A Qualitative Analysis of Hotel List Providers on the World Wide Web

This paper provides an analysis of initial investigations into Hotel List Providers (HLP) who distribute accommodation (and destination) information using the WWW as the enabling technology. A representative sample of internationally-focused sites as well as those which specialise in the United Kingdom as a region was investigated and a methodology is presented for the ongoing analysis of such Web-based sites. A current, generic profile of WWW users is established and this data is used to provide a platform on which to build profiling of Web based tourism consumers. Using empirically derived assessment criteria, this sample of Hotel List Providers was examined and the work placed in the context of larger scale studies by the authors into both international reservations systems and the role of intelligent agents concluding with suggestions for progressing the work in the area of site assessment.