Assessing the Visibility of Destination Marketing Organizations in Google: A Case Study of Convention and Visitors Bureau Websites in the United States Running Head Title: Visibility of DMO Websites in Google Zheng Xiang* School of Merchandising and Hospitality Management University of North Texas Denton, TX 76203-5017, USA Telephone: 1-940-369-7680 Fax: 1-940-565-4348 Email: [email protected]Bing Pan Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management School of Business and Economics College of Charleston, Charleston, SC 29424-001, USA Telephone: 1-843-953-2025 Fax: 1-843-953-5697 E-mail: [email protected]Rob Law School of Hotel and Tourism Management Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong Telephone: 852-2766-6349 Fax: 852-2362-9362 Email: [email protected]Daniel R. Fesenmaier National Laboratory for Tourism & eCommerce School of Tourism and Hospitality Management Temple University, Philadelphia, PA 19122, USA Fellow, International Academy for the Study of Tourism Visiting Fellow, Inst. for Innovation in Business and Social Research (IIBSoR) University of Wollongong, Australia Telephone: 1- 215-204-5612 Fax: 1-215-204-8705 Email: [email protected]Submitted for consideration for publication in the Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing *: correspondence author
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Assessing the Visibility of Destination Marketing Organizations in Google: A Case Study of Convention and Visitors Bureau Websites in the United States
Running Head Title: Visibility of DMO Websites in Google
Zheng Xiang*
School of Merchandising and Hospitality Management University of North Texas
Denton, TX 76203-5017, USA Telephone: 1-940-369-7680
Submitted for consideration for publication in the Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing
*: correspondence author
Assessing the Visibility of Destination Marketing Organizations in Google: A Case Study of Convention and Visitors Bureau Websites in the United States
ABSTRACT
Search engines are playing an increasingly dominant role in providing access to tourism
information on the Internet. As such, it is argued that destination marketing organizations
(DMOs) must have a substantial understanding of the visibility in search engines in order to
create competitive positions within this important marketplace. The goal of this study was to
develop a process to assess the visibility of DMO websites in one of the major search engines
(i.e., Google). A set of 18 cities in the United States were selected to be used as case studies of
the visibility of their convention and visitors bureaus’ (CVBs) websites in relation to travel
queries identified using Google Adwords Keyword Tool. The results indicate that there are
substantial differences in the relative positions of CVB websites on Google. In particular, there
seems to be huge gaps among the search domains wherein CVB websites in terms of their
visibility to online travelers and volume of search within those domains. This study offers a
number of implications for research and practice of search engine marketing for tourism
Assessing the Visibility of Destination Marketing Organizations in Google: A Case Study of Convention and Visitors Bureau Websites in the United States
INTRODUCTION
Search engines have become a dominant tool for accessing travel products on the Internet
in that they play a central role in bridging the supply and demand of tourism by enabling
travelers to access enormous amount of information online and, as a result, generating upstream
traffic and direct bookings for many tourism and hospitality websites (eMarketer, 2008; Hopkins,
2008; Prescott, 2006; TIA, 2005, 2008). As such, search engines have become one of the most
important strategic tools for destinations and businesses to compete for consumers’ attention on
the Internet and to engage in direct conversations with their potential customers (Google, 2006;
Moran & Hunt, 2005; Wang & Fesenmaier, 2006). It is generally understood that search engines
like Google and Yahoo! have inherently built-in limitations in representing a large information
domain (Henzinger, 2007). Search results are usually represented in the form of rank ordered
information snippets on the search engine results pages (SERPs), which provides a powerful
structure that determines, to a large degree, what is presented and therefore, what is seen by users.
Also, a series of studies within travel and tourism by Wöber (2006), Pan et al. (2007), Xiang,
Wöber and Fesenmaier (2008), and Xiang, Gretzel and Fesenmaier (2009) indicate that search
engines do not represent the domain of tourism as desired by the suppliers. However, this
information can be used by destination marketing organizations (DMOs) to gain a competitive
position in search engines. Thus from a marketing viewpoint, it is extremely important to
understand the extent to which tourism websites are visible to travelers when they are looking for
travel related information.
Given the role of search engines in destination marketing, the goal of this study was to to
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assess the visibility of DMO websites in search engines in order to understand the current
competitive positions of these organizations. Specifically, this study employed a method that
extracts information describing the visibility of a sample of American convention and visitor
bureau (CVB) websites in one of the major search engines, i.e., Google. This paper is organized
into five sections. Followed by the Introduction, the Research Background section reviews
relevant literature and provides the rationale for the present study. The Research Methods section
explains the design of the research process and addresses the validity of the methodology. The
Findings section provides the description and summary of study results. Then, the Discussion
section summarizes this paper and discusses the implications for both theory development and
managerial practices as well as the limitations of the study and directions for future research.
SEARCH ENGINES AND WEBSITE VISIBILITY
In order to successfully promote their products to potential visitors, tourism destinations
must make sure relevant information is made visible and accessible (Buhalis, 2000; Connolly,
Fesenmaier, 2000). Search engines are important as they play a critical role in bridging the
supply and demand of tourism. As such, their visibility in major search engines such as Google
has profound implications for the success of any destination marketing effort. This study the
visibility of 18 American CVB websites based upon search results retrieved from Google using
real, current queries for these cities collected from Google Adwords Keyword Tool. The results
show that the search domain for information related to a tourist destination is huge, which
reflects the current status of Google as the number one search engine on the Internet. Potentially
travel-related queries constitute only a small fraction of all queries. The analysis of DMO
website visibility also showed that some (a limited number of) CVB website occurrences on
SERPs provide by Google were located on the first SERP, which may indicate that relatively few
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DMOs developed effective search engine marketing practices. Finally, there appear to be huge
gaps among the focus of the CVB search engine marketing programs and the topical areas that
consumers search.
While exploratory in nature, this study offers a number of important implications for
understanding the structure and competitiveness of online tourism as well as for search engine
marketing for destinations. First, the examination of queries about cities extracted from Google
Adwords Keyword Tool further confirms the structure of demand side of the online tourism
domain. While to a certain extent the results are consistent with previous findings (Wöber, 2006;
Xiang, Gretzel et al., 2009; Xiang & Pan, 2009), this study reveals that online consumers’
information needs are focused primarily on a handful of activities related to tourism; these
include accommodations, attractions, activities, and dining. Also, these queries are constructed
predominantly for a utilitarian purpose (i.e., not related to emotions or feelings). In contrast with
previous research, although there might be a long tail of queries with low frequencies, this long
tail is likely to be very thin (i.e., members of the long tail will have extremely low frequencies)
(Anderson, 2006). In addition, a large portion of queries about cities is directly constructed in the
form of either the city name or the city name plus the state name. While it is impossible to
confirm whether these queries are directly travel related, it seems very likely that many travelers
actually start with these general terms and then move to more specific aspects during the search
process.
Second, this study contributes to the literature of online tourism marketing by devising a
process to assess the visibility of DMOs on the Internet. Tourism marketing is becoming
increasingly dependent upon new technologies that support and enable DMOs to connect with
visitors (Buhalis & Law, 2008). While organizations are constantly adopting and implementing
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new applications and techniques (Wang & Fesenmaier, 2006), tourism research is, perhaps,
behind the curve of the practice of technology use in terms of the capability to provide directions
and guidance for the industry. This study builds upon previous studies on travelers’ use of search
engines for trip planning (e.g., Wöber, 2006; Xiang, Gretzel et al., 2009; Xiang & Pan, 2009;
Xiang, Wöber et al., 2008) and represents the first attempt to examine to the visibility of
destination websites – one of the key aspects of search engine marketing for destination
marketing organizations. The devised process represents a methodologically sound approach
which enables destination marketing organizations to measure the effectiveness of their search
engine marketing program.
Third, the analysis of CVB website visibility further demonstrates the overall level of
competitiveness in search engines like Google and possible challenges DMOs are facing when
making their information available to travelers online. Considering among hundreds and
thousands of search results retrieved by Google, the 18 CVBs only occurred less than one
percent along with all search results on the first three SERPs. In addition, less than one third of
all these occurrences took place among the top three search results on the first SEPR. While this
indicates that today’s Internet, indeed, offers consumers with abundance of choices, it also
creates huge challenges for DMOs to attract and engage consumers in a very short time span
(Kim & Fesenmaier, 2008). Generally speaking, DMO websites are not necessarily seen by
Google as the primary information source for online travelers.
Finally, this study offers a number of managerial implications for DMOs to improve their
search engine marketing programs. There are several recent studies that emphasize the utility of
the long tail in tourism marketing (Anderson, 2006; Lew, 2008; Xiang, Pan, & Fesenmaier,
2008). However, the analysis of Google queries in this study reveals the dominance of the hits
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(i.e., search terms with high frequencies) in the distribution of potentially travel related queries in
search engines. While a long tail might still exist, it is questionable whether the investment in
making sure the DMO website is visible to queries in this long tail is valuable and worthwhile.
Additionally, the analysis shows that are important gaps in the search areas wherein
DMO websites are visible in relation to search volume in these areas. While this may reflect the
actual outcome of DMOs’ rational and conscious choice in investing in these areas, it might also
indicate potential strategic misses of opportunities whereby they may potentially have a higher
impact, e.g., in terms of generating more impressions and hits by investing in those high volume
search areas. This suggests DMOs may need to re-plan their strategies when choosing and
targeting the segments in the search market.
Finally, this study clearly shows that that the visibility of CVB sites varies considerably
across destinations. For example, it is quite interesting to see that CVB websites of some of the
middle-sized cities, e.g., Fort Worth and Chattanooga, have higher visibility in Google while the
opposite is true for more touristic places like Las Vegas and Orlando. The visibility also varies
substantially among large metropolitan areas, as in the cases of New York City vs. Dallas.
Although this study cannot determine whether this should be attributed to the level of
competitiveness of the information domain for a specific city or it is an outcome of the online
marketing efforts by a specific CVB, it provides DMOs sufficient motivations for planning for
their search engine marketing strategies.
This study has a number of important limitations. First, the 18 American cities (and the
CVB and their destination marketing websites) were selected as cases from potentially hundreds
and thousands of cities (or other tourist destinations). Second, this study employed a cross
sectional examination of what consumers search for and how one of the most important search
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engines responds to consumers’ queries. As a result, the richness and dynamics in the online
search world was not fully captured, and variables such as seasonality could have a huge impact
on the results. As such, the findings of this study should be interpreted with caution. Third, the
data used in this study were collected through a secondary source, i.e., Google Adwords
Keyword Tool. User queries were provided based upon their frequencies in Google and,
consequentially, there was very little contextual information about the nature of these queries.
Content coding of these queries was done independently to decide whether a specific term was,
indeed, related to travel. This could have left more room for errors. Fourth, this study focused
primarily on the rankings of CVB websites among Google search results. The results of their
visibility cannot be attributed to their search engine marketing effectiveness because of the
potentially different levels of competitiveness within these search domains. In addition, it must
be pointed out that ranking and visibility, while extremely important, should not be the only
focus for search engine marketing for destinations. As shown in several recent studies (Kim &
Fesenmaier, 2008; Xiang, Kim, & Fesenmaier, 2009), persuasive communication can have a
huge impact on travelers’ perception of the relevance of information contained in search engine
results as well.
Nonetheless, it is argued that this study provides a meaningful understanding of the
visibility of DMO websites in search engines, and therefore, useful insights into DMOs’ search
engine marketing programs. There are a number of areas of interest for future research in order
to improve the generalizablility of this stream of research, and potentially, lead to better theory
construction. For example, the visibility issue should be explored further across a number of
search engines (e.g., Yahoo! and Ask.com) in order to assess the consistency of these tools.
Second, a longitudinal analysis of the change in website rankings is also important so as to fully
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document the dynamics of search on the Internet. Finally, a more generalizable set of metrics
need to be established in order to evaluate the visibility and effectiveness of DMOs’ search
engine marketing efforts across different destinations.
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