Evaluating the websites of hotels for marketing: A case study from Xiamen

Internet with current and emerging multimedia features provides ample opportunities and particularly useful for dealing with intangible nature of the service, and transforming marketing mix variables to capitalize on the informational and transactional potential of the Internet, and to gain a competitive advantage. This paper uses the extended Model of Internet Commerce Adoption (Burgess&Cooper, 2002) to evaluate the level of website development in Xiamen, but some modifications have made of the eMICA model for the purpose of the study. The results showed that the hotels in Xiamen are not utilizing the Internet to its full potential and effectively e-marketing their hotels regardless of the hotel class. The paper also highlights considerations for website improvement.