Evaluation of Tourism Websites from Urban Development Perspective (Case Study: Metropolitan Tehran)

Abstract

Tourism organizations have become one of the main users of the internet in recent years by<br />setting their own urban tourism websites. However, not all the websites are effective to promote their goals and<br />objectives. An effective evaluation of urban tourism websites can help organizations on how best to employ them.<br />Using the ICTRT (Information, Communication, Transaction, Relationship and Technical merit) model, this study<br />tries to evaluate the efficiency of Iranian official tourism websites from functional perspective and their role in urban<br />development. The aims of the study fulfilled by content analysis of two official urban tourism websites. The results<br />demonstrated that the websites were not able to support Iranian Tourism Industry effectively. The focuses of these<br />websites mainly based on the basic services such as information and communication. Advanced services such as<br />transaction and relationship building were generally being ignored. Furthermore, a converse correlation was seen<br />between complexity and performance of websites. Based on the research findings suggestions and implications in<br />urban development were discussed.