Meng-Mei Chen, James Holleran, Ecole Hoteliere de Lausanne Tourism Focused NGOs: an online content analysis Meng-Mei Chen, Lecturer Dr. James Holleran, Professor Ecole Hoteliere de Lausanne

Meng-Mei Chen, James Holleran, Ecole Hoteliere de Lausanne Outline  Introduction  Purpose of the Study  Literature Review  Methodology  Data Analysis  Discussion  Conclusion and Recommendation  Limitation

Meng-Mei Chen, James Holleran, Ecole Hoteliere de Lausanne Introduction  The growth of NGOs  UN Local Agenda 21 Chapter 27: Strengthening the role of non- governmental organizations: partners for sustainable development.  Sustainable Tourism: A non- Governmental Organization Perspective ’ prepared by UN Commission on Sustainable Development

Meng-Mei Chen, James Holleran, Ecole Hoteliere de Lausanne Purpose of Study To serve as a preliminary and exploratory study of the purpose, activities of tourism focused NGOs through online content analysis

Meng-Mei Chen, James Holleran, Ecole Hoteliere de Lausanne Literature Review  NGO actions identified in ‘ Sustainable Tourism: A Non-Governmental Organization Perspective ’  Mission statements  Hyperlink structures reflect the communicative choices and agendas of web site creators and owners

Meng-Mei Chen, James Holleran, Ecole Hoteliere de Lausanne Methodology  Sample: 44 organizations shown as BEST’s partners or with links from BEST web site  A checklist based on Sustainable Tourism report was developed as the framework to examine NGO mission statements  A word frequency count was performed for mission statements  The ‘Link’ command for Search in

Meng-Mei Chen, James Holleran, Ecole Hoteliere de Lausanne Finding and Discussion  66% of organizations list mission statement on the Web, comparing to 45% in previous research  NGO’s major activities identified Through checklist:  To support the sustainable resource use and initiate environmental actions to conserve the environment while tourism is developing’  Watchdog From word counts:  To promote, develop, and support the sustainable tourism environment.

Meng-Mei Chen, James Holleran, Ecole Hoteliere de Lausanne Finding and Discussion  82% of sample NGOs carry one or more links to other organizations, comparing to 66% web sites found in previous study. Partners (43%) and Members (34%)are frequently the target of outgoing links  World Bank, UNESCO, One World, American Society of Travel Agents, and WWF are the top five organizations receiving incoming hyperlinks  Tourism related organizations: American Society of Travel Agents, World Tourism Organization, Pacific Asia Travel Association, Ecotourism Society, and World Travel and Tourism Council.

Meng-Mei Chen, James Holleran, Ecole Hoteliere de Lausanne Conclusion and Limitation  The nature of sample  To promote, develop, and support sustainable tourism environment  Hyperlinks can be seen as a form of recognition and endorsement Recommendation:  Sample  Computer Crawler program: two ways

Meng-Mei Chen, James Holleran, Ecole Hoteliere de Lausanne Recommendation Recommendation:  Sample  Computer Crawler program → Perceptual mapping of organizational linkages allowing new tourism system players a faster comprehension of who does what with whom