1. Assessing the Visibility of Hotels On Smartphones:
A Case Study of Hotels in Hong Kong
Daniel LEUNG 1, Hee Andy LEE 2 , Lawrence FONG 3, & Rob LAW 3
1
Department of Tourism and Service Management,
MODUL University Vienna, Austria
2
School of Tourism,
The University of Queensland, Australia
3
School of Hotel and Tourism Management,
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong
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2. Agenda
• Introduction
• Literature review
• Research method
• Results
• Discussions
• Limitations and future research
• Questions and answers
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3. Introduction
• Smartphones have been increasingly used to
research and purchase tourism products
 Nearly one-sixth of traffic to hotel websites came
from smartphones and tablets (eMarketer, 2012c)
 Number of consumers booking travel on
smartphones and tablets would increase from
16 million in 2012 to 36.7 million in 2016
(eMarketer, 2012d)
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4. Research gap (1)
• Increasing number of studies on:
 The extent of travel-related capabilities
(Lashkari, Parhizkar, & Mohamedali, 2010)
 The impact of travellers’ touristic experience
(Wang, Park, & Fesenmaier, 2012)
 The level of adoption by tourism suppliers
(Liu & Law, 2013)
• Empirical studies in the hotel industry is scarce
 Dominant in the travel domain (Dickinson et al., 2012;
Liu & Law, 2013; Wang et al., 2012; Wang & Xiang, 2012)
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5. Research gap (2)
• Online consumers use their smartphones
to connect with brands via both company
websites and/or smartphone apps
• Attention towards mobile websites is scant
 Focus on smartphone apps only (Dickinson et al., 2012;
Liu & Law, 2013; Wang et al., 2012; Wang & Xiang, 2012)
 The readiness of the hotel industry to the mobile
consumerism era has not been fully examined
 How visible are hotels in the smartphone era?
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6. Research objectives
• To examine the visibility of all Hong Kong hotel
websites on smartphones using different
operating systems
• To examine the availability of smartphone apps
developed by all Hong Kong hotels in different
smartphone application stores
• To highlight the association between:
 Visibility of hotels on smartphones & Star ratings
 Visibility of hotels on smartphones & Brand affiliation
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7. Smartphone in H&T
• Tourism is an information intensive industry in which
people search for a large amount of information,
particularly in unfamiliar environments (Kurata, 2012)
• Smartphones with increased capacity in communication
and connectivity provide a wide range of support for:
 Routine travel activities (e.g., planning and reservation)
 Detailed travel activities (e.g., locating tourist spots)
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8. Smartphone apps
Advantages
• Smartphone apps are more responsive
and convenient than websites from user
experience perspective (Wisniewski, 2011)
Disadvantages
• The platform-specific nature and timeconsuming cyclical update of smartphone
apps make some users prefer visiting
company websites via the pre-installed
browsers (Wisniewski, 2011)
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9. Mobile websites
Potential problem
• Due to the relatively small screen size,
smartphones are limited in some features
and unable to display some information
which is available on desktop computers
(Lobo, Kaskaloglu, Kim, & Herbert, 2011)
• If a website is not user-friendly, travellers
are less likely to form a good impression
about a destination which, in turn,
negatively influences their decision making
process (Han & Mills, 2006)
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10. Visibility
Availability & Star ratings?
• The rating system indicates a tangible commitment made
by firms to particular levels of service provision and quality
(Abrate, Capriello, & Fraquelli, 2011)
• Higher star ratings relate positively to enhanced physical
attributes and higher quality in all aspects
 Hotels with higher star ratings may offer more comprehensive
service and better online experience for consumers in order to
maintain their service standard and reputation
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11. Visibility
Availability & Brand affiliation?
• A brand name implies the creation of a standardized
product or production process (Klein & Saft, 1985)
• Chain hotels have a better quality assurance policy and
implementation scheme due to the advantages in financial
and technical support (Barrows & Powers, 2008)
 Chain hotels are believed to be able to outperform their
independent counterparts in the development of smartphone
apps and mobile websites
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12. Research method
Target sample
• All 122 hotels in Hong Kong, which are members of the
Hong Kong Hotels Association, were analysed
Selected mobile operating systems (International Data Corporation, 2013)
• Android (79.3%)
• iOS (13.2%)
• Windows Phone (3.7%)
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13. Research method
• The visibility of the hotel websites were
then coded based on pre-determined
trichotomous scales
 1 = Convert to mobile website
 2 = Convert to desktop website
 3 = Invisible
• All coding results were cross-verified
by multiple researchers to ensure their
validity
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14. Research method
• The availability of the smartphone apps
was recorded based on the written
instruction
 1 = Smartphone app is available
 2 = Smartphone app is unavailable
• Another round of searching was
conducted on the website versions of
those three application stores
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15. Visibility (Mobile websites)
Brand affiliation
Star ratings
3-star
(n=40)
4-star
(n=46)
5-star
(n=31)
χ2
Chain
(n=96)
Indp.
(n=21)
χ2
iOS smartphones
Mobile
23 (57.5%)
22 (47.8%)
23 (74.2%)
8.98
58 (60.4%) 10 (47.6%) 1.51
Desktop
17 (42.5%)
24 (52.2%)
7 (22.6%)
(p < 0.1)
37 (38.5%) 11 (52.4%) (n.s.)
Invisible
1 (3.2%)
1 (1.0%)
0 (0.0%)
Android smartphones
Mobile
22 (55.0%)
22 (47.8%)
23 (74.2%)
6.58
57 (59.4%) 10 (47.6%) 1.31
Desktop
18 (45.0%)
23 (50.0%)
8 (25.8%)
(n.s.)
38 (39.6%) 11 (52.4%) (n.s.)
Invisible
1 (2.2%)
1 (1.0%)
0 (0.0%)
Windows Phone smartphones
Mobile
15 (37.5%)
18 (39.1%)
19 (61.3%)
11.92
46 (47.9%) 6 (28.6%)
Desktop
25 (62.5%)
28 (60.9%)
10 (32.3%)
(p < 0.05)
48 (50.0%) 15 (71.4%) (n.s.)
Invisible
2 (6.5%)
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2 (2.1%)
3.36
0 (0.0%)
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16. Availability (Smartphone apps)
Brand affiliation
Star ratings
4-star
(n=46)
5-star
(n=31)
χ2
Chain
(n=96)
10 (25.0%)
12 (26.1%)
21 (67.7%)
17.44
40 (41.7%) 3 (14.3%)
Unavailable 30 (75.0%)
34 (73.9%)
10 (32.3%)
(p < 0.01)
56 (58.3%) 18 (85.7%) (p < 0.05)
10 (25.0%)
10 (21.7%)
15 (48.4%)
6.97
33 (34.4%) 2 (9.5%)
Unavailable 30 (75.0%)
36 (78.3%)
16 (51.6%)
(p < 0.05)
63 (65.6%) 19 (90.5%) (p < 0.05)
0 (0.0%)
3 (9.7%)
4.32
5 (5.2%)
46 (100%)
28 (90.3%)
3-star
(n=40)
Indp.
(n=21)
χ2
iOS smartphones
Available
5.56
Android smartphones
Available
5.076
Windows Phone smartphones
Available
2 (5.0%)
Unavailable 38 (95.0%)
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0 (0.0%)
1.143
91 (94.8%) 21 (100%)
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17. Discussions (Mobile websites)
• Hotels in Hong Kong generally acknowledge and adapt to
the smartphone wave by developing mobile websites for
connecting with consumers on different platforms
• A “user-unfriendly” website would discount consumers’
interest to view, purchase and re-enter it (Hasan & Abuelrub, 2011)
• Hoteliers are necessary to assure that their websites are
smartphone-friendly and thereby able to accessible to a
much larger audience
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18. Discussions (Smartphone apps)
• The trend of developing smartphone apps in Hong Kong ‘s
hotel industry is relatively less eminent
• Smartphone users’ preference is strongly in favour of
smartphone apps over mobile websites owing to their high
usability (Moth, 2013)
• Hotels are encouraged to develop their smartphone apps
for distributing products to and creating a close connection
with current and potential customers
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19. Discussions
• Brand affiliation plays a tremendous role on:
Hotel’s inclination towards technology adoption (Siguaw et al., 2000)
 Hotel website design quality (Au Yeung & Law, 2004)
 Hotel website information quality (Leung, Sun, & Fong, 2013)
 Visibility of hotels on smartphones (Leung, Lee, Fong, & Law, 2014)

• Difference in financial and technical support ???
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20. Limitations & Future research
Limitations
• Only member hotels of the Hong Kong Hotels Association were
examined and cross-sectional data collected in July 2013 were analysed
• Other mobile operating systems (e.g., BlackBerry OS by BlackBerry
and Symbian by Nokia) were excluded
Future research
• To analyse hotels in other countries and different types of mobile
devices
• To examine the quality of mobile websites and smartphone apps
owned and managed by hotel companies
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21. Thank You
Questions & Answers
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