Interlinking E-Tourism and Marketing Science

Austrian National Bank

Within the wide range of the ‘experience economy’ the project’s focus is on innovative means for evaluating tourist cities in terms of non-factual, emotional (affective), connotative attributes (often summarized as destination ‘image’). The project consists of a portfolio of mini-projects which fulfill the following functions:
P 1 reconstructs the supply-driven city images as they emerge from how the cities position themselves on the Internet.
P 2 turns to the blogs reporting on the expectations and experiences of city travellers. It serves a pilot and feasibility purpose as it delivers the basics for developing a new blog platform under the control of the WU SCM and Tourism Research group.
P 3 explores the success potential of combining IT-centered research on Human Computer Interfaces with behavioral science applications in a specific sector such as city travellers’ emotional response to visual material related to tourism/leisure activities.
P 4 aims at calibrating a tailor-made measurement tool by building on previous results elaborated in country image studies at WU.