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This research aims to investigate how emerging destinations cope with digitalization of information, where they are in the process and how digitalization of information takes place in destination marketing organizations (DMOs). As a case for emerging destinations that must deal with the negative consequences of the digital divide, the Vietnamese Mekong Delta (VMD) will be examined. A new framework, solutions in general, and potential innovative approaches will be presented.

A mixed methods approach was used. Firstly, a content analysis comprising 68 criteria to examine 10 destination websites was conducted to evaluate the performance of provincial destination websites of VMD. Secondly, the authors interviewed five managers from VMD DMOs to reveal the strategy, status quo and their challenges with digitalization.

Some digitalization is evident in VMD DMOs, with the digitization of tourist information provision developing from analog formats to digital modes. The content analysis of the websites shows that provincial destination websites of VMD perform well with regard to communication but need improvements for transaction, and especially relationship aspects. Emerging destinations like VMD DMOs are reaching the second or third level in the digitalization process. Yet they face challenges with human and financial resources.

This research provides recommendations concerning destination website performance, the process of digitalization and how to promote digitalization and apply more digital instruments to move to the next stages of destination digitalization. Also, suggestions on how to overcome existing challenges/barriers in similar areas of the world are provided.

A new, extended more granulated version of the digitalization framework by Karpova et al. (2019) has been developed. The new model acknowledges the continued importance of printed information, provides information about the sequence of steps how to implement website dimensions, and which instruments are realistic to implement in different levels of digitalization considering the challenges and barriers developing destinations face.

The relevant literature suggests that website designers should consider the needs of their target groups. This study aims to show the importance of certain website content/applications as perceived by specific user segments, and reveal a posteriori segments based on motivational factors for reading user‐generated content (UGC). The study then seeks to visualize the connections between segments, their perceived importance of website applications, and further explanatory variables, by applying correspondence analysis (CA). The authors show that creative usage of CA may give insight into the varying contributions of certain variables through the exclusion of scale categories or segments.

The authors collected 440 completed questionnaires in an online survey. Of the 240 respondents who read UGC, the authors clustered motivational factors by applying a vector quantization method, and then used CA to give insights into the importance of website content/applications for certain segments. The paper explains how matrices can be simplified in order to facilitate interpretation, and applies Rasch analysis to ensure the accuracy of this simplification.

The results indicate that six segments exist with different motivations for accessing UGC: enthusiasts, mavericks, tips and price optimizers, safety players, uncommercials, and avoiders. For these different segments, the perceived importance of diverse website content/applications vary. The authors show that interpretation may be simplified, without the loss of substantive information, by combining scale levels and excluding neutral categories. The Rasch analysis also supports combining categories.

The authors also show how the demonstration of certain effects can be enhanced by animated graphics, and that these can then be embedded into PDF files. However, embedding of animations only makes sense for digital articles or media in general; in a printed version, the reader would need to be redirected to a website.

Social media website providers need to be aware that diverse segments perceive the importance of content/applications differently, and designers should customize a website accordingly. Finally, and in terms of methodology, this paper highlights how CA is valuable for management presentations because it displays categorical data in an easy‐to‐read graph format.

No research has hitherto shed light on the connection between the perceived importance of website content/applications and the motivational factors for accessing UGC. This paper contributes to filling this gap.

The local government auditing (LGA) landscape in Austria can be characterised as fragmented terrain, due to different regulations in the nine regions and a plethora of involved actors. The contours of the landscape have changed significantly during the past decades, with three major interrelated developments taking place: (1) administrative decentralisation led to an increase in the number of auditee organisations; (2) with the establishment of regional audit institutions (RAIs), new auditor organisations appeared as actors; and (3) auditing practices evolved, for example, with respect to an expansion of performance audits and the use of technology. In this chapter, the authors put a focus on RAIs that play a major role in LGA. The authors portray the historical roots of the LGA landscape and give a descriptive overview of the current structures and practices.