Karl Wöber

This chapter presents Austria's tourism marketing decision support system called TourMIS. Sections discuss: the development of TourMIS; the dissemination of information from the Austrian Guest Survey in TourMIS; and the behaviour of TourMIS users.

Tourism is a comprehensive, highly diversified and strategically important industry that plays a strong driving role in national economic and social development. Cities have become the key nodes of world tourism development. This chapter focuses on the development of tourism in more than 100 cities in Europe and expounds upon the main trends of world tourism development as reported by European Cities Marketing and the World Tourism Cities Federation, the two leading organizations in the field of city tourism. Regarding the pattern of global tourism development, the share of the European international tourism market keeps shrinking, tourism in American cities remains stable and tourism in Asia-Pacific region cities continues to expand under the influence of globalization. For Europe, the underlying causes of the changing nature of city tourism in Europe are analysed in more detail. Greater global mobility, the information boom and increased knowledge-sharing between people of recent years have facilitated the development of urban structures and led to higher levels of city tourism demand. This growth, however, may prove to be a burden for cities and comes at a price if it is not planned properly.

The development of indicators and metrics systems has been identified as being of paramount importance by many tourism boards and international tourism organizations. This article discusses the bottom-up, micro-level approach of TourMIS, which is a platform for exchanging tourism statistics among tourism organizations, for collecting measures of sustainable urban tourism development. The authors provide a synthesis of various frameworks for sustainable tourism indicators for subnational regions and cities, concluding that it is more feasible to analyse existing sustainable tourism indicators than to introduce new measures lacking in direct practical applicability for the organizations. The application of data envelopment analysis (DEA) for benchmarking urban tourism destinations is then demonstrated by assessing measures available in TourMIS. Findings include inefficiency scores that suggest both managerial and political implications. Furthermore, the concept of a virtual reference destination assisting managers and politicians to analyse their destination’s strengths and weaknesses is introduced.

This article focuses on understanding users' interests in European cities based on log file analysis of keywords entered by users on www.visiteuropeancities.info. It applies various text analysis steps in order to extract significant patterns from the queries made by the users. Multidimensional scaling (MDS) is used for constructing a map of similarities based on the unaided responses gained from the users' information requests. Multiple regression analysis between the most frequently used terms entered by the users and the geometrical representation generated by the MDS provides additional insights in the semantics defining competitive differences between 32 city break destinations in Europe. Findings comprise information on cities that can be considered as kindred in regard to the information demanded by the users of the Web portal. As it becomes clear in which areas cities are perceived as similar, this findings can be used by city (tourism) managers in order to revise their communication plan regarding their own city if desired.

Tourism has become a major source of employment, revenue, international awareness and opportunity in European cities. As competition among European cities grows, the efficiency of management in city tourism organisations (CTOs) becomes increasingly important. This article reports on a longitudinal study of 50 European CTOs over the 4-year period from 1995 to 1999. The aim of the study is to examine the changes in functions provided by European CTOs during the given period of time. Findings reveal that five identifiable function categories can characterise the changes that happened during the given period of time: hotel booking service, commerce, conventional information dissemination, advanced information product and relationship management. It is argued that information technology and role change are the main driving forces of these changes. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This article performs a content analysis on the first 10 volumes of Information Technology&Tourism. A total of 144 articles are classified by six different categories. To identify trends and patterns in themes, the analysis is split into various periods. The objectives of this study include taking a look at the history of the journal to see what progress the scientific information technology and tourism commumty is making in their field. The data support the authors'early impressions of ITT as a primarily interdisciplinary journal dealing largely with human-computer interaction-related issues with an increasing number of articles dealing with business models recently. In addition, the distribution of articles by countries suggests that ITT has become a truly international journal reflecting studies from all parts of the world.

This paper reports on an initiative to examine the future of tourism education into the years 2010–2030. A group of 45 senior tourism educators and industry experts came together for a summit at Modul University, Vienna, Austria to discuss how tourism education needs to adapt to significant societal and industry changes. The theme of the summit was how to build the capacity for tourism students to lead the industry into the future as it faces increasing pressures for responsibility and stewardship. This paper discusses the pre-summit and summit processes and their outcomes, and explains future plans for this Tourism Education Futures Initiative (TEFI). Among other outcomes was a listing of values that could create the foundation for future tourism education programs, and also five categories of skills that participants felt would be important for students of the future to master. These are destination stewardship skills, political skills, ethical skills, enhanced human resource skills, and dynamic business skills.

The practice of Revenue Management has received widespread acceptance in the international hospitality industry yet a lack of best practice in terms of organizational integration persists. This paper follows the notion that revenue management is first and foremost a human activity, dependent on knowledge exchange and concerted decision within revenue management teams. One critical attribute of effective teams is group cohesion. The authors contrasted communication networks of 38 revenue management teams by means of social network analysis to identify the antecedents and consequences of group cohesion. It was found that industry employment, age and revenue management experience define the structure of communication networks and that awareness of other's expertise is central in explaining differences team performance across the sample. The findings highlight the issue of knowledge asymmetry in teams and suggest that the Revenue Manager occupies a more active role as an information broker in order to enhance group decision making.

This chapter has the twofold objectives of reassessing the European city tourism transportation-related CO2 emissions presented in Gunter and Wöber (2022) and highlighting the importance of management information and decision support systems for evidence-based decision making by DMOs. First, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on CO2 emissions is measured by comparing the pre (year 2019), during (year 2000), and post (year 2021) pandemic travel emissions, whereby ‘post pandemic’ should be understood as the year in which the most severe travel restrictions and other pandemic-related measures were gradually lifted. Second, as representatives of city DMOs have started entering their own data in the online management information and decision support system TourMIS (for example, modal split according to source markets, average CO2 emissions per transportation mode, average number of destinations visited) beyond the calibrated parameters and approximated modal split proposed by Gunter and Wöber (2022), a preliminary evaluation is provided on the progress of stakeholder involvement in developing the learning methodology.

The widespread use of the Internet and online forecasting systems offer unprecedented opportunities to leverage collective intelligence to produce increasingly accurate forecasts. Forecast support systems also offer the opportunity to address one of the weakest aspects of expert forecasting methods, the identification of experts. In the published literature, significant criticism is addressed to the subjectivity of expert identification methods, as different methods can lead, ceteris paribus, to significantly different results. This article introduces an approach to define objectively levels of expertise in large groups in a panel setting. This information is used to fine-tune panel members’ contribution to the compound forecast in an attempt to improve the accuracy of the aggregated forecast. Tested on prospects collected from the UN World Tourism Organization Panel of Tourism Experts – probably world’s most widely used and influential forecasts for the tourism sector – the proposed approach proves efficient in identifying experts in large groups of individuals. The results also indicate that the method is promising in leveraging their collective knowledge to return more accurate forecasts compared to simpler methods.

This paper introduces Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) for the evaluation of inefficiencies in tourism advertising programs and the identification of optimal comparison partners for benchmarking. The implementation of DEA for benchmarking tourism destinations is demonstrated by assessing state tourism advertising programs in the United States. This evaluation includes information on the advertising budgets of state tourism offices, the allocation of market effort in international and domestic segments, and the number of visitors and expenditures generated in the various destinations. A proximity measure was used as an exogenously fixed input variable in order to reflect differences in domestic market size. Findings include efficiency scores for state tourism offices offering several possibilities for managerial implications. Furthermore, the concept of a virtual reference destination assisting managers to analyze their individual strength and weaknessesis introduced. Finally, a discussion of the potential and limitations of DEA for benchmarking of tourism destinations is provided.

This chapter intends to provide a conceptual basis to understand the forces shaping demand seasonal fluctuations. The most recent developments of research in this area are proposed as stimulus for discussion on the topic. It also offers an overview of the measurements most widely used to assess seasonality in tourism and proposes a methodology suitable to observe changes of seasonal patterns, illustrated with an empirical example on city tourism destinations.

This chapter continues the focus on city tourism, by assessing the significance of city tourism in Europe compared to European tourism overall. In doing so, the focus is not only on the current situation but also on possible future developments, thus the chapter follows two distinct objectives. Firstly, to provide a comprehensive analysis of the role city tourism played in Europe in past and present, and secondly, to provide some outlook into the future development of European city tourism. In particular, the chapter attempts to provide an answer to the question: Based on past and present experience, how is the share of city tourism likely to develop in the years to come? For this purpose, a number of common forecasting methods are briefly introduced and their applicability to city tourism forecast is analysed. At the end of this chapter, the reader shall have a critical understanding of a) the challenges attached to European city tourism data, b) commonly applied forecasting methods and their appropriateness, and c) the role city tourism plays in Europe relative to overall tourism.

The importance of information and efficient information management is steadily increasing due to the evolution of new technologies and high-capacity storage media but also because growing market dynamics raise information needs. A marketing decision support system (MDSS) can be of particular importance as it supports organizations in collecting, storing, processing, and disseminating information, and in the decision-making process by providing forecasts and decision models (Little, 1979). The following article provides insights into a successful implementation of a MDSS in tourism. Based on findings on the analysis of the system's protocol files, it discusses the information needs in tourism management.

Tourism has become a major source of employment, revenue, international awareness and opportunity in European cities. As competition among cities grows for visitors as well as for public and private financial support, the efficiency of management in city tourism organizations becomes increasingly important. This chapter aims to examine the nature of European city tourism organizations in terms of their roles, functions, responsibilities and the services they provide. In this investigation two surveys with identical design were conducted among European city tourism managers in 1995 and 1999. Based upon this data, this study identifies the functions that have changed during the given period of time and assesses relationships between these functions. The findings indicate that the emphasis of European city tourism organizations changed considerably during time in five functional areas: 1) hotel booking service, 2) commerce, 3) conventional information dissemination, 4) advanced information product, and 5) relationship management.

In the long run, city holidays and weekend breaks will continue to be a vibrant and growing segment of the global tourism market. When the editors¿ first book on analysing city tourism was published in 1997, tourism marketing still had to prove its ability to utilise advanced research techniques and sophisticated analytical tools. More than a decade later this is taken for granted and no educational program of international significance would do without such methodology. However, there is still a shortage of literature demonstrating the `how-to¿ of realising these analytical ambitions and the appropriate learning-by-doing support. This follow-up text to the 1997 book, entitled `Analysing International City Tourism¿ to clearly underline its focus, further contributes to filling this gap. Ten chapters are completely new, while two have been expanded and extensively revised. Where conducive to the learning experience the chapters provide program scripts, tips on where to download software and data free of charge, discussion questions, and material for case studies.

Are tourism resorts as successful as the average of their adhering hospitality and leisure companies? The following study argues that synergies may take effect which are subject to particular management activities in a tourism resort. Measurement issues and difficulties of comparison between several resorts are discussed. Despite the lack of a proper management-oriented data base for every tourism resort in Austria, the authors try to find significant indicators for success of tourism resorts. Statistical supply-side data are matched with attributes from more than 12,000 tourists, covering 223 resorts. Findings are compared with initial hypotheses and permit only a very cautious interpretation. Nevertheless, many suggestions for further testing and confirmation, more comprehensive and detailed investigations can be derived.

With the growing importance of the Internet for travel planning, understanding the online domain of tourism is vital in order to identify the challenges and potential solutions for effectively marketing travel destinations. This study focuses attention on understanding the representation of the tourism domain on the Internet. Analyses of search results from a major search engine were conducted in order to assess: 1) the visibility of destination-related information; 2) the visibility of various industry sectors within destinations; and 3) the power structure of websites that represent a specific destination. The results show that although there is a huge amount of information indexed, travelers can only access a tiny fraction of the domain. Also, there are a relatively small number of websites dominating the search results. This study provides a number of important insights into the challenges facing the tourism industry with respect to representing a destination online.

In an increasingly competitive industry, tourism managers are faced with the necessity of estimating future values of demand in the short term despite the limitations of scarcity, volatility and uncertainty. A convenient and flexible approach such as judgemental forecasting holds promise in addressing the major issues in the field of tourism demand forecasting. This paper presents an innovative approach, which uses the opportunities offered by decision support systems to tackle the main issues associated with judgemental forecasting. A forecasting system that supports collaborative short-term forecasting tasks among tourism managers is offered as a case example.

The development of Austrian private universities in recent years has been characterized by steady growth in the number of students and new admissions. Private universities have positioned themselves in a variety of ways among state institutions of higher education and cross-border offerings from international institutions. The following essay illustrates the previous development and current state of this newest sector of the Austrian higher education system. In the course of this study, two development phases are differentiated. In addition, research and teaching performance will be examined and the current accreditation requirements for private universities in Austria, as well as their opportunities for development, will be discussed.

The development of Austrian private universities in recent years has been characterized by steady growth in the number of students and new admissions. Private universities have positioned themselves in a variety of ways among state institutions of higher education and cross-border offerings from international institutions. The following essay illustrates the previous development and current state of this newest sector of the Austrian higher education system. In the course of this study, two development phases are differentiated. In addition, research and teaching performance will be examined and the current accreditation requirements for private universities in Austria, as well as their opportunities for development, will be discussed.

Globally, there are numerous undergraduate programs available in tourism that differ in content aims and scope. It is hard to judge which programs are preferable and on what criteria to base choice. Thus, this article provides a content analysis of 64 bachelor programs taught in English. The actual programs are compared to indicators identified in literature review. Furthermore, an adaptive conjoint analysis identifies the importance and utilities of different subject areas and themes that can compose a tourism program. The population is specified in a broad manner, including academics as well as industry professionals from both the private and public sectors. Results show that there are discrepancies between existing programs and what academics and industry professionals perceive as being important. The research offers recommendations on which topics and issues should be included in a tourism curriculum and provokes discussion on adaptation of existing curricula for the future.

The major problems that city tourism managers face are the availability and comparability of market research information for their own city and their strongest competitors. To overcome this problem in market volume and share studies on European city tourism, an intelligent database system was developed. A comprehensive knowledge acquisition process on the quality and comparability of the statistics led to a prototype version of an expert system approved by leading European city tourism office managers. Additional tests of the system's accuracy showed reasonable results and helped reveal further possibilities for improving its performance. The final outcome of this model represents the largest, standardized longitudinal data set on European city tourism.

This chapter focuses on the information needs of city travellers and their implications on actual travel behaviour. Three different online travel information sources — Visiteuropeancities.info, Salzburg.info and Google.com — are used to demonstrate the temporal relationship of online information search and travel behaviour over time. Based on log file analyses, the relationship between the information retrieval process and the actual arrivals (representing tourism demand) will be examined. A longitudinal approach applying time series analyses is used to compare and analyze decomposed seasonal patterns. The chapter provides additional insights in the analysis of seasonality and the relationship between the time of online information enquiries and arrivals in the European city break destinations of Stockholm, Salzburg and Barcelona.

The present study develops a methodology to assess transportation-related CO2 emissions of European city tourism. In doing so, not only is travel distance considered, but also the chosen transportation modes and the particularities of the different cities’ source markets. The major contribution of this study is the implementation of this learning methodology into a decision support system for destination management organizations of cities. Based on a sample from 2018 of 48 European cities with at least 40 source markets, the range of aggregate transportation-related CO2 emissions of European city tourism is estimated. Moreover, a longitudinal analysis of the exemplary city of Vienna covering the period of 1990 to 2018 is carried out. Finally, some policy recommendations of how destination management organizations can contribute to make the estimated transportation-related CO2 emissions even more precise and on how to make European city tourism more environmentally sustainable are drawn.

This article contributes to the recent literature on tourism
destination competitiveness including the gargantuan com-
pilations of competitiveness factors by Ritchie and Crouch
(2003), or Dwyer and Kim (2003), and, particularly, the
widely known prototype of a Competitiveness Monitor (CM)
initiated by the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC).
The central question underlying this article is whether an
arrangement of data such as the CM can be transformed
from a purely definitional system into an explanatory model.
A number of criticisms regarding the way of constructing the
CM, its epistemological nature, and the absence of any
accessibility factors lead to a moderately revised system that
is explored by latent variable modeling. The empirical find-
ings support this type of model, which tends to better explain
the levels of tourism activity already achieved than sus-
tained tourism growth. A discussion of the detailed results
produces several recommendations on how to adjust the
future strategy of research on destination competitiveness.

City tourism is an increasingly important area of economic activity and should as such have a commensurate level of statistical development. This chapter concentrates on European city tourism statistics, revealing the statistical gaps between theory, practice and reality. It gives tourism managers information concerning differences and problems existing in European city tourism statistics and defines the strengths and weaknesses of the various methodologies and definitions.