The intoxication of travel : how tourism organizations use beer via websites

In a world that remains physically large, but continues to become more easily accessible, travel has inserted itself as a typical part of many people’s lives. The tourism industry is one of the largest influencers of the economy and, therefore, an important topic. A variety of methods exist to attract visitors to destinations and tourism organizations must be aware of them all in order to be successful, especially when so many other destinations also aim to attract tourists. Beer tourism, a type of special interest tourism, has received little attention in the field of research in comparison to other areas, such as wine tourism. It is difficult to determine the inclusion of beer within tourism organizations or whether they are fully using this type of tourism to attract visitors. This paper discusses the content analysis of each of the 50 United States tourism websites. The research aims to determine the amount that each site focuses on beer, if at all, both in general and compared to that of wine. At the same time the analysis will attempt to determine the user-friendliness of each overall site.Department of JournalismThesis (M.A.