Estela Marine-Roig

Identity and authenticity in destination image construction.

The aim of this paper is to establish a clear distinction between the often misused concepts of identity and authenticity as related to place and also to examine the role that both concepts play in constructing destination image. The basic hypothesis of this theoretical approach is that the concepts of identity and authenticity are fundamentally different in terms of the tourist element they are related to, from the point of view of destination image construction. Identity is a concept basically related to the tourist object and projected image. Authenticity, a more ambiguous term, is basically related to the tourist subject and perceived image. A model is built to understand both tourism identity and authenticity in a holistic conception of destination image construction.

A Webometric Analysis of Travel Blogs and Review Hosting: The Case of Catalonia

ABSTRACT Today, destination-marketing organizations and researchers are increasingly focusing their attention on travel blogs and reviews due to their potential for projecting the image of a specific destination and for influencing travel behavior and decision making. However, the criteria used to select the Web sites hosting travel blogs and reviews for study are unclear, and very few quantitative or demographic studies about users (bloggers and readers) have been conducted. The aim of this study is to propose a method in which a webometric analysis is used to select the most suitable Web sites for a specific case study and to obtain information about users. The proposed webometric analysis consists of an integrated formula including visibility, popularity, and size metrics. This method was used to rank 11 suitable Web sites for studying the case of Catalonia.

User reactions to destination brand contents in social media

With the aim of communicating their identities and brands, tourist destinations have started to use social media. However, many do not know very well how to manage them in order to improve their online communication. Several studies have shown that a high level of interactivity generated with users in social media leads to greater engagement and a better brand image. The aim of this study is to analyse the brand contents that generate the most reactions among users and to ascertain if the communication of the brand image and its emotional values also generates reactions. Results show that the most identifying or destination-specific themes/attributes are the ones that trigger the most reactions (interactivity), although very often generic attributes are also communicated. Moreover, this study shows that the communication of emotional brand values also generates reactions, although emotional values are rarely communicated by tourist destinations. The brand values and attributes that trigger the most user reactions do not usually coincide with the most mentioned ones by destinations in their posts.

Destination Brand Communication Through the Social Media: What Contents Trigger Most Reactions of Users?

The social media have become important tools for the communication of destinations and their brands. Multiple studies have demonstrated that the interactivity generated in this communication leads to greater engagement and better brand image among users [Munar and Jacobsen (Tourism Manag 43:46–54, 2014)], but the aim of this study is to unveil what contents generate the most reactions among users and if the communication of brands and their emotional values also generate reactions. The results show that the most destination-specific and identifying themes/attributes and values are the ones generating most reactions and interactivity, although very often destinations communicate generic values with which all destinations identify. Moreover, it is shown that the communication of emotional values and brands also generates reactions and interactivity.

A detailed method for destination image analysis using user-generated content

Social media and user-generated content (UGC) have revolutionized tourism and hospitality communication and are seen as rich sources of information for destination image analysis. Many articles have been published about travel-related UGC, in particular, quantitative and qualitative content analysis of travel blogs and online travel reviews (OTR). Researchers have typically analysed small samples of population-representative travel diaries (tens or hundreds of files), which allow for manual processing. However, the enormous growth of OTRs requires operationalization through computerized methods, and the aim of this article is to propose a detailed method for semi-automatic downloading, arrangement, cleaning, debugging, and analysis of large-scale travel blogs and OTR data. This enables the classification of collected webpages by dates and destinations and offline content analysis of the text as written by the tourist. More than 130,000 useful trip diaries of tourists who visited Catalonia between 2004 and 2014 have been gathered, and significant results have been obtained in terms of content analysis in relation to destination image.

The image and identity of the Catalan coast as a tourist destination in twentieth-century tourist guidebooks

Tourism as a social phenomenon is explained and transmitted through multiple narratives conveying an array of images and representations. Tourist images and representations contain various values and elements of identity which define the destination. The aim of this paper is to track the evolutionary development over the past century of tourism narratives, images and identities of a coastal mass tourism destination: the Catalan coast. This evolution is evaluated by means of tourist guidebooks published throughout the twentieth century. As our research shows, changing tourism narratives in guidebooks reflect the evolution of the Catalan coast as a tourist destination from the early times of tourism to the tourist boom and consolidation and up to todays hyper-mobile world. Such narratives also reflect contradictions between a unique local identity and a global identity as well as cultural and political debates such as the Spanish versus Catalan identity issue.

Differential Destination Content Communication Strategies Through Multiple Social Media

Tourist destinations convey content through social media to communicate their identity and brand. Therefore, based on Spanish destinations, the aim of this paper is to use content analysis to determine if they communicate both their attraction factors and their emotional values via the different platforms, and if different contents are communicated and different communication strategies exist for the different social media. In general, the results show that destinations largely convey their attraction factors, using specific communication strategies according to the type of destination, and that neither strategies for the differential communication of emotional values that distinguish or identify the destinations nor different communication strategies through different social media are observed.

Online Travel Reviews: A Massive Paratextual Analysis

Within the context of the enormous growth of traveller-generated content (UGC), such as travel blogs, travelogues, and online travel reviews (OTRs), paratextual elements are of crucial importance for other users who can take advantage of the wealth of first-hand travel information available online. That is why a theoretical framework is proposed to treat, as a whole, OTRs and their surrounding paratextual productions as generated by the reviewer (UGC) and/or the webmaster (WGC). The framework is used to extract the image perceived by the traveller and transmitted by the webmaster through analysis of titles and other paratextual elements of a random sample of 300,000 OTRs of two tourist regions of the European Union. The findings in both regions are in agreement indicating that the most frequent keywords of UGC (good feelings) and WGC (destinations and attractions) are complementary.

Destination Image Gaps Between Official Tourism Websites and User-Generated Content

The aim of this paper is to analyse and compare destination image on official tourism websites with the image expressed by tourists in travel blogs and reviews in order to assess image congruency and identify image gaps at different geographical brand levels. This is done through a massive computerized semi-automatic content analysis of attraction factors and geographical elements on official tourism websites and in 46,576 travel blogs and review entries about Catalonia and its sub-regional brands. Our results show relative image congruency at regional level, but significant image gaps at sub-regional levels, indicating the need for coordinated image policies at different geographical levels.

A Method for Analysing Large-Scale UGC Data for Tourism: Application to the Case of Catalonia

In recent years, many articles have been published about the study of user-generated content (UGC) data in the domains of tourism and hospitality, in particular concerning quantitative and qualitative content analysis of travel blogs and online travel reviews (OTR). In general, researchers have worked on more or less population-representative samples of travel diaries, of tens or hundreds of files, which enables their manual processing. However, due to their dramatic growth, especially in the case of hospitality OTRs, this article proposes a method for semi-automatic downloading, arranging, cleaning, debugging, and analysing large-scale travel blog and OTR data. The main goal is to classify the collected webpages by dates and destinations and to be able to perform offline content analysis of the written text as provided by the author. This methodology is applied to analyse about 85,000 diaries of tourists who visited Catalonia between 2004 and 2013, and significant results are obtained in terms of content analysis.