Assessing the Visibility of Destination Marketing Organizations in Google: A Case Study of Convention and Visitor Bureau Websites in the United States

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 visitor bureau (CVB) 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 within 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 destinations.     

Store format choice in an evolving market: role of affect,cognition and involvement

Store choice has been studied extensively in the literature, but store format choice has had limited research attention. The store format choice for bulk grocery purchase being a rational context is well conceptualized in the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) framework. Attitude behaviour linkages are well explored but there is rare consensus on the components of attitude, their interrelationship and resultant impact on conation. The Theory of Reasoned Action has evolved over time to incorporate perceived behavioral control and past behavior to improve its explanatory capability as TPB; however, it has maintained its unidimensionalist approach and has not tested affect and cognition independently for its impact on behavior. This paper explores a Converging framework of the Affect and Cognition components of attitude and tests their independent impact on store format choice behaviour. The results indicate that Affect operates independently and has stronger impact on format choice especially in more evolved and familiarized contexts whereas cognitive evaluation is strong in relatively newer formats. There seems to be an interplay between Cognition and Affect over time with cognition transitioning into affect as familiarity with choices increases.     

Consuming the Self: New Age Spirituality as “Social Product” in Consumer Society

In the late twentieth century there has been a proliferation, diversification and popularisation of New Age spiritual discourses and practices in Western industrialised nations. New Age spiritual thinkers such a Deepak Chopra, Ken Wilber, Gary Zukav and Shakti Gawain, have modified discourse and practices from Eastern and Western traditional religious beliefs, Western science and psychotherapy, to develop their own discourse and practices designed to assist individuals “transform” themselves. This article discusses the “commodified production of self‐actualisation” in consumer society and discusses how the discourses and practices in selected texts from four New Age spiritual thinkers take the form of an ever‐changing “social product”. The analysis shows how the discourse and practices of New Age spiritual thinkers align themselves with consumptive behaviour by secularising, homogenising and over‐simplifying scientific, social scientific and traditional religious discourse and practices into “social products” for consumption. The analysis also reveals that New Age spiritual thinkers are engaged in a process that could be described as the “consumption of the self”. The implications of the “consumption of the self” will be discussed in terms of the way consumer society requires New Age “technologies of the self” to be continually redefined, restructured and repackaged in new and different forms.     

Working Weeks,Rave Weekends: Identity Fragmentation and the Emergence of New Communities

Popular music is one of the most ubiquitous forms of contemporary culture. This paper looks at the phenomenon known as rave or dance culture in Britain. It examines the nature of the consumer experience at a dance club through the use of a two stage methodology. Based on observations and the collection of phenomenological data, the findings suggest that the experience is linked to a series of behaviours, which are related to fragmentation and identity. These include narcissistic identity, the emergence of new communities, the need for escape, engagement and prolonged hedonism. The paper examines these concepts in relation to postmodern consumption. In particular, an evaluation of postmodern theory and its focus on fragmentation and the project of the self is offered, by arguing for a return to "community".     

Multi‐dimensional search: choosing the right path

This article seeks to analyse processes of decision‐making where multiple costly observations can be made about individual decision outcomes. It presents a simple model of a decision in which information is collected sequentially. Most economic models of sequential collection of costly information have focused on price‐search. It is argued that this is a very specialized type of search. This has led such models to focus on the issue of when search should stop. The article attempts to show how the principles of sequential search can be applied to other types of problems, such as innovation, where the choice of path is also of central concern.     

审计人员行为的经济学假设分析

从审计的发展历史来看,审计学无疑是受着经济学发展的影响。经济学的一些基本理论都对审计有着指导作用。经济学的经济假设也是如此,整个经济学的大厦都是建立在几个基本的经济假设基础上的。本文拟从经济学的三大经典假设:有限理性的经济人假设、信息的不完备与不对称假设、机会主义行为假设来对审计人员的行为作一个经济分析。在本文最后进行了简短的小结,并且有针对性地对基于三个经济学假设的审计行为规范提出了三项政策建议。     

Choice and success of job search methods

Job seekers influence the arrival rate of job offers by the choice of search effort and the search methods they use. In this paper we empirically investigate the effect of different search methods on search outcomes. We use unique data on the search behavior of job seekers in Austria, which matches survey information with administrative records. We analyze the quality of job matches in terms of wages and job durations for employed and unemployed workers. We find that the public employment office specializes in the support of low quality workers. For them it is equally efficient as other search channels.     

权变视角下知识搜索平衡与企业创新绩效关系研究

基于组织双元性理论,探讨知识搜索平衡与企业创新绩效的关系,并进一步考察环境动态性和环境竞争性的调节作用。基于苏南地区158家企业问卷调查数据展开实证研究,结果表明：知识搜索联合平衡正向影响企业创新绩效,环境动态性在其中起负向调节作用;知识搜索匹配平衡正向影响企业创新绩效,环境竞争性在其中起正向调节作用。     

Keyword Selection Strategies in Search Engine Optimization: How Relevant is Relevance?

We build an empirical framework using search queries and organic click data which provides model-based guidance to SEO practitioners for keyword selection and web content creation. Specifically, we study how search characteristics (search query popularity, search query competition, search query specificity, and search intent) and website characteristics (content relevance and online authority) interact to affect the expected organic clicks as well as the organic rank a website receives from the search engine result page (SERP). It is often thought that content relevance is a key factor to improve the effectiveness of SEO. We find, however, that content relevance is an important factor in driving organic clicks only when the consumer is farther along in the customer journey and searching for ways to purchase a product. Whereas, when the customer is at the awareness stage and looking for product information, online authority is the key driver of organic clicks.     

企业外部知识搜索能力影响因素研究

外部知识搜索能力成为影响企业开放式创新绩效的关键。通过对企业知识搜索能力影响因素文献的梳理,以整合的思维,从宏观环境层、中观情境层及微观主体层系统归纳了影响外部知识搜索能力的诸因素,分析了各层次因素间的交互效应,构建了企业外部知识搜索能力影响因素模型。