Official Tourism Web Sites and City Marketing

Abstract

Large cities are one of the most popular tourism destinations throughout the world. Business and leisure tourists visit these areas every year and before they travel there, they look for useful information on the Internet. This chapter analyses the tourism Web sites developed by Convention and Visitor Bureaus. These Web sites represent the official image of the city on the Internet and trough them tourism organizations can organize the marketing and mix strategy. The chapter studies the concept of a city as a tourism destination, the organizations that manage tourist activities, and the right marketing strategies to be developed on these official Web sites. The strategy begins with the market research to select the right marketing segments and it continues with the right actions from a marketing mix perspective. It means different options in terms of product-destination exhibition, price policies, commercialization, and communication actions.