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

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