1. INSUBRIA REGION
“Virtual Get There” REPORT
Cooperation in Tourism and Territory
Promotion: Strategies of development for the
Insubria Region
Insuratelu Cristina
Fall 2008

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Executive Summary
This study attempted to identify and analyze the narrative contents of websites. The approach
used is a quantitative methology that investigates from the user perspective the contents and
services of 25 websites related to travel and tourism. It investigates the presence of a given piece
of content or functionality in a set of given websites, but it does not address the quality of the
information and communication of websites. The methodology is indicator-based and it gathers
updated and relevant quantitative data about the web communication.
I. Methodology: The background of this analysis is expressed in the Website
Communication Model – WCM (Cantoni and Tardini, 2006).
The WCM (Cantoni and Di Blas, Cantoni and Tardini, 2006) provides a comprehensive map of
what a website is and helps to distinguish five main areas of interest:
1. contents and services, offered through the website,
2. accessibility tools, ex. the interface,
3. managers and users, the people who produce, update and promote the site,
4. users, people who access the site,
5. the ecological context of the website, ex. the relationships with the web as a whole.
An explorative analysis takes place by browsing the sample websites, taking into account the
most important feature for a given web site or domain. After what, the websites are being given
marks to them with respect to the indicators given in the grid: they are 1 and 0. Value 1 means
that the object represented by the indicators is present; the value 0 means that an indicator is
not available on the website.

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The accuracy or currency of the websites should not be taken for granted. The following is the
quantitative analysis of the websites in the Insubria region, in order to check if they are useful for
the tourists. The study is based on a five steps indicator-based methodology (Industry
identification, Key players identification, Indicators identification, Websites analysis and Data
Collection, Data analysis).
For the Insubria case study, the team found 83 indicators, grouped in 5 categories (General
Information, Get There, Stay there, Live there, General Website Services).
On the chart N.1 we have a brief of the 7 most representative websites, “champions” in the list of
the analyzed websites.
68
60
39
40
68
5855
lakesandalps.com
ticino.ch
lagomaggiore.net
comunenovara.it
vareselandoftourism
.it
comolake.com
larionline.it
Note: The numbers represent achieved finishing levels, in percentage (%), in the five categories.
II. Data analysis and Results
The presented data have been collected in the months of June-July 2008. The value of the
Insubria region case study is related to the methodology by itself and the way used to collect the
data. Provinces of the region involved in the study:
1. Ticino Canton (CH)
2. Como (I)
3. Lecco
4. Novara
5. Varese

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6. Verbano – Cusio - Ossola
The main results of this study show that Ticino Canton, followed by Como Province, achieve
almost 60 out of 80 indicators; the lowest level is the one of Novara.
The Insubria region as a whole has one of the lowest finishing level of all categories in the
examined websites, together with Novara and Verbano Cusio Ossola.
Shopping opportunities in the "Stay there" category are not seen as a main touristic attraction:
websites offer little information (Ticino Canton) or none at all (Verbano Cusio Ossola).
Also, the examined websites do not offer detailed information or any information about
excursions.
The website with the highest finishing level, giving the widest variety of entertainment
possibilities for the user and the most accurate content is www.ticino.ch for the Ticino Canton
(on 80 indicators, Ticino.ch in the Ticino Canton gets 60).
For the province of Como, the website www.comolake.com offer to the users the most complete
General Website Services and the largest variety of accommodation facilities for the "Stay there"
phase of the travel decision; together with a variety of entertainment offers, in the “Live There”
category.
III. Proposals
Following the final results of the quantitative analysis and based on the suggestions given by the
traffic rank registered for every website in question, we propose an innovative approach to
website communication, that counts in a marketing view and a technical view.
1. Marketing View
The major development for the Insubria Region is to clearly identify the global tourist that is
considered to be ideal for the region. There is need for a new definition of the target market in
order to create a profile of the website visitors, which are to give the best yields.
The research of website users is intended to help in changing the target market definition and
furthermore, to lead to a major redevelopment of the sites. The redevelopment shall include
changes in design for a more complete look as well as rewriting of all the content with the new
target market in mind.
We call for a radical change in the destination promotion strategy of the Insubria Region. The
priority should be a global branding campaign for Insubria that should be supported by the

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Insubria website or websites. The approach is explained by the fact that the costs of this
electronic medium are much lower than those of the separate print publications produced by the
different provinces for their own markets. Also given the challenge to pursue a global branding
campaign. A website for the Insubria Region will be an “electronic brochure” which has the
advantage of delivering a consistent message to all users.
“Fresh Blood” is needed to bring in new perspectives with the primary objective: the marketing
of Insubria Region as a tourism destination.
Buhalis suggests that “Destination promotion requires a co-ordinated campaign and message for
all local principals and suppliers. Achieving a consensus on the marketing campaign is one of the
most challenging tasks for destination marketing”. Cooperation, e.g. different degrees of
cooperation between provinces comes in the joint effort to piece together the various elements
of the Insubria Region tourism experience and different product offerings.
Theoretically, cooperation is considered important in destination marketing and can become a
precondition to the development of a successful destination promotion website and campaign.
Also, the websites and their development come as a supporting promotional tool.
2. Technical View
Different from other sources, the Internet is an enormous hypertext system which is comprised
of interconnected web documents as nodes. Users navigate through it in order to obtain tourism
related content. The main advantage of hypertext is that large amounts of content can be
accessed quickly and its organization is flexible. However, it does not have a conventional
structure leading through the networks of documents. The user is completely unrestricted in
terms of where to go and which hyperlink to click. Thus, hypertext-based systems require users
to exert more cognitive effort.
Time is an important constraint affecting the decision-making process or vacation planning
online across different websites.
A content management system should be developed that will allow to keep content fresh,
moving from a static HTML site to a CMS (Content Management System) driven site.
Following the idea that Insubria needs to find and communicate an integrated destination
identity, a desired approach would be the buying of a domain name ”insubria.com” for
beneficiating the tourism proposition. The websites should remain in constant development
with new projects for adding new functionalities and be available in different languages,
according to the new concept of an ideal global tourist.
A step forward to the redevelopment of the website communication is the introduction of an
interactive travel planner, for the ever-deepening understanding of the user and the users’

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experiences. This new functionality (new technologies) will enable more effective tourism
marketing.
IV. Conclusion
Within the 25 websites analyzed, different images of Insubria as a destination are being
portrayed, e.g. Insubria and its tourism image reflected by different sub-categories of websites is
quite different.
Despite the amount of information given through the different websites, very few information
and images on the websites emphasized the tourism experience in the Insubria region (little or
no information about entertainment, e.g. shopping, excursions, festivals, fairs, events at local
level).
The image has an important role in influencing tourist decision making. Photographs are vital for
the successful creation and communication of the images of the destination (Mackay and
Couldwell, 2004). Although there were many photographs of hotels or meeting facilities, there
was nothing showing service encounters in which tourism and hospitality professionals provided
services and interacted with customers.
Hence, it is important to understand the importance of the destination image and its
representations on the web and the challenges of managing and delivering the desired image of
a destination online.
Internet can offer great potential to Insubria to influence consumers’ perceived images,
including the creation of virtual experiences of the Insubria destination.