Are Tourism Businesses Using the Internet?

Abstract

In an increasingly digital world, if a business (or a community) fails to adapt and establish a digital presence many customers won’t easily find them. This was the premise for creating the Minnesota Intelligent Rural Communities (MIRC) program that the Community Economics field team implemented from 2010 to 2012. Workshops, 1:1 technical assistance and educational materials were offered to 18 rural business communities, including to tourism oriented businesses. For two reasons, we examined the digital presence of businesses in the 18 MIRC communities as well as five other control nonparticipating communities. We assessed 13,931 rural businesses in the 22 communities. Beyond helping to evaluate our MIRC programming, these data establish a baseline that can be used by researchers to assess impact on rural business of massive investments in Broadband infrastructure (e.g., ~$400 million in Minnesota).