An analysis of the key factors affecting the success of a re-launched destination marketing website in the UK

Business Information Systems e-Commerce/e-business Computer Appl. in Social and Behavioral Sciences Marketing Information Systems Applications (incl. Internet)This paper presents a case study of the re-launch of a DMO website in the UK. It evaluates the perceived usability of the new website and identifies the key factors affecting customers’ intention to use the new website. A large-scale online survey was developed to understand a number of issues relating to usability (e.g. aesthetics, effectiveness) and psychological and behavioural indicators (e.g. perceived trustworthiness and intent to use). Both quantitative and qualitative data was analysed to understand users’ perceptions, behaviour and attitudes towards the re-launched website. A Structural Equation Model (SEM) was developed to identify the factors affecting their intention to use the new website. The SEM model identified the impact of a variety of factors on intention to use and the descriptive analysis, using both qualitative and quantitative data, highlights further areas of research

Describing Scholarly Works with Dublin Core: A Functional Approach

This article describes the development of the Scholarly Works Application Profile (SWAP)—a Dublin Core application profile for describing scholarly texts. This work provides an active illustration of the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI) “Singapore Framework” for Application Profiles, presented at the DCMI Conference in 2007, by incorporating the various elements of Application Profile building as defined by this framework—functional requirements, domain model, description set profile, usage guidelines, and data format. These elements build on the foundations laid down by the Dublin Core Abstract Model and utilize a preexisting domain model (FR-BR—Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records) in order to support the representation of complex data describing multiple entities and their relationships. The challenges of engaging community acceptance and implementation will be covered, along with other related initiatives to support the growing corpus of scholarly resource types, such as data objects, geographic data, multimedia, and images whose structure and metadata requirements introduce the need for new application profiles. Finally, looking to other initiatives, the article will comment on how Dublin Core relates to the broader scholarly information world, where projects like Object Re-use and Exchange are attempting to better equip repositories to exchange resources

Destination image analytics through traveller-generated content

The explosion of content generated by users, in parallel with the spectacular growth of social media and the proliferation of mobile devices, is causing a paradigm shift in research. Surveys or interviews are no longer necessary to obtain users' opinions, because researchers can get this information freely on social media. In the field of tourism, online travel reviews (OTRs) hosted on travel-related websites stand out. The objective of this article is to demonstrate the usefulness of OTRs to analyse the image of a tourist destination. For this, a theoretical and methodological framework is defined, as well as metrics that allow for measuring different aspects (designative, appraisive and prescriptive) of the tourist image. The model is applied to the region of Attica (Greece) through a random sample of 300,000 TripAdvisor OTRs about attractions, activities, restaurants and hotels written in English between 2013 and 2018. The results show trends, preferences, assessments, and opinions from the demand side, which can be useful for destination managers in optimising the distribution of available resources and promoting sustainability

A novel Big Data analytics and intelligent technique to predict driver's intent

Modern age offers a great potential for automatically predicting the driver's intent through the increasing miniaturization of computing technologies, rapid advancements in communication technologies and continuous connectivity of heterogeneous smart objects. Inside the cabin and engine of modern cars, dedicated computer systems need to possess the ability to exploit the wealth of information generated by heterogeneous data sources with different contextual and conceptual representations. Processing and utilizing this diverse and voluminous data, involves many challenges concerning the design of the computational technique used to perform this task. In this paper, we investigate the various data sources available in the car and the surrounding environment, which can be utilized as inputs in order to predict driver's intent and behavior. As part of investigating these potential data sources, we conducted experiments on e-calendars for a large number of employees, and have reviewed a number of available geo referencing systems. Through the results of a statistical analysis and by computing location recognition accuracy results, we explored in detail the potential utilization of calendar location data to detect the driver's intentions. In order to exploit the numerous diverse data inputs available in modern vehicles, we investigate the suitability of different Computational Intelligence (CI) techniques, and propose a novel fuzzy computational modelling methodology. Finally, we outline the impact of applying advanced CI and Big Data analytics techniques in modern vehicles on the driver and society in general, and discuss ethical and legal issues arising from the deployment of intelligent self-learning cars

Analyzing geographic query reformulation: an exploratory study

Search engine users typically engage in multiquery sessions in their quest to fulfill their information needs. Despite a plethora of research findings suggesting that a significant group of users look for information within a specific geographical scope, existing reformulation studies lack a focused analysis of how users reformulate geographic queries. This study comprehensively investigates the ways in which users reformulate such needs in an attempt to fill this gap in the literature. Reformulated sessions were sampled from a query log of a major search engine to extract 2,400 entries that were manually inspected to filter geo sessions. This filter identified 471 search sessions that included geographical intent, and these sessions were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. The results revealed that one in five of the users who reformulated their queries were looking for geographically related information. They reformulated their queries by changing the content of the query rather than the structure. Users were not following a unified sequence of modifications and instead performed a single reformulation action. However, in some cases it was possible to anticipate their next move. A number of tasks in geo modifications were identified, including standard, multi-needs, multi-places, and hybrid approaches. The research concludes that it is important to specialize query reformulation studies to focus on particular query types rather than generically analyzing them, as it is apparent that geographic queries have their special reformulation characteristics

Geographic Mobility in the European Union: Optimising its Economic and Social Benefits

One of the founding principles of the European Union is the freedom of movement of workers (Article 39 of the Treaty establishing the European Community). The free movement of workers is essential for the creation of an area without internal frontiers, and for the strength-ening of economic and social cohesion and active citizenship.Taking an economic perspective, geographic mobility can have major positive effects by bringing about economic growth in countries with labour deficits and prosperity in countries with labour surplus. Hence, the diffusion of skills through occupational and geographic mo-bility is a central factor to enhance the productive capacity of firms and put regions or na-tional economies on a higher growth path. Taking a social perspective, geographical mobility has the potential of fostering social-cultural integration in the European Union, and strength-ening European identity and inter-cultural networks

Factors Contributing to Participation in Web-based Surveys among Italian University Graduates

An established yearly survey aimed at monitoring the employment opportunities of Italian graduates, traditionally carried out with Cati methods, has been integrated during the last few years with Cawi. Cawi has become increasingly crucial due to the high number of graduates involved in the survey, which has mandated a reduction in fieldwork duration and unit costs. Although the seven Cawi surveys used here have different substantive and methodological characteristics, preliminary analysis reveals a common trend: the utmost participation is observed during the first few days immediately following initiation of fieldwork and, to a lesser degree, the delivery of follow-up reminders. Web respondents comprise a self-selected subgroup of the target population, having better academic performance and greater computer skills. A Cox regression model estimating response probability (or response time) shows, besides the obvious effects of certain personal and survey design characteristics, that faster response times are expressed by graduates in science or engineering and reporting good computer skills, whereas the fields of medicine/health and defence/security and no computer skills give rise to lower response probability. Ways to use these findings for fine-tuning data collection are discussed.Cawi surveys, Response rate, University graduates,Cox regression

CacophonyViz: Visualisation of Birdsong Derived Ecological Health Indicators

The purpose of this work was to create an easy to interpret visualisation of a simple index that represents the quantity and quality of bird life in New Zealand. The index was calculated from an algorithm that assigned various weights to each species of bird. This work is important as it forms a part of the ongoing work by the Cacophony Project which aims to eradicate pests that currently destroy New Zealand native birds and their habitat. The map will be used to promote the Cacophony project to a wide public audience and encourage their participation by giving relevant feedback on the effects of intervention such as planting and trapping in their communities. The Design Science methodology guided this work through the creation of a series of prototypes that through their evaluation built on lessons learnt at each stage resulting in a final artifact that successfully displayed the index at various locations across a map of New Zealand. It is concluded that the artifact is ready and suitable for deployment once the availability of real data from the automatic analysis of audio recordings from multiple locations becomes available

CacophonyViz : Visualisation of birdsong derived ecological health indicators

The purpose of this work was to create an easy to interpret visualisation of a simple index that represents the quantity and quality of bird life in New Zealand. The index was calculated from an algorithm that assigned various weights to each species of bird. This work is important as it forms a part of the ongoing work by the Cacophony Project which aims to eradicate pests that currently destroy New Zealand native birds and their habitat. The map will be used to promote the Cacophony project to a wide public audience and encourage their participation by giving relevant feedback on the effects of intervention such as planting and trapping in their communities. The Design Science methodology guided this work through the creation of a series of prototypes that through their evaluation built on lessons learnt at each stage resulting in a final artifact that successfully displayed the index at various locations across a map of New Zealand. It is concluded that the artifact is ready and suitable for deployment once the availability of real data from the automatic analysis of audio recordings from multiple locations becomes available