Does the Use of Big Data Make the Websites More Innovative : Evidence from the UAE

Information and communication technologies allow companies to obtain massive amounts of data. These data, known as big data, bring new opportunities for companies and give them competitive advantages. Tourism and hospitality firms may use these data to forecast the demand, and propose more personalised services to visitors. This paper aims to explore whether the use of big data can make websites more innovative in terms of service. An empirical approach is used to establish a structured framework of six evaluation criteria for website's innovativeness. Fuzzy logic is employed to objectively evaluate the perceived service-innovativeness and overall e-service quality of United Arab Emirates (UAE) destination marketing organisation (DMO) websites. The findings propose a ranking of the websites according to their perceived innovativeness, providing in-depth information on performance and forming criteria which will allow managers to understand the importance of different web/e-service functionalities, sharing insights concerning why some DMO websites are more innovative than others.