Representation of the Online Tourism Domain in Search Engines Export

@article{citeulike:3578929, abstract = {With the growing importance of the Internet for travel planning, understanding the online domain of tourism is vital in order to identify the challenges and potential solutions for effectively marketing travel destinations. This study focuses attention on understanding the representation of the tourism domain on the Internet. Analyses of search results from a major search engine were conducted in order to assess: 1) the visibility of destination-related information; 2) the visibility of various industry sectors within destinations; and 3) the power structure of websites that represent a specific destination. The results show that although there is a huge amount of information indexed, travelers can only access a tiny fraction of the domain. Also, there are a relatively small number of websites dominating the search results. This study provides a number of important insights into the challenges facing the tourism industry with respect to representing a destination online. 10.1177/0047287508321193}, author = {Xiang, Zheng and Wober, Karl and Fesenmaier, Daniel R.}, citeulike-article-id = {3578929}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://jtr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/47/2/137}, day = {1}, journal = {Journal of Travel Research}, month = {November}, number = {2}, pages = {137--150}, posted-at = {2008-11-19 19:23:05}, priority = {2}, title = {Representation of the Online Tourism Domain in Search Engines}, url = {http://jtr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/47/2/137}, volume = {47}, year = {2008} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:3578929 L3 - citeulike-article-id:3578929 N2 - With the growing importance of the Internet for travel planning, understanding the online domain of tourism is vital in order to identify the challenges and potential solutions for effectively marketing travel destinations. This study focuses attention on understanding the representation of the tourism domain on the Internet. Analyses of search results from a major search engine were conducted in order to assess: 1) the visibility of destination-related information; 2) the visibility of various industry sectors within destinations; and 3) the power structure of websites that represent a specific destination. The results show that although there is a huge amount of information indexed, travelers can only access a tiny fraction of the domain. Also, there are a relatively small number of websites dominating the search results. This study provides a number of important insights into the challenges facing the tourism industry with respect to representing a destination online. 10.1177/0047287508321193 IS - 2 JF - Journal of Travel Research EP - 150 TI - Representation of the Online Tourism Domain in Search Engines VL - 47 SP - 137 AU - Xiang, Zheng AU - Wober, Karl AU - Fesenmaier, Daniel PY - 2008/11/01/ UR - http://jtr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/47/2/137 ER -