Award Date

1-1-2003

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Hotel Administration

First Committee Member

Curtis Love

Number of Pages

79

Abstract

The continuing growth of the Internet and its associated technology has created a new type of market for meeting managers and Convention and Visitors Bureaus (CVBs), and has become a viable alternative to traditional communication media and service delivery tools. As Internet and web site usage by meeting managers' increase, CVBs should enhance and upgrade their web sites to keep in step with customers' needs and expectations; The purpose of this study is to identify general usage and overall perceptions of CVB web sites and CVB web sites' content items and design attributes that are most important as perceived by meeting planners. In addition, this study developed a valid instrument for measuring the quality of CVB web sites, as perceived by meeting planners. Instrument development was based the content analysis of the CVB web sites of the top 10 US convention cities and an extensive literature review of the major studies on web site evaluation criteria and web site success. Data was collected from 202 meeting planners via an on-line survey; The results of comparison of perceived importance of content items suggested that meeting managers perceived "Hotel and meeting facilities information" to be the most important content items followed by "Area map" and "Transportation information". The results of the instrument refinement and the instrument validation show that effective CVB web site design includes four design concepts: information quality, navigation and accessibility, experience, and service quality; The findings of the study provide guidelines for CVB web site developments and quality strategies. CVBs can ensure that they develop sites that rank high on all aspects of content items as perceived by meeting planners. In addition, utilizing the instrument developed by this study, CVBs can monitor the quality of their web sites over time.

Keywords

Accessing; Bureau; Convention; Development; Instrument; Quality; Site; Visitors; Web

Controlled Subject

Marketing; Information science

File Format

pdf

File Size

2877.44 KB

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

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