User Experience and Usability Challenges in E-Tourism: Bangladesh Perspective

Usability plays a critical role in ensuring the efficient delivery of services on e-tourism websites, particularly for travelers in developing countries. This study’s objectives aim to assess the current usability status of e-tourism websites, focusing on prominent tourist destinations in a developing nation. Through a heuristic evaluation of three randomly selected mostly used e-tourism websites (Discovery Bangladesh, Beautiful Bangladesh, and Travel BD) in Bangladesh, this research has revealed 23 usability problems across the selected websites. These usability issues encompass aspects such as system status visibility, flexibility, efficiency of use, consistency, adherence to standards, alignment with real-world usage, and user control. Some usability problems are characterized by high severity ratings, with the majority falling within the 2.5 to 3.5 range on a 0 to 4 scale. Among the selected websites, Discovery Bangladesh website showed the maximum number of problems, while the problems found in Travel BD website showed the highest average severity. As such, the outcomes of this research highlight that addressing the revealed usability concerns is crucial to enhance user experiences, attract more tourists, promote sustainable tourism growth of such context.