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ALECIA DOUGLAS
Proposal Abstract:
Emotions in Online Destination Management: Towards the Development
of a Destination Website Emotional Design (W.E.D.) Model For
Romantic Travel Consumers
With the increased use of
the internet for information search, entertainment and purchasing,
electronic commerce has significantly altered the marketing
environment for tourism products and services. As people spend more
time online, emotional aspects of Website interfaces are becoming
more important (Kim, Lee & Choi, 2003). The research will seek to
promote the design of emotionally evocative Website interfaces as
one strategy that could be used to curtail the decline in visitors
but more importantly, to serve the emotional needs of the romantic
travel market. Emotions have been identified as a major catalyst in
the consumer decision making process. The proposed research will be
geared towards the development of an “e-motional scale” and model
for destination Website emotional design (W.E.D.) of tourism
destinations.
Keywords: Emotions, romantic destinations,
online destination marketing, online travellers
Biography:
Alecia C. Douglas holds a
Masters of Science degree in Hospitality Information Technology
Management from the University of Delaware, which she received in
May, 2004. In 2002, she received her Bachelor’s of Science cum laude
in Hospitality and Tourism Management from the University of
Technology, Jamaica and the University of the West Indies joint
degree program. Currently, Ms. Douglas is pursuing her doctoral
degree in hospitality and tourism management. While pursing her
master’s degree, Ms. Douglas’ main research focused on the use of
computer simulations in hospitality and tourism undergraduate
education while also exploring future technology trends with
potential implications for hospitality and tourism education.
Additionally, she became involved in other research projects that
included the evaluations of hospitality and tourism Websites such as
destination management organizations in the Caribbean and the top
thirty restaurant chains in the United States.
She
was also sponsored by IBM to present her research paper on the CHIP
and PIN technology at the prestigious Foodservice Technology
Conference (FS/TEC) in October, 2003. In 2005, the editorial board
of the Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Education (JHTE) awarded
her with the Article of the Year Award for the article: “Ten
Information Technology Trends Driving the Course of Hospitality and
Tourism Higher Education,” published in Volume 16, Issue 4, 2004 of
the journal. At the doctoral level, her research focuses on the
branding and aesthetic appeal of hospitality and tourism destination
Websites. Other research interests include online servicescape, and
store atmospherics; E-consumer behavior research in hospitality and
tourism.; online hospitality distribution; technological
applications in hospitality and tourism education; Website
advertising in hospitality and tourism; as well as emerging
technological issues with potential implications for the hospitality
and tourism industry.
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