Results

The results of the research were divided in two parts: The first one consists on a descriptive analysis where hotels and managers are profiled and also the perception of managers to the use of the Internet in hotels; the second part presents the analysis based on Tukey's variance statistical tests.

Descriptive Results of the Research

Sampled Hotels and Managers Demographic Profiles—In Table 1, note that most respondents were women (65.7 percent), hotel reservation managers (60 percent), up to 35 years old (68.6 percent). In respect to their hotel experience, results were concentrated on six to 15 years of experience (42.9 percent), but it is important to say that there is also a considerable percentage of five-year-old experience (40 percent).

Table 1: Managers' profile

Position	N	%
General Manager	3	8.6
Guest Manager	2	5.7
Commercial Manager	4	11.4
Administrative Manager	2	5.7
Reception Manager	3	8.6
Reservation Manager	21	60.0
Total	35	100.0

Age	N	%
Less than 25 years old	8	22.9
26 to 35 years old	16	45.7
Over 36 years old	11	31.4
Total	35	100.0

Hotel Experience	N	%
Less than 5 years	14	40.0
6 to 15 years	15	42.9
Over 16 years	6	17.1
Total	35	100.0

Table 2 shows that the 35 researched hotels are rated as "simple" or "medium-comfortable" (74.3%), a little more than a half of them have less than a hundred rooms.

Table 2: Hotels profile

Hotel Rate	N	%
Simple	14	40.0
Medium Comfort	12	34.3
Comfortable/Very Comfortable/Luxury	9	25.7
Total	35	100.0

Number of hotel rooms	N	%
Less than 50 rooms	7	20.0
51 to 100 rooms	11	31.4
101 to 150 rooms	10	28.6
Over 151 rooms	7	20.0
Total	35	100.0

Aspects of Internet Use in Hotels—When questioned about the use of the Internet in the hotels, most of the managers answered that they did have Internet of any kind in their facilities (97.1 percent). Another data shows that 97.1 percent of the hotels have their own e-mail address.

When it was asked if the hotel used the Internet to build up any kind of relationship with its clients, 85.7 percent of managers answered "yes" which seems to demonstrate their interest in using the Web as an electronic marketing tool aiming their customers' faithfulness. Another relevant information is that only four (11.4 percent) out of the 35 managers said they used an intranet in their work. This indicates that hotels do not seem to consider the importance of using the Internet as a communication and cooperation tool for their employees. A possible reason for this data is that some of these hotels do not use an Internet platform as a way of corporate communication and cooperation.

Relating to hotel-supplier integration, only 20 percent of the hotels use the Internet to purchase goods from the supplier. Mendes, Filho and Ramos (2001) stated that administration and food and beverage managers do research their product prices, but do not buy them through the Web; therefore, the Web is used only for price investigation.

Slightly more than 90 percent of hotels already have their homepages; 54.3 percent of such pages have existed for over two years which resembles the research carried by Lituchy and Rail (2000) in the U.S. and Canada, where 89.2 percent of these facilities already have a web site on the Internet. The vast majority (55.9 percent) has already been on the Web for over two years.

Most of these hotels are also using their homepages to offer Web-based room reservation services, for 85 percent of them do have that service.

The Perception of Managers Concerning Internet Use in Hotels—As to the managers' perception of the importance of using the Internet in hotels, they gave their opinions about: efficiency, Internet access, mean of communication, benefits and difficulties, as follows.

Internet Efficiency

Companies in general use the Internet as a marketing tool and specifically in hotels, as the research has demonstrated. When asked about the efficiency, managers reported that the Internet was more efficient when used as a marketing tool and advertising tool for 82 percent considered it very important and the remaining (17.1 percent) said it was important. The use of the Internet on room reservations had also reached an excellent level of importance, 71.4 percent of the managers said it was very important. The use of the Internet for reservations has reached a considerably important level, 71.4 percent of managers consider it very important. On the other hand, the use of the Internet for personal training had the smallest average (3.8 percent) from the options mentioned; only 31.4 percent of the managers consider it important for that aim.

The Importance of Internet Access

When asked how important Internet access was for them and their employees, managers identified their own access as much more important than their employees'. According to the data obtained, 88.6 percent of the managers consider their own access very important while only 5.8 percent for the employees. Interviewees also said that it was important for them to provide Internet services to the guests; the average of answers was 4.7 percent.

Internet as a Mean of Communication

Managers answered that Internet use, as a mean of communication with clients and guests is the most important for them and gave it an average score of 4.6. The use of the Internet to communicate with the central office/headquarters had also a very good 4.5 average. On the other hand, the use of the Internet to communicate with employees had a 2.4 average in the managers' opinion.

Internet Benefits

On the managers' opinion, the most expressive benefit reached was the increase of hotel advertising and marketing in the local and worldwide media, considering the most important by 85.7 percent of the interviewees (Table 3). Another benefit that also had a great result was the increase of sales and reservations through the Web, 80 percent of the managers said it is very important for their facilities. The result is coherent to Abreu and Costa study (2000) in which it was demonstrated that the increase in the sales was the main aim expected by hotels when using the Internet.

Table 3: Biggest benefit that the Internet can bring to a hotel

Benefits	Not important	Little important	Neutral	Important	Very Important	Average
Increasing hotel advertising and marketing	2.9%	0.0%	0.0%	11.4%	85.7%	4.8
Increasing Sales and reservations	0.0%	2.9%	0.0%	17.1%	80.0%	4.7
Improving client service by providing hotel information	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	37.1%	62.9%	4.6
Reducing hotel costs	0.0%	0.0%	5.7%	31.4%	62.9%	4.6
Improving hotel image	0.0%	2.9%	5.7%	45.7%	45.7%	4.3
Facilitating the relationship with clients through messages and direct mail.	0.0%	5.7%	2.9%	45.7%	45.7%	4.3
Increasing competition (by competing with other hotels)	0.0%	2.9%	2.9%	51.4%	42.9%	4.3
Allowing bigger knowledge on the client	0.0%	5.7%	2.9%	60.0%	31.4%	4.2

However, there were two benefits that were mentioned by 5.7 percent of the managers as less important for their hotels: to facilitate the relationship with the client through messages, forwarded messages and birthday cards and to allow a greater knowledge on the client through homepage register forms.

Internet Difficulties

According to Table 4, for 45.7 percent of the managers interviewed, cost and time involved in the setting of the Internet makes its use very difficult in a hotel. A reason that may justify this statement is that most hotels are quite simple, with less than a hundred rooms. This may mean less financial power to invest time and money for Internet access. The variable "clients and employees are not used to using the Internet and/or a computer" reached 31.4 percent of managers' opinions as an item that makes it difficult for their facilities to use the Internet.

Table 4: Biggest difficulty for the hotel to use the Internet

Difficulties	Not difficult	Little difficult	Neutral	Difficult	Very difficult	Average
Cost and time involved on Internet installation process	17.2%	17.2%	14.2%	5.7%	45.7%	3.5
Clients and employees are not used to using the Internet	14.3%	14.3%	5.7%	34.3%	31.4%	3.5
Developing training courses for employees who have no knowledge about Internet.	20.0%	31.4%	5.7%	22.9%	20.0%	2.9
Client becomes suspicious about using the Internet	28.5%	25.7%	14.3%	22.9%	8.6%	2.6
Safety and trust of hotel data to be exposed on the Web	40.0%	11.4%	17.2%	17.2%	14.2%	2.5
Employees waste time by using Internet for personal purposes	31.4%	17.2%	11.4%	20.0%	20.0%	2.4
Specialized labor cost for homepage maintenance and update	20.0%	51.4%	5.7%	14.3%	8.6	2.4
Complex Internet management	48.6%	22.8%	8.6%	8.6%	11.4%	2.1

According to managers' opinion, the complexity of Internet management (48.6 percent) and also the safety and trust of hotel data that can be exposed on the Web (40 percent) do not seem to be difficult elements to be dealt with when it comes to Internet presence in the hotel.

Inferential Results of Internet Use in Hotels

It was used the one-way average comparison technique (ANOVA) with a 0.05 significance level to check if there were differences in the opinions of managers followed by a Tukey test to determine the bias of such differences.

The results of the research are intended to identify which factors contributed to the perception of managers relating to Internet use in hotels. The analysis was developed for four variables: according to the number of rooms and rate - both related to the organizational profile; age of managers and experience in the hotel industry - both related to individual profile. Inside each profile, the perception of the importance of Internet use was analyzed the following variables: communication use, access importance, benefits and difficulties of using the Internet.

Effect of Managers' Age on Perception on the Use of Internet

The analyses of variance did not detect any significant variable for the effect of managers' age on their perceptions according to the following variables: Internet efficiency and access. However, there is significance in the difference of perception in the following variables: use for communication, benefits and difficulties.

According to the ANOVA test, (Table 5) a significant variable was found relating to the use of the Internet as a mean of communication: the importance of the Internet to communicate with the central office.

Table 5: Effect of managers' age on the perception of the importance of Internet use

IMPORTANCE OF INTERNET USE	Less than 25 years old	26 to 35 years old	Over 36 years old	F-value	P
Mean
Efficiency
Improving hotel marketing and advertising	4.75	4.94	4.73	1.220	0.309
Making reservations	4.75	4.81	4.36	1.798	0.182
Assessing competition	4.13	4.19	4.36	0.168	0.846
Training employees	4.13	3.75	3.55	0.563	0.575
Internet Access
Enabling Internet access for the Manager	5.00	4.75	4.82	0.504	0.609
Enabling Internet access for the Guests	4.75	4.75	4.55	0.699	0.505
Enabling Internet access for the Employees	3.63	2.94	2.73	1.299	0.287
Mean of Communication [a]
Communicating with guests	4.88	4.63	4.36	2.744	0.079
Communicating with central office	4.75	4.75	4.18	3.844	0.032[a]
Communicating with suppliers	4.25	3.88	3.82	0.766	0.473
Communicating with employees	3.00	2.38	1.91	1.614	0.215
Benefits[a]
Increasing hotel advertising and marketing on local and global media.	4.88	4.63	4.91	0.582	0.565
Increasing hotel reservations and sales	5.00	4.75	4.55	1.308	0.285
Improving client service by providing hotel information	4.88	4.56	4.55	1.340	0.276
Reducing hotel costs	4.63	4.81	4.18	4.218	0.024[a]
Improving hotel image and facilitating the consolidation of its name/brand	4.38	4.25	4.45	0.258	0.774
Increase competition (Competition with hotels from other places)	4.63	4.25	4.27	0.881	0.424
Facilitating relationship with the client	4.75	4.06	4.36	2.158	0.132
Allowing greater knowledge on the client	4.63	4.31	3.64	5.904	0.007[a]
Difficulties[a]
Cost and time required for installing Internet in the hotel	3.88	3.81	2.64	2.225	0.125
Clients and employees are not used to using IT	3.25	3.94	3.18	1.117	0.340
Need of Training for employees who do not know the Web	2.50	3.75	2.00	6.564	0.004[a]
Client suspicious of using the Internet	2.63	2.38	2.82	0.342	0.713
Safety and trust of data in Internet ambient	2.38	2.50	2.73	0.129	0.880
Waste of time due to the use of Internet by employees for personal purposes	2.75	2.81	2.82	0.005	0.995
Specialized labor cost	2.63	2.38	2.27	0.191	0.827
Complex Internet management	2.13	2.31	1.82	0.387	0.682
[a]Variable with significance p<0.05

The analysis of variance has identified significance in two benefits given by the use of the Internet in hotels: to allow a greater knowledge on the client and to reduce the costs of the hotel. In the area of difficulties related to the installation of the Internet, only one variable had a significance level lower than 0.05: the development of training for employees who do not know how to use the Internet.

According to the Tukey test, younger managers (up to 35 years old) considered more important the use of the Internet to communicate with the central office rather than those over 35 years old.

Through the Tukey test, it was possible to conclude that managers up to 25 years old agreed that the Internet allows a bigger knowledge of the client than the managers older. Managers who were from 26 to 35 years old consider the Internet more important to reduce costs than the ones who are over 35 years old.

By using the Tukey test, the conclusion is that from 26 to 35 year old managers agree that training for employees who do not have any knowledge on the Web makes the use of IT more difficult than the ones who are over 35.

The Effect of Managers' Experience Time in Hotel Industry on the Perception on the Use of Internet Use

When it comes to the effect of managers' experience in hotel industry in their perceptions, it was not identified significant variables related to the efficiency of the Internet, access to the Internet and difficulties in its use. The effect of managers' hotel experience on the use of the Internet for communication had the following significant variables using ANOVA: the importance of the Internet to communicate with employees, guests and suppliers. From Table 6, it was observed that the ANOVA test also found a variable with a significance level below 0.05: the Internet facilitates the relationship with the client in terms of its benefits.

Table 6: Effect of managers experience time on their perception

IMPORTANCE OF INTERNET USE	Less than 5 years	6 to 15 years	Over 16 years	F-value	P
Mean
Efficiency
Improving hotel marketing and advertising	4.79	4.87	4.83	0,155	0,857
Making reservations	4.71	4.80	4.17	2,376	0,109
Assessing competition	4.29	4.27	4.00	0,205	0,816
Training employees	3.79	4.00	3.17	1,104	0,344
Internet Access
Enabling Internet access for the Manager	5.00	4.67	4.83	1,267	0,296
Enabling Internet access for the Guests	4.79	4.60	4.67	0,554	0,580
Enabling Internet access for the Employees	3.50	2.93	2.17	2,723	0,081
Mean of Communication [a]
Communicating with guests	4.79	4.60	4.17	3,792	0,033[a]
Communicating with central office	4.79	4.53	4.17	2.413	0.106
Communicating with suppliers	4.36	3.73	3.50	3.842	0.032[a]
Communicating with employees	2.64	2.60	1.17	3.392	0.046[a]
Benefits[a]
Increasing hotel advertising and marketing on local and global media.	4.64	4.87	4.83	0.351	0.706
Increasing hotel reservations and sales	4.64	4.80	4.83	0.306	0.738
Improving client service by providing hotel information	4.79	4.40	4.83	3.254	0.052
Reducing hotel costs	4.64	4.60	4.33	0.558	0.578
Improving hotel image and facilitating the consolidation of its name/brand	4.14	4.47	4.50	0.886	0.422
Increase competition (Competition with hotels from other places)	4.50	4.27	4.17	0.649	0.529
Facilitating relationship with the client	4.71	4.20	3.67	4.776	0.015[a]
Allowing greater knowledge on the client	4.43	4.00	4.00	1.416	0.257
Difficulties
Cost and time required for installing Internet in the hotel	3.07	3.73	3.67	0.656	0.526
Clients and employees are not used to using IT	3.86	3.33	3.33	0.539	0.588
Need of Training for employees who do not know the web	2.93	3.13	2.33	0.611	0.549
Client suspicious of using the Internet	2.64	2.67	2.17	0.310	0.735
Safety and trust of data in Internet ambient	2.93	2.13	2.67	1.014	0.374
Waste of time due to the use of Internet by employees for personal purposes	3.00	2.67	2.67	0.181	0.836
Specialized labor cost	2.36	2.67	1.83	1.019	0.372
Complex Internet management	1.93	2.13	2.50	0.334	0.719
[a]Variable with significance p<0.05

The Tukey test also indicated that managers with less than five years experience in hotel industry consider the use more important to use the Web to communicate with employees, guests and suppliers, rather than their colleagues who have over five years of experienced in the area. Through the Tukey test, it was also concluded that managers who have less than five years of hotel experience think the use of the Internet facilitates the relationship with the client far more than the more experienced managers.

Effect of Hotel Rate on the Perception of Internet Use

The ANOVA test has found no significant result relating the effect of hotel rating to the efficiency of, access to , and difficulties of the Internet. However, as it shown on Table 7, the ANOVA test applied to the benefits of the Internet to the hotel has found a variable with a significance level below 0.05: Internet use does improve the service to clients by providing information of the hotel through its web page and e-mail. From the Tukey test, managers of luxurious hotels consider it more important to use the Internet to improve service to the client rather than economy-class hotel managers.

Table 7: Effect of hotel rate on the perception of managers

IMPORTANCE OF INTERNET USE	Simple	Medium comfort	Luxury	F-value	P
Mean
Efficiency
Improving hotel marketing and advertising	4.79	4.92	4.78	0.471	0.629
Making reservations	4.79	4.50	4.67	0.633	0.537
Assessing competition	4.29	4.33	4.00	0.351	0.707
Training employees	3.93	3.25	4.22	2.136	0.135
Internet Access
Enabling Internet access for the Manager	4.64	4.92	5.00	1.327	0.279
Enabling Internet access for the Guests	4.50	4.75	4.89	2.179	0.130
Enabling Internet access for the Employees	2.86	3.33	2.89	0.531	0.593
Mean of Communication [a]
Communicating with guests	4.29	4.83	4.78	6.108	0.006[a]
Communicating with central office	4.36	4.83	4.56	2.116	0.137
Communicating with suppliers	3.93	3.58	4.44	3.381	0.047[a]
Communicating with employees	1.57	2.67	3.22	6.056	0.006[a]
Benefits[a]
Increasing hotel advertising and marketing on local and global media.	4.86	4.58	4.89	0.595	0.558
Increasing hotel reservations and sales	4.71	4.67	4.89	0.352	0.706
Improving client service by providing hotel information	4.36	4.67	5.00	6.232	0.005[a]
Reducing hotel costs	4.64	4.50	4.56	0.174	0.841
Improving hotel image and facilitating the consolidation of its name/brand	4.36	4.25	4.44	0.180	0.836
Increase competition (Competition with hotels from other places)	4.14	4.50	4.44	1.017	0.373
Facilitating relationship with the client	4.29	4.50	4.11	0.615	0.547
Allowing greater knowledge on the client	4.00	4.42	4.11	1.048	0.362
Difficulties
Cost and time required for installing Internet in the hotel	3.21	3.33	4.00	0.689	0.509
Clients and employees are not used to using IT	3.14	3.50	4.22	1.597	0.218
Need of Training for employees who do not know the web	2.50	2.67	3.89	2.966	0.066
Client suspicious of using the Internet	2.71	2.08	3.00	1.329	0.279
Safety and trust of data in Internet ambient	2.36	3.08	2.11	1.241	0.302
Waste of time due to the use of Internet by employees for personal purposes	2.57	2.92	3.00	0.244	0.785
Specialized labor cost	2.00	2.92	2.33	1.953	0.158
Complex Internet management	1.86	2.33	2.22	0.390	0.680
[a]Variable with significance p<0.05

Besides the variables mentioned above, three variables showed significant results in the study on the use of the Internet for communication: the importance of the Internet to communicate with employees, guests and suppliers. Through the Tukey test, luxurious hotel managers (comfortable, very comfortable and luxurious) consider it more important to use the Web to communicate with employees rather than medium-comfort and simple hotel managers. The test also determined that medium-comfortable hotel managers consider the Internet as a more important tool to communicate with guests than simple hotels. On the other hand, medium-comfort hotel managers consider the Internet less important to communicate with suppliers than luxurious hotel managers.

Effect on the Number of Rooms in the Perception of Internet Use

The effect of the number of hotel rooms in the perception of the managers showed no significant variable related to efficiency, communication, benefits and difficulties. According to Table 8, the ANOVA test identified only one variable that has a significance level below 0.05 in relation to the number of hotel rooms: the importance of Internet access for the managers themselves.

Table 8: Effect of the number of rooms in the perception of managers

IMPORTANCE OF INTERNET USE	Less than 50 rooms	51 to 100	101 to 150	Over 151 rooms	F-value P
Mean
Efficiency
Improving hotel marketing and advertising	4.86	4.82	4.80	4.86	0.043	0.988
Making reservations	4.86	4.55	4.60	4.71	0.364	0.779
Assessing competition	4.14	4.64	4.30	3.57	2.030	0.130
Training employees	3.43	4.00	3.90	3.57	0.430	0.733
Internet Access [a]
Enabling Internet access for the Manager	4.29	4.91	5.00	5.00	3.264	0.030[a]
Enabling Internet access for the Guests	4.43	4.73	4.80	4.71	0.922	0.441
Enabling Internet access for the Employees	2.86	3.27	2.80	3.14	0.296	0.828
Mean of Communication
Communicating with guests	4.57	4.73	4.40	4.71	0.903	0.451
Communicating with central office	4.57	4.73	4.50	4.43	0.393	0.759
Communicating with suppliers	3.86	4.09	3.80	4.00	0.251	0.860
Communicating with employees	2.43	2.36	2.20	2.57	0.104	0.957
Benefits
Increasing hotel advertising and marketing on local and global media.	4.86	5.00	4.50	4.71	0.853	0.476
Increasing hotel reservations and sales	5.00	4.45	4.80	4.86	1.387	0.265
Improving client service by providing hotel information	4.43	4.64	4.70	4.71	0.508	0.679
Reducing hotel costs	4.57	4.64	4.40	4.71	0.413	0.745
Improving hotel image and facilitating the consolidation of its name/brand	4.57	4.27	4.20	4.43	0.405	0.750
Increase competition (Competition with hotels from other places)	3.86	4.64	4.30	4.43	2.087	0.122
Facilitating relationship with the client	4.29	4.64	4.10	4.14	0.949	0.429
Allowing greater knowledge on the client	4.29	4.27	4.00	4.14	0.282	0.838
Difficulties
Cost and time required for installing Internet in the hotel	3.57	2.73	3.60	4.29	1.457	0.245
Clients and employees are not used to using IT	3.14	3.27	3.90	3.86	0.602	0.619
Need of Training for employees who do not know the web	2.57	2.82	3.10	3.14	0.231	0.874
Client suspicious of using the Internet	2.29	2.55	2.90	2.43	0.306	0.821
Safety and trust of data in Internet ambient	2.57	3.09	2.40	1.86	0.978	0.416
Waste of time due to the use of Internet by employees for personal purposes	3.14	2.73	2.30	3.29	0.662	0.582
Specialized labor cost	2.71	2.36	2.10	2.57	0.385	0.764
Complex Internet management	2.29	1.45	2.80	2.00	1.751	0.177
[a]Variable with significance p<0.05

Through the Tukey analysis, it was validated that managers in hotels with more than 100 rooms consider their access to the Internet more important than in a smaller hotel (less than 100 rooms).