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website in the country. The website promotes all
registered homestays in the country through narra-
tives and multimedia presentations on each home-
stay provider. The website's objective is to provide
users with information on Malaysian homestays
and act as a gateway for information on all home-
stays in Malaysia.
As a government-endorsed website, Go2home-
stay is an example of the efforts that many gov-
ernments around the world are making to embrace
Internet technology. However, the introduction of
official websites has encountered numerous prob-
lems, especially in developing countries (Prins,
2001). Go2homestay, despite being an official web-
site, does not have an interactive feature to allow
customers to make online reservations.
In addition to Go2homestay, several other
websites are owned by the state governments,
including the Selangor Tourism Website (http://
tourismselangor.my/homestay), Perak Tourism
Website (www.peraktourism.com.my), Sabah
Tourism Board Official Website (www.sabahtour-
ism.com/sabah-malaysian-borneo/en/homestay),
and Sarawak Homestay Website (www.right.
sarawak.gov.my/homestay). Moreover, several
homestay operators in Malaysia have created their
own websites and blogs to promote their products
and services.
2.3
Web content/information quality
The basic goal of a website is to provide informa-
tion to prospective and existing customers and stake-
holders (Huang & Shyu, 2008). Gregory et al. (2010)
noted that information is the main reason that indi-
viduals initially visit a website, and information has
been argued to be the most fundamental component
of a website. Xiang and Gretzel (2010) stated that
providing travellers with the ability to search for
travel and tourism information when they are plan-
ning their trips is important in facilitating travellers'
access to tourism-related information online.
A number of elements are crucial to encouraging
website users to make purchases, including provid-
ing related, relevant, comprehensive and helpful
information (Kozak, Bigne & Andreu, 2005). As
Kozak et al. (2005) and Kaynama and Black (2000)
note, the design and presentation of a website are
critical in meeting users' expectations. Additionally,
providing comprehensive information that includes
packages and pricing helps capture the attention of
users browsing a website (Han & Mills, 2006).
3 METHODOLOGY
3.1
Population and participants
The aim of this study, through a combination of
relevant accessibility and content quality testing
methodologies, is to answer the following ques-
tions: (i) Is the Go2homestay website easily acces-
sible? (ii) Are visitors readily able to use the site
to locate the sources of homestay tourism infor-
mation they require (adequate and appropriate) to
make informed choices? Overall, the aim is to gen-
erate a set of findings than can be used to assess
the usefulness, value and appropriateness of the
site's content with respect to visitors' needs.
The target population of this study is online
travel customers in Malaysia, specifically individu-
als who have visited the Go2homestay website. To
achieve its objectives, this study employed a quan-
titative research approach. Thirty participants
were recruited to take part in the preliminary and
main phases by completing self-administered ques-
tionnaires. This process followed the guidance on
sample size published by Billingham, Whitehead
and Julious (2013), which stated that the median
sample size per arm across all types of pilot or pre-
liminary study is 30. The surveys were conducted
in person and by email through personal contacts
with the homestay providers.
2.2
Web accessibility
The Internet is now one of the primary tools for
searching for information and facilitating commu-
nication between consumers and businesses. Con-
sumers increasingly use the Internet when making
travel decisions and reservations. Therefore, the
use of established criteria to evaluate tourism des-
tination websites is important for the future of the
tourism industry (Zulfakar & Buchanan, 1999).
The factors influencing the success of a web-
site include accessibility, content quality and web
design. A website's success can also be explained by
its effectiveness as a communication tool (López &
Ruiz, 2011).
Web accessibility refers to the degree to which
online information is accessible to users. The goal
of web accessibility is to allow anyone using any
web browser to visit the site, access all its infor-
mation and use all its interactive features if nec-
essary (W3C, 2003). The variety of resources and
guidelines can capture whether a particular website
achieves its accessibility potential. Therefore, it is
important to evaluate the accessibility and content
quality of the recently launched official Malaysian
homestay tourism website. The scope of this evalu-
ation includes not only accessibility but also the
quality of the site's content from the perspective of
its intended purpose and audience.
3.2
Instruments and procedures
A pilot study of 20 respondents was first con-
ducted to clarify the overall structure and research
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