Keywords

1 Introduction

Tourism enterprises try to compensate for the intangible nature of tourism products and services (Loda et al. 2009) by offering a highly emotional web experience and simultaneously gaining higher customer loyalty (Djamasbi et al. 2010). Business-related websites use appealing and trustworthy stimuli, since they present an opportunity for customers to interact with the company; hence, an essential role in the decision-making process for potential customers can be attributed (Bonnardel et al. 2011; Lindgaard et al. 2006; Luna-Nevarez and Hyman 2012). When designing a website, one of the most difficult aspects is the selection of website elements, which must appeal to the customers, but also comply with the desired target group (Lindgaard et al. 2006; Xiang et al. 2015). Due to Generation Y’s strong purchasing power, especially when considering their online market power, many enterprises focus on this target group. However, this generation’s attributed profound technological know-how sets high standards regarding a website being perceived as appealing. Based on a lack of literature on Generation Y’s preferences regarding website design, businesses are struggling to find the best, and most successful, approach. Thus, a user behavioural study was conducted to examine Generation Y’s perception of destination websites with the objective to develop recommendations for destination marketing organizations.

2 Theoretical Background

For examining how Generation Y perceives touristic websites, a deeper understanding on the topics of consumer behaviour, sensory marketing, perception of quality, and Generation Y itself will be discussed.

2.1 Consumer Behaviour

Consumer research is an applied social science with the prime goal to explain, predict, and influence customers’ behaviour. Following Kroeber-Riel and Weinberg (2003), consumer behaviour can be defined in a wider sense as a consumption of tangible and intangible goods. Consumer behaviour is dynamic in nature, based on the interaction between effect and cognitions, and involves exchanges (Solomon 2004). Psychological and cognitive factors are crucial concerning the impact on the decision-making process of web users (Jeong and Choi 2004; Kroeber-Riel and Weinberg 2003; O’Connor 2004). Tourists prefer to obtain their information (e.g. about destinations) online, nevertheless, book their holiday offline via their travel agency (VIR 2014). Literature explains this behaviour with a lack of trustworthiness and reliability of web presentations (Loda et al. 2009).

Numerous studies analysed how specific website dimensions influence the perception and behaviour of the so-called ‘eConsumer’ (Jeong and Choi 2004; Xiang et al. 2015). According to Thielsch (2008), the most important aspects within a general evaluation of websites are the following dimensions: content, usability, and aesthetics. However, within the first seconds of interaction between a human and a computer, aesthetics are considered to be the most important dimension. Kim et al. (2007) stress the importance of analysing the user through different sensory stimuli regarding the communication of women and men. Women tend to prefer visual and non-verbal stimuli, while men seem to appreciate more analytical information on websites (Kim et al. 2007).

2.2 Sensory Marketing

Krishna (2012) defines sensory marketing as ‘marketing that engages the consumers’ senses and affects their perception, judgment, and behaviour’ (p. 332). The goal of sensory marketing is to charge brands as well as products with emotions (Sliburytea and Skeryte 2014). Depending on the type of product or service, the focal point of marketing can, therefore, be shifted to a consumer’s different sensory organs (Krishna 2012).

When aiming for an attractive website, the focus lies on the visual web marketing (as a subpart of sensory marketing) in order to stimulate the visual sense of a visitor. The design, as well as the visual communication, are considered key components of visual marketing (Wedel and Pieters 2008). Lindgaard et al. (2006) emphasize that web marketers only have 50 ms to generate a positive first impression for their website. Hence, marketers are left and challenged to choose the best website elements to present their ‘quality’ within this short time span.

Djamasbi et al. (2010) established a ‘virtual hierarchy’ for virtual representations (i.e. graphic and textual elements) to influence (to a certain degree) a visitor’s perception and exploration behaviour. The elements of his virtual hierarchy are as follows (Djamasbi et al. 2010 p. 308):

  1. 1.

    Motion (animated elements draw user attention before any other elements)

  2. 2.

    Size (larger objects attract more attention)

  3. 3.

    Images (images attract more attention than text)

  4. 4.

    Colour (elements with brighter colours attract more attention than those with darker colours)

  5. 5.

    Text style (typographical variations serve as effective non-verbal cueing systems for attracting attention)

  6. 6.

    Position (top elements attract more attention than those located on the bottom)

One challenge of closely adhering to elements within this visual hierarchy results in a potential sensory overload (e.g. too many moving or colourful objects), which may result in a negative perception of a website. Users in general have difficulties coping with the daily amount of information; hence subjective and relevant information is purposefully and carefully selected (Wright 2006). Another challenge may be constituted by the (unknown) expectations of web users (Djamasbi et al. 2010). Any practical application of visual marketing is redundant when varying intentions and motivations of consumers are not taken into consideration (Mazaheri et al. 2011). Applied to destination websites, it is essential for destination marketing organizations (DMO) to have a good understanding of the set of values that should be communicated through different stimuli on a website. If a DMO fails to clearly define and position its destination online, these sensory stimuli will result in a negative first impression, especially when the stimuli do not comply with the selected target group (Luna-Nevarez and Hyman 2012).

2.3 Perception of Quality

From a consumer point of view, quality displays a characteristic of products or services that reflects the degree of needs and expectations consumers wish to be fulfilled. Since these expectations and needs of consumers can fundamentally vary, any judgement is very subjective. Consequently, every customer perceives quality in an individual and different way (Gill 2009; Kim and Niehm 2009).

In terms of websites, quality can be defined as a ‘users’ evaluation of whether a website’s features meet users’ needs and reflect the overall excellence of the website’ (Chang and Chen 2008, p. 821). Particularly on touristic websites, Hernández-Méndez and Munoz-Leiva (2015) highlight the importance of a healthy exchange of information and interaction (i.e. B2C and C2C) as a key factor. Xiang and Fesenmaier (2004) further stress the significance of usability for touristic websites. Regarding quality indicators for websites, literature offers numerous opinions. While Vasto-Terrientes et al. (2015) name the relevance of online shops, slogans, and different language options as a quality criterion, Lee and Gretzel (2012) emphasize the application of images and graphics as well as customer ratings and sound.

The so-called ‘expectation–confirmation’ model by Bhattacherjee (2001) illustrates the context between a customer’s expectations, the perceived utility, a customer’s satisfaction, as well as the intention to continue with an ‘information system’ (IS) process, e.g. the exploration of a website (Chung et al. 2015). When these expectations are met, consumers consider a website as useful and stay longer on the website (Bhattacherjee 2001) (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1
A model of expectation-confirmation consists of Perceived usefulness, Confirmation, Satisfaction, and I S continuance intention.

Expectation–confirmation model (Bhattacherjee 2001, p. 363)

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For the purpose of ensuring high-quality standards, constant evaluation regarding the efficiency of a website is essential (Ekinci and Riley 2001). However, an acknowledged definition for the evaluation of a website remains impossible, as literature provides multiple and varying approaches of such evaluation techniques (Law et al. 2010). The following four methods are proposed to evaluate a website’s efficiency: calculation of the Net Promoter Score (Chaffey et al. 2009), eye-tracking (Hernández-Méndez and Munoz-Leiva 2015), modified balanced scorecard (Morrison et al. 2004), and content analysis (Luna-Nevarez and Hyman 2012).

Kasavana (2002) explains that it is impossible to develop a standardized catalogue of criteria to evaluate the efficiency of a website in terms of one size fits all. Naturally, websites (e.g. of destinations) differ among each other (e.g. city, region, country), but also attract different and certain kinds of customers (e.g. city tourists, beach vacationers) with different sets of expectations. Furthermore, quality indicators are rated differently depending on the sector or industry (e.g. retail sector compared to the tourism industry). Hence, in terms of website presentations, a user’s preferred website elements or dimensions vary between industry, target groups, and destinations (Djamasbi et al. 2010, 2011; Luna-Nevarez and Hyman 2012).

2.4 Generation Y

The term ‘Generation Y’ represents all persons born between the late 1970s and early 1990s (Cui et al. 2003; Urban 2014). This generation possesses a strong purchase power. Therefore, many businesses identify and try to win this target group with selected marketing strategies (Djamasbi et al. 2010). In addition, this generation spends more than the average consumer online and incorporates a strong ‘wanderlust’ (Fox 2008; Benckendorff et al. 2010). It is predicted that Generation Y will represent 50% of all travelling expenses by the year 2020 (Travelport 2012). Hence, businesses heavily invest in convincing and captivating website presentations in order to convincingly attract this generation’s attention (Djamasbi et al. 2010).

Djamasbi et al. (2010) further identify a deficit in studies concerning Generation Y’s preferences for websites and conducted a study to analyse websites within the retail industry with special attention towards these preferences. As a result, the following website elements have been identified as being preferable for Generation Y: big images, images of celebrities, integrated search feature, and little or only short text passage. However, there is no further application of these results when looking at businesses from different industries or sectors, e.g. tourism.

3 Methodology

The official website of the tourism destination London (www.visitlondon.com/de) was chosen to investigate this generation’s preferences (in German language). This research is based on a study by Luna-Nevarez and Hyman (2012), in which this website received the highest overall score. Within their study, the focus has been set on a content analysis of various destination websites, neglecting the perceptions of ‘real’ website visitors.

3.1 Experimental Research Design

For this empirical study, eight male and eight female participants (convenience sampling) were selected and tested in 2 days. A very narrow time frame was chosen in order to prevent any content updates from happening, which would make a comparison between participants void. Qualitative, as well as quantitative research methods, were applied to analyse visitors’ perception of the destination website ‘Visit London’. The experimental setting was structured as followed: (1) pre-questionnaire, (2) eye-tracking experiment, (3) post-questionnaire, and (4) retrospective think-aloud (RTA) method (Bogdan and Biklen 2006). The combination of eye-tracking and traditional research methods allows to better understand users’ cognitive processes, their online search behaviour, as well as preferences regarding certain website elements (Wang et al. 2014). Tables 1, 2, 3, and 4 summarize the applied methodological approach and the corresponding measures.

Table 1 Pre-questionnaire
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Table 2 Eye-tracking
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Table 3 Post-questionnaire
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Table 4 Retrospective think-aloud
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3.2 Key Findings

At this point, it has to be noted that besides the outcomes of the questionnaires and the RTA recordings, solely the fixations within the 17 determined AOIs (see Table 5) during the first 20 s (time of first impression) of website observation were the basis for our evaluation.

Table 5 AOIs (Luna-Nevarez and Hyman 2012)
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3.2.1 Pictures Scoring the Highest Fixation Count

Asking the participants to rank different website elements according to their perceived importance from 10 being of the highest value to 1 being the lowest value, the website element ‘pictures’ was rated as the fourth last compared to other elements (m = 4.75). Furthermore, from a total of 95 collected written expectations towards the website, this investigated website element was noted five times. However, regarding the question if ‘pictures are perceived as more informative than texts on a website’, the overall mean score resulted in 5.56 (7 = highly applicable). This result was also observed within the eye-tracking analysis of five specific AOIs: small pictures, medium-sized pictures, large pictures, pictures of celebrities, and pictures of random people. Comparing these results with the accumulated gaze plots, the highest attention has been placed on elements containing images. With a total of 1003 transacted fixations during the first 20 s, 60% (= 606 fixations) of all fixations can be attributed to pictures. Additionally, when analysing ‘total fixation durations’, 60% (= 7.54 s) of all available time was spent looking at pictures.

3.2.2 Pictures of Famous People Do Not Receive the Highest Attention

Compared to the results of Djamasbi et al. (2010) emphasizing the placement of pictures containing famous people on retail websites, our results strike quite to the contrary within the context of tourism websites. Although two pictures of the royal family were shown on the website, pictures of random people as well as a large picture containing a depiction of a popular London sight were given more attention.

Statements from the RTA recordings suggest a quite biased perception of such pictures: e.g. ‘I am not very interested in the royal family’ or ‘I cannot identify with such pictures in the same way I can relate to those pictures, showing unfamiliar people in situations I could actually see myself in’. The quotes above may be backed up with our eye-tracking results. From a total of 606 pictorial fixations, 53% of them (= 324 fixations) were caused by images of random people, 30% (= 180 fixations) by the large picture of a popular London sight, and 12% (= 73 fixations) by both pictures of royal family members. Similar results were obtained concerning the ‘total fixation duration’. The average time spent looking at pictures is 7.54 s per person. In addition, the AOI ‘pictures of celebrities’ receives the third rank order with an average fixation duration of 0.9 s per person (4.11 s for pictures of unfamiliar persons and 2.24 s for the large picture). Taking the ‘time to first fixation’ into account, likewise the time to fixate on pictures with random persons took an average of 0.38 s, followed by 1.27 s for the large pictures and 4.94 s for images of the royal family.

3.2.3 Social Media Is Not Perceived as an Important Element Within the First Impression

Social Media was ranked with a mean value of 6.94 on a scale from 1 = very important to 10 = very unimportant. Asking the participants what they expect from the website prior to the eye-tracking experiment, none mentioned any social media sources. Furthermore, with a mean score of 3.50, participants rather disagree with the statement ‘social media content is an important information source on homepages’. The AOI ‘Social Media’ did not receive any fixations within the first impression timeframe of 60 s. Some participants stated in the RTA that ‘it is a website element, which is nice to have, but you do not really need it for your holiday planning’.

3.2.4 Destination Websites Are Rather Seen as a Platform for Information than for Booking Intentions

Participants were asked what their overall expectations are with regard to potential booking functionalities on a destination website. Results illustrate that participants utilize destination websites mostly as a source of information prior to their holiday booking (m = 5.69) in order to get an idea about the destination (m = 5.94). Although participants indicate both the desire to browse through the website further in order to gain additional information (m = 6.13), looking for booking options (m = 5.0) is far less important to them. It is noteworthy though that participants tend to see booking options as an important feature of a destination’s website (m = 5.0). With a mean of 5.69, participants state that they would use ‘Visit London’ as a source of information for their next holiday when travelling to London in the future.

3.2.5 During the Phase of First Impression, Website Elements Embedded in Lower Parts of a Website Are Not Perceived

A website’s length defines itself through the number of screens it consists of. In the case of ‘Visit London’, the total length of the site comprises four screens. Considering the ‘number of fixations’, results show a consistently declining number of fixations with an increasing number of screens. With a percentage of 71%, the majority of fixations were made within the first screen (= 710 fixations), followed by 23% (= 237 fixations) within the second and 6% (= 56 fixations) within the third screen. The fourth, and last, screen did not attract any attention. As some of the participants clicked on further links after a short while of viewing the website, the average ‘total duration spent’ per person was 14.42 s. Thereof 10.04 s can be ascribed to the first screen, 3.71 s to the following screen, and 0.67 s to the third. All fixations made on the third can be ascribed to two participants. All others did not scroll down to reach this part of the website.

3.2.6 Differences Exist Between Men and Women Within the First Impressions

For the purpose of examining gender-specific differences, two heat maps were created to show all accumulated fixations of female or male participants (Figs. 2 and 3: showing only the first two website screens). Regarding the ‘total fixation count’ of 1003, female participants accounted for 56% (= 561 fixations).

Fig. 2
A screenshot of the page visit London dot com illustrates the heatmap of male participants. It has a red spot in the top right corner and several green patches spread over the top of the page.

Heat map of male participants

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Fig. 3
A screenshot of the page visit London dot com illustrates the heatmap of female participants. It has a red spot in the middle and various green patches scattered over the page.

Heat map of female participants

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Comparing the colour coding of individual AOIs (green = low fixation count; red = high fixation count), disparities can be detected in six of them: (1) medium-sized captions are viewed by female participants seven times more often (= 14 fixations) than by male participants; (2) the navigation bar accumulated 22 fixations, double as much from female attendants than from our male (11 fixations); (3) female participants examined the logo of the destination more intensive (= 24 fixations) than male participants (4 fixations); (4) the large image of the sight, showing the Tower of London, attracted more men (119 fixations) than women (61 fixations); (5) large captions received a higher fixations count from female attendees (141 fixations) than from male attendees (61 fixations); and (6) the portrayal of random persons gathered 174 fixations, a slightly higher count than by female participants (men = 150 fixations).

Analysing the ‘total visit duration’ of both gender groups, a shorter time span can be perceived regarding the male participants. The average visit duration of a male participant amounts 13.54 s before clicking on further links. Female attendees scored a slightly longer website visit duration with 15.30 s. Four out of eight men left the first page of the website under 10 s, compared to two out of eight female participants.

4 Limitations and Conclusions

Before summarizing the contributions of this study, it is important to point to its limitations. First of all, although the sense of hearing can have a substantial impact on the perception, the triggered emotions, and consequently the first impression of a website, the focus was solely laid on the sense of sight (Kotler et al. 2009; Krishna 2012). Further limitations lie in the convenience sampling—not giving every single member of the target group the same opportunity of being part of the sample (Bryman and Bell 2011). Hence, a generalization of the results must be handled carefully as the 16 subjects cannot be seen as representatives of Generation Y. In addition, choosing exclusively only one website for this study presents another limitation. In order to detect if these results are applicable to other destination websites, the same experiment with the same task should be conducted using further destination websites (Nielsen and Pernice 2010).

Nevertheless, the results of this study are noteworthy. On the visitors’ interest towards the attraction of pictures of celebrities, our findings disagree with the works of Djamasbi et al. (2010) or Yoo and Alavi (2001), where pictures attracted a great deal of attention. In contrast to the retail sector, destination websites consider pictures of (random) persons as an important emotional trigger and an easy navigation during the phase of first impression as equally important (Djamasbi et al. 2010; Xiang et al. 2015). Although Loda et al. (2009) state that tourism websites lack credibility and trustfulness, respondents report the value of destination websites as a credible and reliable information source within the pre-questionnaire (m = 6.0). After the eye-tracking experiment, however, the NPS of minus 6% shows a low persuasive power of the website. RTA and the post-questionnaire additionally reveal that Generation Y is actively stated the importance of user-generated content for them to enhance credibility, which confirms findings of Kaplan and Haenlein (2010).

Members of Generation Y mostly regard touristic websites as an information platform, allowing them to improve their holiday experience by retrieving detailed information, quick tips, as well as recommendations for planning activities, free of charge. Even though Generation Y is known for their great affinity to social media technology (Djamasbi et al. 2010; Xiang et al. 2015), members of this generation seem to neglect these aspects when visiting destination websites. Hence, for planning an upcoming holiday, social media does not play a central role. In order to analyse Generation Y’s perception of touristic websites more precisely, it is necessary to conduct studies that examine the effects of the first impression on general intentions, e.g. travelling to a certain destination further. In this context, it is advisable to take auditive stimuli into account as well as studies that scrutinize cultural differences. Taking the lack of studies contemplating Generation Y and its perception of touristic websites into consideration, there are plenty of opportunities for scientists to provide a deeper understanding of the research subject from different perspectives.