Ana María Munar

The takeoff of social media in tourism

Over the years, online marketing has grown in importance in the tourism industry. This media space offers companies throughout the tourism value system numerous marketing tools, one of the most recent being social media. Social media allows companies to interact directly with customers via various Internet platforms and monitor and interact with customer opinions and evaluations of services. This exploratory article studies the travel portion of the tourism experience through airlines’ use of social media on two social media platforms for a 6-month time period. The social media content posted by airlines is analyzed and categorized according to the promotional marketing mix. In addition, the authors propose four categories to describe the overall communicative behavior. Among the results, it is shown that there is a lack of strategic perspective among airlines’ utilization of social media as it is being used with limited uniformity. These findings may aid marketing departments in their marketing and social media communication strategies, while complementing current marketing research.

Social Media Strategies and Destination Management

This study provides insights into social media practices and strategic considerations used by destination management organizations (DMOs). It examines a theoretical model of generic social media strategies for destination management and applies qualitative methods to analyze the social media initiatives of DMOs of Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden and the Scandinavian Tourist Board Asia/Pacific in the Nordic European Region. The study provides empirical evidence of emerging social media strategies among DMOs and confirms the growing importance of these new media. The findings point to the conflicting relationship between corporate culture and social media culture, the challenges innovative communication tools present for traditional management structures, poor levels of formalization and the lack of a knowledge base which results in ad-hoc decision making. Overall, the paper discusses the challenges faced by DMOs in their adoption of new technological cultures.

The tourism education futures initiative

The tourism education futures initiative Dianne Dredge, Christian Schott, Roberto Daniele, Kellee Caton, Johan Edelheim & Ana Maria Munar a Aalborg University, Copenhagen, Denmark b Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand c Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK d Thompson Rivers University, Kamloops, Canada e Multidimensional Tourism Institute, University of Lapland, Rovaniemi, Finland f Copenhagen Business School, Copenhagen, Denmark Published online: 28 Aug 2014.

Paradoxical Digital Worlds

This chapter addresses emerging social media cultures and socio-technical practices through the theoretical lens of Theory of Communicative Action. This conceptual scene is used to explain the interplay between social media and tourism. It analyzes the paradoxical role of interactive technologies as forces for the reproduction and transformation of this industry. The chapter discusses processes of colonization of personal relations and life-spaces. The analysis shows the ambivalent potential of tourism social media as communicative technologies for emancipation but also as tools for hierarchization, control, and exploitation. Finally, further theoretical examination of technological development and tourism practices is sought.

Tourism Social Media: Transformations in Identity, Community and Culture

This volume addresses the transformative power of tourism social media and offers novel theoretical and methodological approaches to its academic investigation. Acknowledging the collective value creation mechanisms of new media, the authors explore how technology nurtures, augments and modifies social or commercial interactions in tourism. The book emphasizes the role of fantasy and imagination in fluid tourism experiences and critically scrutinizes contested concepts pertaining to human interaction in cyberspace, such as equality, anonymity, transparency, democratization, and publicity culture. The chapters summon insights from Media Studies, Actor-Network Theory, Communicative Action and Symbolic Convergence among others, and offer a palette of emerging methods suitable for academic enquiries of virtual worlds. The theoretical grounding, empirical evidences, and interdisciplinary analysis of the anthology expand the actual research agenda and shed light on conceptual tensions and ambiguities in the present literature. As such, Tourism Social Media: Transformations in Identity, Community and Culture contributes to increasing research reflexivity in tourism studies at large.

Tourism Social Media: A New Research Agenda

Advances in information and communication technologies (ICT) have brought unprecedented opportunities and challenges to tourism as an information-intensive industry. Currently the Internet is evolving into a web of increasingly interactive communication platforms, which is once again transforming the virtual landscape of tourism. The emerging ‘‘Web 2.0’’ is claimed to be more participatory and inclusive, as it allows users to create, publish, and comment on digitized content worldwide. It provides a new generation of technological tools, enabling users to develop online communities and networks by collaborating and distributing Internet content and customizing applications (Vickery & Wunsch-Vincent, 2007). Web 2.0 is inherently collective; it is no longer just an informational medium, but a technology that nurtures, augments, and modifies social interactions and communication (Weinberg, 2009). As such, the information age has gradually become the social age.

The House of Tourism Studies and the Systemic Paradigm

Abstract This chapter introduces a metaphor—the house—and applies Habermas’ philosophy to examine the environment where knowledge production takes place. The analysis shows the dominance of “the systemic paradigm,” which is characterized by increased bureaucratization and commercialization. This paradigm has severe consequences for two core features of universities: the open-ended search for deeper understanding and the principle of autonomy. The chapter advances the idea of reclaiming the political dimension of the epistemic endeavor and presents a series of initiatives which help to advance tourism scholarship by non-conforming to the steering conditions of this paradigm and instead reclaiming the personal and subjective; promoting multiple knowledges; and building alternative platforms of knowledge production, cooperation, and dissemination.

Critical Digital Tourism Studies

Abstract This chapter analyzes the subject of critical digital tourism studies and envisions an agenda for technology research and education. Inspired by the insights of this book and the work of scholars in digital humanities and communication (Baym, 2010; Hayles, 2012), the study presents “embedded cognition” as a framework to comprehend the interdependencies between people’s actions and discourses, and technological affordances. It introduces the concept of “turistus digitalis,” discusses theories for conceptualizing society and technology relations, and examines the challenges of transdisciplinarity. This investigation contributes to increasing research reflexivity in understanding how tourism is enacted through digital worlds and how digital technologies evolve through tourism practices.

Interrogating gender and the tourism academy through epistemological lens

Abstract This introductory essay argues for the adoption of feminist epistemologies to unpack the role, nature and effects of gender (in) equality in our tourism academy. Our focus on tourism academia recognizes the importance of tourism to social life and the crucial role that tourism academics play in knowledge production. We therefore argue for a shift in the focus of extant gender research in tourism away from tourism as a phenomenon to ourselves as tourism academics. We provide an overview of the five papers in this special issue which explore the gendered nature of our academy in diverse contexts, ending with a call for greater self-reflexivity to achieve a more just and equitable tourism academy, thus benefiting both women and men.

The academia we have and the one we want: on the centrality of gender equality

Abstract This concluding essay challenges the tendency in academia to consider feminist epistemologies and gender equality as peripheral when instead they are central to the flourishing of tourism scholarship. We analyse pervasive misconceptions about gender in higher education and present an alternative way of doing academia based on dissent and critical engagement; commitment to democratic practices that allow for different points of view to be shared and accepted as trustworthy; engagement with value judgement in knowledge production; care and accountability in our ways of knowing and teaching; and the establishment of diverse career patterns and decent contractual conditions to researchers so freedom of thought can take place.