Benchmarking Webanalytics of European Destinations

Modern day tourism organizations use standard general-purpose software tools, such as Google Analytics to collect and report website statistics. But to the standardized key performance indicators (KPIs) provided by these tools really provide added value? What insights do they provide? How can they be applied in an effective way? It is of outmost importance to find KPIs that are linked to the objectives of every tourism organization. General-purpose tools are good in improving an individual’s website content or for identifying and solving usability issues. However, they are not capable of providing meaningful, industry specific information. Moreover, web analytics need to move from a technology driven, standardized reporting function towards a business objective centered approach, which provides useful information to managers. The purpose of this project is to create a unique platform for destinations, to compare and benchmark their website with other destination websites. In addition, it gives the opportunity to create online marketing projects based on the demographics of their website visitors, compare the number of visitors from source market versus number of website visitors from the same source market, and opportunities for forecasting.