Assessing the Global E-Readiness of Hotel Chain Websites

Abstract

Companies serving a truly global customer base need to adapt their websites to take the linguistic, culture and social differences of local markets into account. This study benchmarks the efforts of hotel chains to incorporate appropriately adapted content and facilities on their consumer websites as an indicator of their commitment to servicing international markets. Both individual findings and the summary Global e-Readiness Index suggest that most are not acting global in their e-commerce efforts. While many provide content in languages other than English, even the highest performers fail to take their internationalization efforts deep enough into the purchase process to facilitate purchases by international clients.