Tuesday, April 1, 2008

http://www.statesville.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=SRL%2FMGArticle%2FSRL_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1173355005597&path=!news
http://cnr.ncsu.edu/prtm/extension/tourism.html

Another source

http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=3&hid=16&sid=dadb1518-d85e-4216-9ca4-180b89e57621%40sessionmgr7

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Travel and Tourism Industry Study

http://www.sbtdc.org/pdf/travel.pdf

Website sources

http://www2.nccommerce.com/eclipsfiles/12394.pdf
http://commerce.state.nc.us/tourism/econ/TSA_04.pdf (very helpful)

Some Useful Websites

Tourism Research
Economic Impact of Tourism in North Carolina

Group Prospectus

Group Project Prospectus I

Group 3

In North Carolina thousands of tourists visit the state every year. There is a balance of tourist attractions within the state. North Carolina has much to offer to tourists of all interests. The fall and winter seasons tend to bring attraction towards the western part of the state. There, ski slopes are popular and the natural beauty of the mountains is a spectacle that many enjoy. North Carolina also has an extensive coastline. The Outer Banks make North Carolina’s coast unique and vast. Particularly during the warmer months of the year, tourism flourishes around the coast and many of the small eastern towns that lie on rivers. The tourism industry has a profound impact on North Carolinian’s lives. Thus, tourism can change the socio-cultural landscape of an area. Also, every year, tourist who vacation in North Carolina have an economic impact on the state.

Themed Research Questions:

Economic Impact

· Is the tourism industry beneficial to the economy year-round? Do certain seasons generate more revenue for the state than others?

· With a steady increase in annual revenue from tourism in North Carolina, is there also an increase in funding spent to attract tourism to the state?

Social Impact

· Are the opinions of local NC residents factored into the tourism industry of that region? Are these opinions positive, negative, or both in regards to the tourist’s presence?

· With increased numbers of tourists in the major regions of North Carolina, are businesses tailored more towards incoming tourists or local residents’ interests?

Project Plan:

- Defined information need calls for current and past sources citing statistics and summaries of the North Carolina tourism industry. These sources need to be scholarly and trustworthy economic analysis. This information will be used to assess the economic impact of tourism in the state.

- Sources will also be required that focus more towards the cultural regions of North Carolina. These sources shall not be restricted to North Carolina studies since we are also looking at how the North Carolina tourism is viewed outside of the state. This information will be utilized to study the social impact of the tourism industry for North Carolina.

- Overall, we plan to utilize these sources to find factual evidence to answer our research questions and compile these answers to fulfill our interest in our topic.

Project Schedule:

- By 3/20, each group member should have 2-3 pertinent sources to our project that will be utilized to generate a draft of the group paper.

- By 3/25, have a fairly formal draft of the project paper completed along with a substantial bibliography.

- By 4/1, have detailed plan mapped out regarding the in-class presentation for our topic. Make final revisions to group paper.

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Midterm Notes

Search Process

-Kulthau article—emotions change over time through the research process as they find more information and become more confident; critical stage is when people formulate and focus their research. Start off with an open search phase before formulation

-Berrypicking article—information is something that changes your state of mind; a search process that retrieves information is not linear but rather squiggly since each piece of information changes one’s state of mind and alters the research process.

-Internet History—understanding where the internet comes from; the point is you must understand how things work in order to use them and make them functional. Builds the context of the search process that we use and how it came from.

-Technology—importance of protocol for how things get routed and sorted; citations are a protocol for scholarly information location

-copyrights aren’t absolute but are in place for balance to encourage competition and ultimately innovation; incentive for people to take their work and ideas to the next level. (public domains)

-Mickey Mouse act—pushed to keep copyrights longer and raised issue of how long copyrights should last and how innovation is stifled/stimulated by this length

-Using different types of resources; annotated bibliographies

-Boolean Logic—simple mathematical operators that assist in communication with databases; another case of protocol

Source evaluations—trust of reference materials; peer-reviews (levels of gate-keeping)

-Medium—platform of communication (internet, books, radio, tv) that also acts as a trust factor

-packets—information with a header and a footer