, much need to be done on it still n terms of beautification and information precision. Online visitors are never interested in very long information but rather on short and apprehensible illustrations. Jordan Tourism homepage gives very little impression of a tourism website if any. The background images used depict much of a technology industry website rather than a recreational/ tourism attraction site (http://www.kinghussein.gov.jo/tourism.html). References Ali, A. N. and Marsden, P. H. Affective multi-modal interfaces: The case of mcgurk effect. Proceedings of the Intelligent User Interfaces Conference (2003), pp. 224-226. Bouma, H. Visual reading processes and the quality of text displays. In Ergonomic aspects of visual display terminals, edited by Grandjean, E. and Vigliani, E. (London: Taylor & Francis) (1980), pp. 101-114. Bruce, M. and Foster, J. Visibility of colored features on colored backgrounds in view data displays. Visible Language (1982), 16, 382-390. http://www.kinghussein.gov.jo/tourism.html http://www.dubaitourism.ae http://www.qatartourism.gov.qa http://www.tourist-information-uk.com Read More