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City Brands and their Communication through Web Sites town halls, the city brands and their representation and meanings are changed, precisely with the intention of breaking away from the previous image and promoting a new improved image related to the political party that has formed the municipal government. These changes create dysfunction, as the brands need time to be implemented and require their evolution to be homogenous and coherent. The persistence and durability of a brand is key for its implementation and acceptance by all sectors of the public. Therefore, brand changes only create more confusion in the identities and images of the cities. Finally, but importantly, difficulty in the creation of city brands lies in coordination, taking into account the umbrella brands of destinations greater than the cities. In tourism, the broader destinations (regions, nations, states or countries) include those within them in their brand for the promotion of tourism. So this presents us with a number of questions: Should the umbrella brands take into account and be coherent with the city brands that they include? Should they all be related? Should they be coherent with each other? Should they have common features? Should the attributes of the umbrella brands be shared by the brands of the respective cities that are represented? TREATMENT OF CITY BRANDS ON THE WEB The Internet and new information technologies play a key role in communicating the cities and their brands. They are an important source of information. Destination Management Systems are more than simple websites. In addition to the information, they offer advertising, marketing and sales applications, and have interactive resources that, in an entertaining way, provide services and attract the attention of the users. Currently, through a city’s tourism website, you can get information, make reservations, etc. However, in the promotion of the cities, not 1280 only as tourist destinations, but also as business centers and residential areas, portals or broader websites are starting to be created, which offer, in addition to tourist information, business and leisure information for the citizens. In this sense, and from the field of communication, the brand websites have been marked as the future of marketing communication on the Internet, as they have the potential to provide high levels of information and, in addition, create virtual product experiences (Klein, 2003). Brand websites are capable of combining both of the basic objectives of commercial communication in this channel: to create a brand image and achieve a direct response (Hollis, 2005). As Cho and Cheon (2005) describe, the websites may serve for diverse communication purposes: public relations, sales promotion, advertising or direct marketing. In the second part of the study, the results of our analysis of city brands on the web showed that the aspects that make up the corporate image, that is, the colors, the lines and the logo of the city brand, in general, are used very little to create graphic coherence and brand image throughout the website. There are some exceptions, such as the sites of Amsterdam or Madrid, that show effective graphic coherence for transmitting the brand, but habitually the typography and the colors of the logo are only used in auxiliary hyperlinked pages, but not the whole official site. The study showed that what is best transmitted through the web is the functional conceptual brand of the cities, the strong points or the potential that they wish to promote; but in no way the emotional conceptual brand, which ascribes personifiable values to the destination. The exception is a hyperlink that some official websites have, such as Edinburgh or Amsterdam, which links to a page exclusively dedicated to explaining the emotional brand. Starting with the results of the studies of Hosany, Ekinci and Uysal (2006), where it is demonstrated that the emotional and personifiable values have positive influences on the intention City Brands and their Communication through Web Sites to visit, purchase and recommend destinations on the part of consumers, it is surprising that it is actually the emotional aspect and the personality of the brand that are the least developed aspects on the official websites of the cities analyzed. The heads of marketing of the cities should develop strategies and campaigns that promote the distinctive personality of the destinations, based on the emotional components of these cities, which create better positioning and a more favorable image among users. Thus, in conclusion, the under use of websites to promote city brands has been verified. The websites centre on the functional conceptual aspects of the brand, that is, all the strong points that are notable in the city, but lack, in general, coherent graphic treatment and the expression of the emotional conceptual brand. The design of the websites tries to be useful and functional to provide the users with the information and services they wish to obtain, but they are not at all creative to disseminate the emotional values attributable to the city through its brand. McMillan (2004) coincides with our statements, arguing that advertising on the Internet and websites must be more creative, that is, better designed, with greater impact, more varied and more entertaining. Once at this point, and in light of other studies and a bibliography centered on more technical questions of the websites, we decided to analyze other characteristic aspects of the websites that also influence the dissemination and perception of city brands. We considered that dealing with city brands should not be limited to an analysis of the websites’ content only, but should take into account aspects such as the interactivity or usability of their pages. Different research on websites shows that usability is a key aspect in the creation of a good brand image. The sites that seem to be or are easier to open, navigate or use, create a more favorable attitude and image among users (Chen & Wells, 1999; Chen, Gillenson & Sherrell, 2002; Heijden, 2003). Thus, small websites, with very basic iconography and ease of use, such as that of Barcelona, would transmit a good city brand image. However, extensive and complicated sites that are slow to open and that have a confused internal structure, such as that of Toronto, cause less positive or even unfavorable attitudes to be created. Along the same lines, Jared M. Spool (1996)6 did a study comparing websites, which demonstrated that the usability of a website considerably and positively affects the brand and the branding process. His results showed that the users that navigate more easily through a website and find the information that they want quickly end up with a better impression of the brand, as it has satisfied their expectations to a greater degree. Contrarily, the obstacles that the users find when navigating negatively and directly affect their perception of the brand. Therefore, usability is essential for effective branding. Regarding interactivity, Liu (2003) defends the idea that the concept of interactivity unites three correlated but different factors: the active control of information, bidirectional communication and the synchronicity or simultaneity of communication. In a previous article (Liu & Shrum, 2002), the same author classified the brand websites in the maximum range of the three factors stated. This study showed, by the way of bidirectional communication, that the Internet is the only medium that can be used for commercial transactions without the help of other tools, since necessary activities such as showing the product, placing orders, making payments or even, in categories such as music, software or transport titles, distributing the product can happen through the web. Other authors (Cho & Cheon, 2005) prefer to divide the concept of interactivity into three fields of action or types: consumer-message interactivity, consumer-consumer interactivity and consumer-marketer interactivity. Consumermessage interactivity refers to the capability of the user to personalize his or her relationship with the contents of the page according to his or 1281 City Brands and their Communication through Web Sites her interests and motives. Consumer-marketer interactivity centers on the communication between the user of a website and the organizers or those responsible for the content; this relationship may be bidirectional, from user to administrator (questions, suggestions, complaints) or from administrator to user (obtaining personal data, answering questions, etc.). Consumer-consumer interactivity is the relationship that may be created between the people that access a website (virtual communities, chats, forums, etc.). More recent studies (Sicilia, Ruiz & Munuera, 2005; Ko, Cho & Roberts, 2005) show that interactivity enables the information to be processed better and generates more favorable attitudes towards the website and towards the product and the brand, and greater intention to purchase. Based on these previous studies on the usability and interactivity of websites we decided to make a broader quantitative analysis about the treatment of city brands on the Internet. In addition to the items related to graphic, functional and emotional aspects of the brand, in the trial we analyzed usability and interactivity characteristics of the websites as elements that also influence the dissemination of a good brand image. PURPOSE AND METHOD OF QUANTITATIVE STUDY. USABILITY, INTERACTIVITY AND THE CITY BRAND ON THE WEB The first qualitative study was wider. It analyzed the city brands and their treatment in websites in depth. But later, we decided to carry out a quantitative study analyzing more webs and variables. We had to develop a different questionnaire of analysis that could be measured by quantitative methods. The main objective of this quantitative study consisted in analyzing the degree of usability, interactivity and treatment of city brands on the official websites of tourist cities. 1282 For this empirical study, we used a quantative method based on a WTO (World Tourism Organization, 1999) analysis model. This was extended with the contribution of recent studies (McMillan, 2003; Liu, 2003; Cho & Cheon, 2005) and adding newly created interactive resources, which appeared as new features on destination websites at the time the study was carried out. At the same time, the model was also extended with aspects to analyze about how city brands are dealt with on the web, the databases that the websites may obtain about their users, and other aspects of website information not considered in the initial model. The analysis was applied to 40 official websites of important tourist cities of the five continents during 2006. This sample was selected by means of a ranking evaluating the main tourist cities of the world, taking into account the World’s Top Tourism Destinations of the WTO (World Tourism Organization), the number of visitors and the importance of the city as a tourist destination. We observed 135 indicators, of which 87 are representative of the three variables analyzed: usability, interactivity and the brand. Interactivity is analyzed in the three factors mentioned previously: consumer-message interactivity, consumermarketer interactivity and consumer-consumer interactivity. Its analysis, through the SPSS program, was centered on descriptive statistics and the combination of variables, using Gamma as a correlation index. RESULTS OF THE QUANTATIVE STUDY. USABILITY The concept of usability is defined as “the extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use”7. This ease of use, nevertheless, is related to very diverse aspects, that go from the page design, to the content quality, the ease of locating information and the simplicity of navigation, all City Brands and their Communication through Web Sites Table 1. Items of usability (Source: Authors’ compilation) Indexes of usability Frequency Percentage List of contents on all pages 36 90.0% Link the home page 37 92.5% External links related sites 38 95.0% Up-to-date information 39 97.5% Sitemap 23 57.5% Indication of the navigation path 16 40.0% of which are related, in addition, to the subjective perceptions of the user. The indicators used in the study to measure the usability variable are those that provide the navigability for the website: the access menu for the sections always being visible, the indication of the navigation path, constant links to the home page, the existence of a sitemap and an internal search engine; the possibility of user help by telephone, e-mail, chat or web call; and external links to related sites. The majority of sites analyzed in the study showed high levels of structure, which means that the websites are, in general, well designed. At a global level, high percentages were seen for the variables that make up the structure, usability and design of the websites. As seen in Table 1, the majority of the sites analyzed have a list of the site contents that appears on all of the pages, along with a link to the home page from each page. These two resources give the user his or her location on the web, clarify the structure of the site and simplify its use. In addition, almost all the websites have external links with other related sites. Through these links they can provide complementary information and services. In some cases connection to the official sites of the town halls and institutions are provided, in others, the purchase of services, for example the link on Barcelona’s website to ServiCaixa, through which you can purchase tickets for entertainment. Table 2. Ranking of websites with the most and least points with respect to usability (Source: Authors’ compilation) Web sites with high scores in structure, design and usability Score Web sites with low scores in structure, design and usability City Web sites Score City Web sites 11 London 5 Cairo 11 Hong Kong 5 Beijing 10 Bangkok 6 Lisbon 10 Budapest 10 Sydney 10 Amsterdam 10 Tokyo 10 Buenos Aires 10 Mexico City With respect to the help that the websites offer their users, 90% of the sites analyzed provided e-mail contact. In addition, 65% provided a telephone helpline. But, however, only one website offered help by chat and none used web calls (calls from marketing staff from the destinations where you request them to call you at a certain time) or human clicks (communication in real time of a visitor to a website with its administrators). All in all, the results stated up to now show that the majority of websites are well structured and designed. Therefore, they have a high degree of usability. Table 2 shows the rankings of the websites with best structure, design and usability, along with those that have the least points in these aspects. The structure variable ranges between 5 and 11, with sites with 5 having the worst structure and those with 11 the best. The initial Hong Kong web page (Figure 1), one of the best in usability of our study, is simple, graphic and structured. It shows only a big image and the list of different languages the user can choose. When you enter in the initial page of the selected 1283 City Brands and their Communication through Web Sites Figure 1. Hong Kong Web site language you can observe that it has the content list in all the pages, visual and graphic links and shows a constant simplicity in the entire site. Interactivity The interactivity variable, as explained previously, was analyzed using three aspects: consumermessage interactivity, consumer-marketer interactivity and consumer-consumer interactivity. We measured the concept of interactivity using the three aforementioned typologies of Cho and Cheon (2005). Consumer-message interactivity is measured with indicators such as: the existence of search engines, user help, the option to customize the display, displaying virtual reality, multimedia presentations, directional maps, virtual leaflets, the option of downloads to mobiles, and on-line games, among others. However, consumermarketer interactivity is based on indicators of 1284 relationships with the marketing organizers of the cities. They offer the possibility of questions and complaints from users, opinion surveys, chats with promotional or sales agents, bulletin boards for users, or the possibility of placing orders and making reservations on line. Finally, consumerconsumer interactivity is measured using indicators of the relationship between them, such as the existence of chats or an email service. Consumer-Message Interactivity The first result we can see is that, in general, the majority of websites analyzed use many more resources that belong to the consumer-message interaction, than to the consumer-marketer, and consumer-consumer interaction. Therefore, the sites offer the navigator a greater interactivity with the messages that they wish to transmit than with the people that are in charge of marketing the destinations and other consumers. And within the City Brands and their Communication through Web Sites resources of the consumer-message interaction, the most used in all the websites, that is, those that show the highest percentages, are the interactive travel organizers. So, this shows that the majority of websites analyzed offer services of interactive travel organizers. We refer to organizers without the possibility of purchase. They help users to plan their trips by providing fully personalized information adapted to the needs and interests of the users. The interactive travel organizers allow the users to plan their trips in a fully complete and personalized way, from their transport to the destination to their accommodation and other complementary tourist services. However, there are other interactive consumermessage resources that are hardly used by the websites analyzed. Certainly, 62.5% have directional maps of the cities to orient the users and 82.5% have geographical markers on the maps with zoom, which offer the possibility of searching for and locating elements on the map in detail. But only three of the sites allow the user to customize the home page, four show virtual excursions or online games for children, five offer virtual flights of the city from the air or allow users to create their own virtual leaflets in folders, which they can save with the personalized information that interests them. The informative services using optional downloads to mobiles, whether metro maps, information on monuments or audio downloads are also resources that are barely used by the websites analyzed. All of these interactive resources, in addition to offering information, provide a certain entertainment and distraction to the users of the websites, making them more attractive and interesting. Consumer-Marketer Interactivity The resources of the consumer-marketer interaction are still less used by the websites analyzed that those of consumer-message interaction. The possibility of placing orders or online reservations is offered by 35% of the sites, and 32.5% allow the user to track the orders placed. For these two resources, the prior registration is usually required of the user, and with this the websites can obtain personal information about their consumers. In 22.5% of the sites, users can fill in surveys or opinion polls and 12.5% offer the option of complaints by consumers. The rest of the consumer-marketer interactive resources are barely used by the websites analyzed. For example, only Rome’s site offers the users the possibility of asking what they want about the city, the services offered or the entity that organizes the marketing of the destinations. Only the websites of Dublin and Istanbul have an electronic bulletin board available to the users. And finally, the sites of Madrid, Amsterdam and Montreal are the only ones that allow the consumers to sponsor the website. This means that any organization can pay some money to sponsor the website. All the conditions are very well explained on the site. In exchange, the sponsor can put its logo on the website. Not one of the websites analyzed offered the users the possibility to propose new products or services, chats with the marketing agents, or “call me” buttons with time and language selection for those responsible for promoting the city to call the interested users to provide them with the information they want, personally by telephone. Consumer-Consumer Interactivity With respect to the consumer-consumer interaction, there are even fewer resources available. The resource of this type that is most used in the sites analyzed is the on-line postcards service, featuring in 40% of the websites, of which 37.5% do not require registration. This resource, which is offered more and more by the destination websites and is mostly used by young users, enables them to send on-line postcards, without the delay or costs of sending them. 1285 City Brands and their Communication through Web Sites Table 3. Resources used in the websites of interactive travel organizers (Source: Authors’ compilation) Interactive travel organizers (without possibility of purchase) Frequency Percentage How to get there 33 82.5 What to do 39 97.5 Attractions/events 38 95.0 Leisure activities 38 95.0 Cultural activities 37 92.5 Where to stay 38 95.0 Transport 39 97.5 Excursions 33 82.5 Rentals 16 40.0 Moreover, only Krakow’s site has a chat for users, and the possibility for consumers to tell their stories, experiences and summaries of trips is only found on the sites of Hong Kong, Rome and Toronto. Finally, none of the websites analyzed offer the services of a cyber club of users with advantages or a cyber community with common interests. Cyber clubs which offer some advantages of information, discounts and special conditions to the loyal users. The cyber club of users would allow the marketing organizers of the destinations to create loyalty programs for clients using the offer of advantages and discounts. Moreover, the creation of a cyber community would enable the users of this group to build relationships with each other, broaden information in their interest, and create a strong position with respect to these common interests. So, we can see that there is a great inequality in the use of interactive resources by official websites of destinations. The most used are those that belong to the consumer-message interaction, and especially, the interactive travel organizers. All in all, generally, the percentages of use of interactive resources are still underused, in particular those of the consumer-marketer and consumer-consumer interaction. These results coincide with those of the study by Anton (2004) about the Internet presence of the main tourist destinations of the 1286 Spanish Mediterranean coast. In it, he highlights the absence of instruments that promote interactivity in the websites, such as on-line forms, pages of visitor comments, etc. (Table 3) The degree of global interactivity of the websites analyzed, which may range between 4 and 28, can be seen in the ranking in Table 4. These numbers represent the number of interactive tools they use. Visit Dublin’s web page it’s the most interactive out of all the analyzed sites. If we only observe the first part of the page we can find a searcher and in the graphic frontal there is the option to click and see a video about the city. The whole page is very interactive. In the accommodation section the user can search information, but can also reserve and buy the products. Even the maps of the city and the maps of public transport are interactive. They show the routes that the user requires in personalized way. Treatment of City Brands on the Web In the analysis of the communication and dissemination of city brands through websites, it is necessary to differentiate the concepts of city brand and brand image. As previously explained, the city brand is a construct composed of a name, City Brands and their Communication through Web Sites Table 4. Ranking of websites with the most and least points with respect to interactivity (Source: Authors’ compilation) Most interactive websites Least interactive websites Score City websites Score City websites 28 Dublin 4 Moscow 23 Hong Kong 4 Kiev 21 Valencia 7 Sydney 20 Madrid 8 Cairo 18 Berlin 8 Seville 18 Istanbul 18 Rome a logo, some symbols and values that we try to associate with a city representing its identity, with the objective of creating a positioning and a vision of the city in the minds of the public, which must be based on a citymarketing plan and projected through a communication program. On the other hand, the brand image is that which is created in the minds of the public as a consequence of the communication of the city brand, in conjunction with the perceptions and subjective values of individuals. (Table 5, Figure 2, Figure 3, Figure 4, Figure 5, Figure 6) In the study, the degree of communication and dissemination of the city brands through the websites was measured using the presence of the brand and the logo, whether there is a description of the city brand, whether the graphic and photographic images represent the brand, whether the colors and the typography of the page are coordinated with the logo, and the functional and emotional brand is disseminated. The results show that city brands are treated poorly on the websites analyzed. Their treatment is even less developed than that of interactivity. All in all, the vast majority of websites (97.5%) have the logo on all of the pages, and this is usually situated in the upper left part. However, it Table 5. Ranking of the best and worst treatment of city brands in websites (Source: Authors’ compilation) Websites that deal with their city brands best Websites that deal with city brands worst Score City websites Score City websites 10 Amsterdam 3 Kuala Lumpur 8 Hong Kong 5 Madrid 8 Athens 5 Zagreb 8 Dublin 5 Cairo 8 Toronto 5 Sydney 5 Moscow 5 Lisbon 5 Montreal 5 Rome 5 Mexico City 5 Kiev must also be taken into account that three of the websites analyzed show more than one logo for the same city brand, which creates dysfunctionality and incoherence. Of the websites, 92.5% offer a brief description of the destination, but only 5% (two of the sites analyzed) have a minimum explanation of the city brand, of its creation and symbolism. Similarly, only 35% of the websites state the marketing objectives of the tourist institutions of the cities. The graphic images, in general, also are an underused resource in the dissemination of the city brands. All the websites transmit the functional brand through photographic images, but only half of them (50%) communicate the emotional brand through the photographs. On the other hand, the rest of the graphic images are not used to disseminate the brand at all. Finally, the graphic and typographic coherence between the brand and the web has not been taken into account either in the majority of websites 1287 City Brands and their Communication through Web Sites Figure 2. Visit Dublin Web site Figure 3. Visit Dublin accomodation section Figure 4. Visit Dublin maps section 1288 City Brands and their Communication through Web Sites Figure 5. I Amsterdam Web site analyzed. Only 27.5% of the sites have the predominant colors of the website coordinated with the logo, and 23.5% use the same typography on the page and the brand. On the other hand, only one of the sites analyzed includes elements of the advertising campaign transmitted through the conventional media. The degree of global treatment of the city brands on the websites analyzed, which ranges between 3 and 10, can be seen in the ranking in Table 5. The web of Amsterdam, which best disseminates the city brand, does not only deal with the functional and emotional brand on the web, but in addition it pays attention to many other graphic and visual aspects. For example, the emotional brand, which is disseminated through very few websites, in that of Amsterdam it is dealt with both by changing photographs on the page, which show people of the city, and by an introductory page that explains in depth what the brand symbolizes. In it, it explains what the brand “Iamsterdam” is, who Figure 6. I Amsterdam manifesto page 1289