Information about a business location on the web: Investors’ needs and a local authority’s offer

Abstract

With the dissemination of information- and communication technologies some peculiarities of territorial competition have emerged. After a brief discussion of these issues a framework for categorizing the factors which determine the quality of a business location is developed which consists of five groups of “hard” location factors and four groups of “soft” factors. The framework is tested to find out the most important determinants of Salzburg’s quality as a business location as seen by investors from service industries. In the final section the framework is applied to identify information deficiencies on the internet about Salzburg as a business location. Only part of the suggested improvements could be realised with quick fixes while in some cases changes of the organisational structures in which territorial marketing services are offered would be required.