Evaluating Websites of Tour Operators in Ethiopia

This study focuses on evaluating the website quality of tour operators in Ethiopia. Hence, the first thing was identifying the website of the tour operators, which is accomplished by the researcher. As stated above, 175 websites were identified for this study. Then, three experts who are professionals in website design and having a piece of proper knowledge and expertise were identified through social acquaintances. Website evaluations can be either user-based (Schubert, 2002; Zviran et al., 2006) or expert-based (Davoli et al., 2005; Gómez et al.

, 2001; Zhang and Von Dran, 2000). The expert-based method was more pertinent than user-based method when an assessment quality greatly depends on evaluator’s expertise.

As a consequence, three experts were carefully selected from different domain areas to conduct this survey. One out of three experts is a lecturer who specializes in IT worked in Catering and Tourism Training Institute (CTTI). Another one experts are government officer/ expert who serve at Information Network Security Agency (INSA) as algorithm designer. The last one expert is a tourism business professional who specializes in digital knowledge, web developer and marketing consultant working in Ethiopia Airlines.

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Besides, all of these experts are thoroughly experienced in developing a website.

The researcher then provided training to these experts through a video conference using Zoom Application, on 12th May 2020 from 11:00 am-12:30 pm. The training mainly aimed at familiarizing the experts with the objectives and the questionnaires/items of the study so that every participant can have a common understanding of the study. The advisor of the study took part in the conference taking a supervisory role.

Before the commencement of the ratings, the prepared parameter for website evaluation, a pilot test was made on the 14 May 2020 with a sample of 6 websites in the presence of the researcher himself. The purpose of this pilot test was to ensure that the experts will be evaluating the websites properly as intended. During the pilot test, some minor adjustments were made including improvements in the areas of rating duration, greater clarity of indicators and objectivity of the study, instructions for evaluation and consideration of the overall website quality parameters. The website quality measurement parameter/questionnaires were distributed to the three expertises’s to proceed on the website evaluation. Each of the three experts rated the 175 websites separately. That is, independence of observation was ensured in this study. An average of twenty minutes for evaluating each website and fifteen websites per day employed to evaluate each item using a 6 point Likert scale. In a nutshell, the rating commenced on 13 May 2020 and fully completed on 30 May 2020.

Finally, the process of data was collected through a web-based survey online. The comparison of data collection through online surveys has become a key research topic occupying the social science research agenda in recent years (Akbulut, 2015). Therefore, data’s which are relevant for the successful accomplishment of this study was collected from the tour operating firm’s website through an online survey. Particularly, adopted parameters require evaluators to assess the performance of website quality based on adopted and modified Website Quality Index (WQI) checklist.