Content, context and co-creation

Abstract

Content generated by tourists, travellers, professional travel bloggers and travel journalists who post, comment and share information on social media channels is arguably the greatest digital challenge of destination branding today. The tourist-/traveller-generated content is likely to generate brand value if integrated into the destination branding strategy. There is, however, a lack of theoretical awareness and empirical research into the role of social media content in shaping destination brands. By taking Portugal as a case study, this exploratory research is aimed to show how content analysis can be used to identify and understand the way tourists and travellers perceive the country as a tourist destination. The application of this methodology on online material could contribute to a refined destination branding initiative for Portugal by integrating user-generated and travel experts content into the strategy. It applies textual content analysis by using qualitative data analysis software (i.e. ATLAS.ti 7.0), within an interpretative paradigm, on tourism-oriented online publications in which the tourism potential of Portugal has been discussed. The findings highlight the tourist/traveller as an opinion maker with access to a plethora of information communication technologies to act as co-creators of brands. Therefore, it is wise to engage them and strategically integrate the content they generate into the whole destination branding effort.

How Can a Destination Better Manage Its Offering to Visitors? Observing Visitor Experiences via Online Reviews

“…The findings from this study contribute to the co-creation literature in tourism. Recent tourism studies applying the co-creation concept have advocated that tourists are a co-creator and that tourists' involvement can enhance products and services at a [66,88]. Prebensen et al [88] argued that tourists travel to fulfill their needs and wants; and are likely to satisfy their needs and wants.…”

“…Both product and service providers are challenged with promotional and quality issues. The immeasurable amount of information that tourists provide on the Internet and social media cannot be controlled by tourism suppliers [66]. Thus, the DMO and tourism businesses do not have much room for "place-myths" [67,68] to make a destination more favorable.…”

“…The researchers concluded that while DMOs may attempt to promote the destination as well-rounded, by featuring various destination attributes, tourists exhibit strong interest in specific characteristics of the destination. Additionally, a recent study illustrating the important role of tourist-generated content in destination marketing and promotion suggests that tourism providers acknowledge that tourists are opinion makers and include their opinions when shaping their destination promotional strategy [66]. In this case, tourists are viewed as co-creators.…”

Analysis and Evaluation of the Role of Mass Media on Urban Branding in Tourism

“…The word "advertising" in the word means advertising, commercials and reputation and, in general, it is "act of attracting people's attention to a product or business, and idiomatically it is a form of a non-personal connection which is formed by a sponsor, for payment by the mass media to impress the audience (12), (14), (21).…”

Comunicación y branding en los sitios web nacionales de turismo

“…Social media (Xiang & Gretzel, 2010;Hvass & Munar, 2012;Ayeh, Au & Law, 2013;Oliveira & Panyik, 2015), mobile applications (Kwon, Bae & Blum, 2013;Scolari & Fernández-Cavia, 2014;Lamsfus, Wang, Alzua & Xiang, 2014), photograph and video sharing platforms (Lim, Chung & Weaver, 2012;Stepchenkova & Zhan, 2013;Kahn, 2014) and recommendation sites (Kladou & Mavragani, 2015) are now powerful tools for contacting potential visitors, conveying information, and communicating destination brands.…”