E-Tourism Satisfaction: a Comparative Analysis between Italy, Germany and France.

Abstract

In the last century, tourism emerged as one of Italy's most important economic sectors, owing to the rapidly increasing number of tourists from all over the world who visit the country each year. An electronic tourism (e-tourism) system has emerged in recent years due to advancements in information and communication technology (ICT). Not only does ICT help the tourism industry grow, but it also makes tourism activities simpler and more manageable.

In this thesis, we address an intriguing question: does e-tourism in Italy satisfies tourists/users as in other European countries, such as Germany and France?

We first review the literature on e-tourism satisfaction, and then we exploit a conceptual model for e-tourism that includes five factors (convenience, website design, facilities, e-security and, service quality) and 30 items to assess satisfaction levels in Italy and other European countries (Germany & France). Anonymous questionnaires have been used to gather data, which are further quantitatively analyzed via software. The findings show that Italian e-tourism generally meets the expectations of both tourists and users, but at a lower level than that of Germany and France. However, for some indicators, Italy continues to outperform the other countries. Finally, this study makes some recommendations to improve e-tourism satisfaction in Italy.