Evaluating Destination Communications on the Internet

This chapter provides an overview of different approaches for the evaluation of destination communications on the Internet, and in particular two recent proposals: UsERA—User Experience Risk Assessment model, which attempts to provide a comprehensive approach to usability; and DORM—Destination Online Reputation Model, which provides a framework to map online narratives about a destination.

Abstract

Several approaches have been proposed to describe and evaluate online communication of tourist destinations, ranging from content analysis/benchmark, usability, web-analytics, marketing and PR, localization studies. With the advent of so-called Web2.0, and in particular of user generated contents and e-word-of-mouth, they have been complemented by the analysis of the online narratives covering the destinations themselves in all their facets. Such studies encompass content and sentiment analysis, as well as argumentation analysis, so as to unveil what is said by travelers about a given destination, with which evaluation, and based on which values. Such analyses have also gone beyond the verbal code, including pictures and videos. This chapter provides an overview of different approaches for the evaluation of destination communications on the Internet, and in particular two recent proposals: UsERA—User Experience Risk Assessment Model, which attempts to provide a comprehensive approach to usability; and DORM—Destination Online Reputation Model, which provides a framework to map online narratives about a destination. Cases of online communication and presence of two tourism destinations are presented in order to describe and clarify the two approaches.