Rapid population expansion and poorly managed economic growth, unprecedented anthropogenic climate changes, non-renewable natural resources depletion, environmental pollution, social inequity, and loss of cultural integrity generate a global context that calls for urgent adoption of a sustainable development approach in major industries, including tourism. Sustainable tourism development requires the mobilization of tourism stakeholders at all levels and on the demand side through actions related to the travel decision-making process. To stimulate attitude formation and adoption of sustainable tourist behaviors, Destination Management Organizations (DMOs)—the main organizations responsible for sustainable destination development—need to adopt sustainable-oriented communication actions when building the destination image. As tourism stakeholders’ perspective is under-investigated for destination image projection and communication, this paper aimed at assessing the integration of sustainable tourism principles in the promotion of destinations by DMOs; the focus was placed on video advertisements posted on the primary online source of tourism information, social media. Through a content analysis of DMOs’ social media advertisements for the 50 most visited cities in the world, the current study revealed that elements covering all three dimensions of sustainability (economic, socio-cultural, natural) were featured in the commercial discourse, but not in a sustainable explicit standpoint. Besides, the content sporadically reflected sustainable governmental initiatives and projected responsible tourist behavior, while it lacked specific sustainable tourism-related terms. Moreover, several highly popular cities did not have promotional videos. The paper contributes to the body of knowledge on destination image formation by providing evidence from the supply’s side along with an original content analysis grid which can be used to capture and evaluate the sustainable tourism dimensions as portrayed in advertising videos of cities. Additionally, it offers practical implications for DMOs’ marketing communication strategies.
The use of celebrities for endorsement activities is a well established part of the marketing communication strategy. Yet, the communication “playground” is changing as we witness significant changes in the channels used for information transmission (as digital dominate the traditional) and in the audience (as generations change, growing up in a digital world). More, removing the communications’ constraints of space and time, the Internet led to the emergence of a new type of celebrity that seems to surpass the traditional ones. In this context, research in the celebrities’ endorsement area is still of significant relevance. Although many studies focused on investigating the effect of celebrity endorsement over consumer attitudes and behaviour, only few examined how audience factors influence these relationships. Hence, the main objective of this paper is to establish the variations in attitudes towards celebrities endorsed advertisements, considering the consumers’ age, gender, income and celebrity-product fit importance. The findings revealed significant differences in attitudes based on consumers’ age, income and product-celebrity fit importance, yet no distinctiveness in case of gender.
The current paper used content analysis to examine 50 commercials featuring the most internationally visited cities in the world as of 2019. It analyzed the components, scenes, and frames used to create the projected image of an attractive tourism destination, appealing to tourists from all walks of life. Regardless of the region to which the city belongs, most promotional videos used items from all the significant dimensions identified: natural resources; atmosphere of the place; culture, history, art; tourist infrastructure; entertainment resources; shopping resources; social environment; other resources. Overall, the most common frames identified were outdoor sports activities, historical and archeological buildings, and restaurants, and fine dining. In contrast, the least common frames were tourist information center, smart city aspects, and awards and distinctions. The analysis shows that most Asia and the Pacific, and European cities choose frames depicting historical and archeological buildings, while cities in the Americas, and the Middle East and Africa go for frames depicting outdoor sports activities. From an affective perspective, the atmosphere of the place depicted for Asia and the Pacific, and American cities emphasizes inclusivity, European cities are relaxing, and for the Middle East and Africa is vibrancy. As a subcategory, inclusivity defined as racial, age, sexual and gender, religious, and disability related diversity, had the best representation for racial diversity in all the regions, sexual and gender, and age-related diversity were polarized by region, while religious diversity and disability-related diversity were the least visible.
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