Facing new challenges in rural tourism: signaling quality via website

Abstract

Conscious of the importance of the tourist sector in Spain and the appeal of rural tourism in Andalusia, this paper aimed to analyse the quality indicators that rural Andalusian hotels show on their ofcial websites (quality certifcations, logos of excellence and online reviews), as well as the possible variables that may infuence the sort of indicators published. The results refected that only 38% of the analysed hotels presented some sort of quality indicator. In this regard, 23.68% of the estab‑ lishments provided information related to their online reputation, 20.3% displayed some form of logos of excellence and only 7.5% chose to indicate that they had qual‑ ity certifcations. The hypothesis test indicated a signifcant correlation between the exhibition of logos of excellence and the high star hotels. Enhancing rural hotels’ websites, as a sales platform, could be the alternative to reduce the commissions of online travel agencies and could foster direct sales and subsequently improve busi‑ ness performance.