CWV Research Findings

The Community Web Visibility Research Project

CWV Research Findings

While a number of communities in northeastern New York State seem to be successfully harnessing the power of the World Wide Web, others are barely keeping pace with the impressive growth of this medium.

—There is extreme variation in Web visibility among the region’s communities, ranging from just over 500 to more than 400,000 Web pages available. Furthermore, all the communities under study grew in visibility between 2000 and 2003, although the magnitude of change varied greatly. Yet, the very fact that many destinations are clearly visible on the Web naturally implies that other communities are receding into relative invisibility.
—The Web clearly has introduced stratification into the communication landscape of communities in the region. These inequalities are beginning to pit destinations with strong, homegrown online identities that foster asset retention against communities with weaker connections to their roots and capital-generating capacity.
—Bigger does not mean better. Larger communities do not necessarily hold an advantage over smaller ones. Population itself is not a determiner of higher Web visibility.

"Communities with little focus on
their web presence become
invisible to online navigators."

Unfortunately for many communities in the region, neither the origin nor much of the content of online communications about them seems to emanate from grassroots sources. So, rather than furnishing a distinctive hometown voice for communities, the Web’s valuable cyber real estate is being colonized by an increasing number of external agents whose interests are not genuinely those of the community.

—Only 20 percent of accessible Web pages about communities in the region has originated from a grassroots communication source. This means that most communities do not control what a Web user sees and learns about them.
—While almost two thirds of community Web pages are in some way related to variables of economic activity, a sizeable portion of those sites are issued from various, extramural information networks – many of which merely mention a community’s name and nothing else of importance about the destination.
—Visibility matters. Communities with higher orders of online visibility are far more likely to promote their hometown offerings via grassroots efforts than those communities with lower visibility.

The Tourism Connection

—Of the estimated 122 million adult Internet users in the U.S., over half rely on the Internet to make travel plans, and most of them depend on search engines to get their information. Adult travelers who investigate destinations on the Web are more likely to be first-time visitors, have a higher annual household income, stay longer at their destination, and spend more per trip.

—The Web neither guarantees that any destination will be virtually conspicuous, nor does it guarantee that the presence of such information about a community will contribute positively to its identity. A community’s identity in the physical world may not be re-presented in the same way in the virtual world. Regardless of a community’s actual size and features, mediated visibility and identity have the potential to a cast a community in a different light. So, to a Web user with no prior connection to a destination community, interpretations about the community’s identity are formed from exclusively online portrayals of the community’s features and other attractions.

—In the past, communities had to rely on word of mouth and traditional mass media (print, radio, and television) to extend something of this hometown flavor beyond local limits. Today, the World Wide Web gives communities, both large and small, a brand new opportunity to produce and publish information about themselves – to reach, at minimal cost, the whole world with that information. But commercial advantages to the Web become appreciable only when community agents concertedly promote their community’s existence and defining features. A collectively crafted identity ultimately is of most use to Web navigators and has the greatest potential to stimulate tourism and foster local economic development.

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Our Research is made possible through the continuing support of
Plattsburgh State University of New York and its Office of Sponsored Research.