Research study on managing web site quality in Croatia Mario Spremić, Ph.D. Associate Professor Ivan Strugar, Ph.D. Associate Professor Faculty of Economics and Business University of Zagreb J. F. Kennedy Sq. 6 CROATIA Abstract: - The consequences of growing Internet popularity can be found in almost all aspects of economy. Tourist industry represents one of the key components of Croatian economy and international exchange. This paper presents results of study performed to evaluate the quality of Web sites of Croatian high class hotels and their content. The study results show that management of Croatian top hotels is still using Web and Internet technology for presentation purposes solely and there is no conscious that its content needs to be managed well. It is obvious that Internet is still not adequately understand, accepted and integrated within hotel management in Croatia. The absence of the very basic information about the hotel and their offer, e-mail form request for reservation information illustrate this hotel management attitude. Key-Words: - tourism, hotel web sites quality, survey, Croatia 1. Introduction Tourist industry grows globally, and in many countries gain priority in economic development. In Croatian economy tourism is one of the most important development factors, because directly or indirectly tourism creates around 22 % of total domestic product, and more than 40% of total export 1 . According to the Croatian nation bank in second quarter 2006 revenue from tourism increases for 12% and participate with almost 32% in Croatian GDP 2 . The growth of tourist supply has consequences in growth of the competition on the market which influences profit margin in the tourist industry. Communication needs in tourism, as service industry, are one of the factors of the key importance. Usage of new information technology enables different approach to potential clients. According to research from “Morgan Stanley & Co.”, Internet offers a large 1 http://www.mint.hr/UserDocsImages/TOURISM-FINAL- 2010.pdf ( Jan 01, 2008), web page of Ministry of tourism. 2 Croatian National Bank,, Year 2006. report, updated 08.2007. http://www.hnb.hr/publikac/godisnje/2006/h- statisticki-pregled-2006.pdf p. 28 . (Sept, 2007) business possibility in “travel” sector and on scale, “Internet possibility for different retailer’s category” takes high third place, just behind financial and insurance services, and computer software and hardware selling” 3 . The Internet importance is very quickly recognized by tourist agencies, thus the number of Web based tourist agencies increases permanently. Through the web sites and advanced use of e-business these agencies are also extending their offer and increases number of their clients. Virtual tourist, one of the most popular Web based agency visits each month 4 over 30 million visitors, while most popular Croatian Web based agency Adiatica.net records permanent annual visitors growth of 30.000, and total number of annual users increase to almost 150.000 5 . Information technology (IT) appears to be an integrative technology which enables vertical integrations within business systems 6 , 3 US Investment Research, May 28, 1997. Morgan Stanley – 2-8. page 46. 4 Source :www.virtualtourist.com (01.2008) 5 Source: www.adriatica.net (01.2008) 6 More details in Cash, McFarlan, Mc Kenney, Applegate “Corporate Information Systems management: Text and Proceedings of the 8th WSEAS International Conference on APPLIED COMPUTER SCIENCE (ACS'08) ISSN: 1790-5109 165 ISBN: 978-960-474-028-4