Web presence strategy model

Session 2d, 27 October 2010 eChallenges e-2010 Copyright 2010 eTourism research group
Towards a Web 2.0 presence model
for tourism destination management
organizations*
Luisa Mich
eTourism research group
Dept. of Computer and Management Sciences
University of Trento, Italy
*Mich, L., Towards a Web 2.0 presence model for tourism destination management organizations, eChallenges, 2010
pp.1,8, 27-29 Oct. 2011, http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=5756589&isnumber=5756493

Motivation
•  Web presence is the exploitation of the variety of
spaces available on the Web
•  Web 2.0 largely extended the types of Web
presences for an organization
–  Institutional websites vs. blogs, wikis, social platforms,
podcasts, forums
•  Traditional marketing and branding scenarios must
be revised

The context
•  Tourism generates more than 5% of the EU GDP (more
than 10% taking into account related sectors)
•  More and more tourists refer to the Web and to UGC rather
than to traditional channels to decide where to spend
vacations or to reserve related services
•  Social media use among travellers is growing far faster than
the travel industry itself: unique monthly visitors to social
travel sites jumped 34% between the first half of 2008 and
the last half of 2009
•  In Europe, online travel sales reached 65.2 billion euro in
2009 - or 25.7% of the market (up from 39.7 billion euro, or
16% in 2006)

•  Which of the following do you use most frequently
when travelling?
- Mobile maps: 56% (US) and 63% (non-US)
- Social networks: 38% (US) and 64% (non-US)
- Virtual/3D tourism: 30% (US) and 27% (non-US)
- Blogs: 32% (US) and 22% (non-US)
- Podcasts: 9% (US) and 7% (non-US)
- Virtual worlds: 0% (US) and 10% (non-US)
- RSS feeds: 7% (US) and 11% (non-US)
(tnooz.com, August 2010)

Research Objectives
•  Support an organization (DMO) in decision making
about its Web presence strategies
•  Provide a model to analyze the characteristics of
different forms of Web presence
•  Investigate the applicability of this model
•  Elaborate guidelines and recommendations for
improving Web presences of DMOs

Methodology
•  An organization’s Web presence is determined by
the online spaces occupied
•  Online presence is classified according to the level
of control
•  An effective Web presence must consider all and
only those spaces necessary for the organization’s
strategies
•  Web presence must be evaluated on a cost-benefit
analysis

Methodology
1. Official spaces
–  Web 1.0 presences, i.e., official websites
2. Semi-official spaces
–  Web 2.0 presences with partial control, e.g., YouTube
brand channel, fan pages on Facebook, a profile on
Twitter, wikis, Web communities, micro-sites, etc.
3. Spaces beyond the organization’s control
–  Uncontrolled Web 2.0 spaces, e.g., social networks,
independent blogs, forums, podcasts, etc. (UGC)

Application of the
Web 2.0 Presence Model
Application scope: DMOs of European countries
•  Step1: Analysis of the official spaces
–  URLs of official websites were retrieved from the
European Tourism website www.visiteurope.com
–  Application of the 7Loci meta-model for analysis of the
website quality

DMO Creation date Website quality
Germany May 2000 Medium
France February 1996 High
Spain August 2001 High
UK April 1997 Very high
Italy July 2009 Low
Sweden May 2000 Very high
Netherlands April 1995 Very high
Poland March 2008 Medium
Norway March 1998 High
Austria July 2001 High
Switzerland February 1999 Very high
Greece April 2002 Low
Finland September 1999 High
Portugal November 2001 Low
Application of the

•  Step 2: Analysis of spaces under partial control
–  Focus on the DMOs’ presences in:
•  Facebook
•  Twitter
•  YouTube
–  Outcomes
•  10 DMOs have a Facebook fan page with less than
2,000 fans
•  9 DMOs are present on Twitter, only 1 has a large
number of followers
•  10 DMOs have a brand channel on YouTubes
Application of the

•  Step 3: Analysis of spaces beyond the control
–  A preliminary study of UGM about Eurorean DMOs on
social networks
–  Outcomes show
•  For all DMOs we found a large number of posts and
comments
•  Negative relation between the quality of website and
the number of tourist pages on Facebook due to the
face presences created by booking companies or to
criticize tourism strategies
Application of the

Results
Three profiles of DMOs identified (May 2010)
1. First movers
–  High and medium quality websites
–  Comprehensive Web presence on main social networks
–  Well developed websites created in 1997-2001
2. Followers
–  Good quality websites
–  Scarce presence on social networks or no Web 2.0 presence at all
3. Fast followers?
–  Medium or low quality
–  Only Portugal has a Web presence on all social networks studied

Conclusion and outlook
•  Interesting findings
–  There is a relationship between the experience acquired by DMO
with the website quality and its presences on Web 2.0 spaces
–  Few DMOs have online communities on their websites
–  Incoherent graphical identity of DMOs
–  Underuse of RSS feeds, widgets and applications
•  Future work
–  A more comprehensive analysis of DMOs Web presences taking
into account tourist strategies
–  Investigation of emerging trends for Web 2.0 spaces

THANK YOU!
Feedback and questions: Luisa.Mich@unitn.it
This work is a part of an ongoing collaboration with
Nicola Zeni, Nadia Kiyavitskaya and
the eTourism research group of the University of Trento

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