A modular approach to quality evaluation of tourist destination web sites: the quality model factory

One of the most important steps in Web site quality evaluation projects is the choice of which aspects of the site to consider. The aspects constitute the model of the site itself and should be identified and evaluated based on the objectives of all stakeholders. In some cases it is possible to adopt standard “syntactic” models. Where this is not possible it is necessary to “personalize” the evaluation model so that it takes into account the semantics of the site or sites under assessment. This adaptation takes time and resources. In this paper we put forth a modular approach that supports the definition of detailed semantic models for the evaluation of Web sites of tourist destinations, starting from a common meta-model. The methodology — referred to as “quality model factory” — is based on the identification of unique elements of diverse types of tourist destinations.