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What does the consumer want from a DMO website? A study of US and Canadian tourists' perspectives
Author(s) -
Choi Soojin,
Lehto Xinran Y.,
Oleary Joseph T.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
international journal of tourism research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.155
H-Index - 58
eISSN - 1522-1970
pISSN - 1099-2340
DOI - 10.1002/jtr.594
Subject(s) - tourism , marketing , business , preference , information overload , consumption (sociology) , destination marketing , advertising , consumer information , consumer behaviour , quality (philosophy) , information quality , e commerce , information system , destinations , sociology , economics , political science , world wide web , computer science , social science , philosophy , epistemology , law , microeconomics
Destination marketing organisations (DMOs) are facing intriguing challenges to provide quality information online in an era of information overload. Insufficient knowledge of tourist's online information preferences and search behaviour has hindered them from effective information management. This research aimed to examine consumers' perspectives of the information role of the DMOs and their preferences and attitudes towards what constitute engaging and relevant Web contents and functionalities for a DMO website. The results suggested that tourists' preference of information content varied across the different levels of DMO websites (country, state/province and city). In addition, the study revealed that travellers' information needs and behaviour change over the entire information consumption process, which include the before, during and post‐trip period. Implications for DMOs were discussed at the end. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.