Evaluation of DMO Web Sites Through Interregional Tourism Portals: A European Cities Tourism Case Example.

This paper demonstrates the applicability of tourism portals as an analytical market research too! and a source for highly relevant comparative management information for destination marketing organizations (DMOs). The case example outlined here focuses on the European Cities Tourism Portal, the B2C site developed by European Cities Tourism, a pan-European organization of more than 80 European city tourism organizations currently representing 31 European countries. The use of web content mining and web usage mining tools for the development of inter-regional tourism portals is proposed. Along with a comprehensive description of the conceptual approach, the paper provides detailed information about the technical realization and experiences with the prototype version of the system. Finally it highlights a number of research issues that need further attention in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]