Decoding websites: How to create a distinctive mental image for hotel services?

Abstract

Information available in websites encompasses symbols and hints that help consumers to construct images of the enterprises by interpreting the attributes and benefits of the services and products being offered. A direct communication between company and consumer is thus established. To understand how this communication system works, this article makes use of semiotics as an approach to dealing with the data, and to make hypotheses on how effective the messages are. The propositions made relate to the strategies the enterprises may follow to overcome the intangibility problem – a common feature of services – and establish a brand identity for them. The qualitative research that supports this article focused on the website of the Accord Hotels Network in Brazil, an organization that works with several types of hotels. It was found that the problem of how to create in the consumer a mental image distinctive of a service with so many tangible and intangible features is a complex one which can only be solved with the recourse to diversified and well defined strategies.