Factors influencing the effectiveness of tourism and travel business’ websites: A case of Uganda Tour Operators

Abstract

Tour operations’ business is one of the fast growing businesses in Uganda’s tourism and travel industry. Its markets are generally perceived to have unique characteristics compared to most markets of other goods and services. The widely spread and often hard to predict market is usually reached through the use of websites which are considered to be an integrated marketing channel. This channel facilitates a two-fold communication, information dissemination and reservation marketing which is all possible through a website. It’s often the perceived benefits associated with website advertising that has seen most tour operators adopt them as one of their lead marketing tools alongside others. However, the effectiveness of websites in their first three years of inception is generally doubted, an acuity that underpins the rationale of this study which aims at establishing the factors that influence the effectiveness of such. The study mainly utilized a quantitative design, although qualitative techniques were also used in the buildup to this study. The study involved a survey questionnaire administered to 32 tour operators coupled with desk analysis of 71 websites. The 32 tour operators were obtained from AUTO list of members using purposive sampling. The quantitative data obtained was analyzed with SPSS 11 and presented in frequency tables. The findings indicate that majority websites had necessary but insufficient features that would negatively influence their effectiveness. Findings also indicate that most clients are unwilling to purchase through websites and that there is limited and expensive website hosting infrastructure and support. Further findings show that websites are considered to be effective in company marketing. This study recommends tour operators within the country to consider first; improving their website navigability, information quality and customization features, secondly; to fully participate in website designing procedures to bridge the user-designer, and lastly promote the company website to the travel market. However the study further recommends further studies aimed at investigating the factors that influence customer willingness to purchase online, and investigating how social media impacts on marketing tourism and travel services of tour operators within