Virtual Experience on Hotel Websites: A Web Analysis

Visual presentation formats (VPFs) enable a hotel service offering to be experienced virtually on the web prior to purchase. This study addresses the potential benefit of VPFs for providers, taking the Swiss hotel business as an example. A web analysis examines for the first time the prevalence of individual VPFs in the Swiss online hotel market. While pictures appear on nearly every website, the use of videos and three-dimensional (3D) presentation formats is much less common. These two formats are found primarily on websites of higher-end hotel establishments. Based on the results, implications of VPFs for hoteliers are derived. It has been shown that websites in the Swiss online hotel market can be differentiated from the competition through the use of videos and 3D presentations, and this in turn could have a positive impact on brand awareness, image and confidence in the hotel on the part of the customer.

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