The power of search engine ranking for tourist destinations

Bing Pan

doi:10.1016/j.tourman.2014.08.015

The power of search engine ranking for tourist destinations

Bing Pan

Recreation, Park and Tourism Management

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

51 Scopus citations

Abstract

Most online travelers in the United States use search engines to seek out travel information. Thus, Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) need to attract clicks through returned results on search engines. We modeled clickthrough rates (CTRs) of several published clickthrough reports and investigate the CTRs of a DMO's webpages on different ranks of different properties (web, image, and mobile searches) on a search engine. The results validated the power-law distribution of CTRs on different ranks: the top results attract high CTRs but the rates decrease precipitously when the ranks go down. However, top ranks are a necessary condition but not a sufficient one: many top ranked results have low CTRs. Image search and mobile search have different CTR curves, providing different opportunities for tourism destinations and businesses.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	79e87-87
Journal	Tourism Management
Volume	47
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2014.08.015
State	Published - Apr 1 2015

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

Development
Transportation
Tourism, Leisure and Hospitality Management
Strategy and Management

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10.1016/j.tourman.2014.08.015

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title = "The power of search engine ranking for tourist destinations",

abstract = "Most online travelers in the United States use search engines to seek out travel information. Thus, Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) need to attract clicks through returned results on search engines. We modeled clickthrough rates (CTRs) of several published clickthrough reports and investigate the CTRs of a DMO's webpages on different ranks of different properties (web, image, and mobile searches) on a search engine. The results validated the power-law distribution of CTRs on different ranks: the top results attract high CTRs but the rates decrease precipitously when the ranks go down. However, top ranks are a necessary condition but not a sufficient one: many top ranked results have low CTRs. Image search and mobile search have different CTR curves, providing different opportunities for tourism destinations and businesses.",

author = "Bing Pan",

note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2014 Elsevier Ltd.",

year = "2015",

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doi = "10.1016/j.tourman.2014.08.015",

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AB - Most online travelers in the United States use search engines to seek out travel information. Thus, Destination Marketing Organizations (DMOs) need to attract clicks through returned results on search engines. We modeled clickthrough rates (CTRs) of several published clickthrough reports and investigate the CTRs of a DMO's webpages on different ranks of different properties (web, image, and mobile searches) on a search engine. The results validated the power-law distribution of CTRs on different ranks: the top results attract high CTRs but the rates decrease precipitously when the ranks go down. However, top ranks are a necessary condition but not a sufficient one: many top ranked results have low CTRs. Image search and mobile search have different CTR curves, providing different opportunities for tourism destinations and businesses.

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The power of search engine ranking for tourist destinations

Abstract

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

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