An assessment of Exhibition Centers' Web Sites: an Empirical Study of Exhibition Centers in Capital Cities of China

摘要

Chinese exhibition centers' business is getting in intense competitions. In order to win a better market share, some Chinese operators of exhibition centers are attempting to improve their marketing opportunity through online channel. As a critical factor in attracting customers' attention and build loyalty in ecommerce, websites' performance of Chinese exhibition centers should not be overlooked either. In this paper, we concentrated on examining the quality of exhibition centers' website in china, so as to discover their performance from online marketing perception. For this, we modified Exhibition Center Website Assessment Index in five categories: accessibility, speed, content, navigation, aesthetic and explained the scoring mechanism and the index was applied to the research. The study was conducted in exhibition centers in Chinese capital cities because of the concentrated development distribution of exposition industry in China. We studied 126 professional Exhibition Centers in Chinese capital cities, and found that only 43 exhibition centers among of them possess their own websites. The performances are varied with different mark which listed at the end of the paper, and the conclusion was derived from the research was presented. This paper would be of a great help when Exhibition Centers need to develop their market opportunity by e-commerce.