Monitoring social network formation and information content analysis of transport anomalies: The case of airline crashes

Airliners' industry corresponds to an extremely sensitive and volatile sector, especially subject to information related to flight safety. Possible negative publicity on such issues may result to sudden and abrupt fluctuations of air travel demand, accompanied with phenomena of panic or feelings of generalized insecurity. The proliferation of social media platforms that offer a direct and immediate two-way communication channel contributes to the overall information propagation related to flights security (as exposed in the recent airlines crashes) and can be viewed as a proxy of the social network formation of such paradigms. The current paper aims to offer a framework for quantitatively analyzing social network formation, based on comprehensive network metrics, valuable in cases of commercial airliners accidents. Moreover, the use of data from social media connectivity offers one more extremely valuable piece of information related to the messages that connected users exchange, mention or are exposed to. Such large datasets are quantitatively analyzed here based on methods used in content analysis, exposing valuable information on the interest of the general public (potential airliners users) of anomalies in the airline industry. The analysis is based on data from two real events (airliners’ crashes), which attracted the international public interest and significantly affected air travel demand. Finally, the results are analyzed and presented in detail such as to contribute to the air demand treatment, especially in terms of optimal communication operational management in cases of crises.     

Social media in tourism: a visual analytic approach

This research note seeks to examine a vast amount of tourism-related Chinese social media posts using a visual analytic approach. Visual analytics turns information overload into an opportunity. In this case, the mainstream Chinese microblog service, Sina Weibo, was selected as it generates large volumes of data, representing significant consumer insights, that are challenging to analyse by other common research methods. The most frequently reposted tourist visa news in the first eight months of 2014 were harvested and used as a case study. Findings from this study demonstrate that a visual analytic approach can offer insights into the impact of travel news on Chinese consumers. These insights include potential tourist generating regions, the life span of travel news, and tourists’ attitudes towards travel policy changes. Such insights provide important implications for scholars and practitioners, such as enabling real-time decisions of Destination Management Organizations’ social media marketing strategies in China.     

An analysis of the networks evolving from an artificial reef development

Understanding the flow and development of knowledge within tourism networks is important to the success and value of the network, especially networks based on a single resource such as an artificial reef. Using the ex-HMAS Brisbane Conservation Park as the context, a network analysis was conducted with stakeholders to address the question: ‘How can network analysis be used to measure the social value of an artificial reef?’ The results of this study identified information flows over time, who was involved and not involved at different stages of development, as well as opportunities for further collaborative relationships.     

The power of social media in regional tourism development: a case study from Ōkunoshima Island in Hiroshima,Japan

This research letter introduces a new insight into the power of social media in tourism development using a case study from ōkunoshima Island in Hiroshima, Japan. The island has been experiencing an unprecedented tourism boom since 2014, when videos posted by social media led to an increase in international tourists in a formerly domestic destination. The results of our structured interviews suggest that tourists acquired information about the island through social media. This result implicated social media’s power in developing tourism in peripheral regional areas, which are often left out from the international tourism circuit.     

Network dynamics of tourism development in South Korea

This study utilizes network analysis to trace the evolution in the organizations of tourism development during South Korea’s transition from a developing to a developed country spanning the period from 1945 to 1999. This is studied by examining changes within a network of organizations as their means and objectives evolve. Data are drawn from news articles that deal with tourism and development from 1945 to 1999, and coded into organizations, development-related means, and objectives. Two-mode and a one-mode metric network analysis and correspondence analysis of coded data were undertaken. The results show the dynamic nature of networks interacting among organizations along with their means and objectives. Furthermore, this study states that the “social embeddedness” of the tourism network became stronger over time, leading to further development opportunities.     

Strategic responses by European airlines to the Covid-19 pandemic: A soft landing or a turbulent ride?

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has dramatically affected the aviation industry. This paper investigates how 20 European airlines communicated their crisis messages during the pandemic by employing Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) to airline responses. This qualitative study consisting of a systematic review and content analysis, examined 7237 messages from social media channels and press releases posted between December 1, 2019, and May 25, 2020, when the crisis unfolded worldwide. The results indicate that the airlines primarily emphasized instructing and adjusting crisis communication strategies. Further, Twitter replaced Facebook as the primary communication channel. This study provides insights on how airlines can and should communicate crisis-related messages amidst a severe pandemic. The study concludes with the implications of these findings and recommendations for airline stakeholders moving forward.     

Student mentors: aiding tourism businesses to overcome barriers to social media

Increasingly tourism businesses are attempting to interact and communicate with consumers using a variety of social media tools. However, many are struggling to continue to effectually and effectively engage with an interactive audience so willing to openly speak their minds. Adoption barriers exist that limit the effective use of these and other new innovative technologies. This study confirms that the main barriers to the use of information communication technologies are also reflected in the active use of social media. These include a lack of skill, knowledge, time and resources. Despite confirmation in this and other studies, there is limited research into how businesses can overcome these barriers to more productively utilise social media tools and technologies. This paper investigates the synergistic relationships between university students and small, tourism-related businesses, and how a student-industry project can aid in reducing the barriers of engagement with social media. Online questionnaires collected anonymous responses from participating businesses in 2010 and 2011. It transpired that businesses gained confidence, skills and information while simultaneously providing real-world student experiences that extended beyond the classroom into the wider community. This opportunity offered tourism businesses a point of entry for understanding and utilising these new technologies.     

China’s first Tourism Law: representations of stakeholders’ responses

The application of tourism laws to advance the well-being of stakeholders is of broad interest to many countries attempting to shape the rapid rise of the sector. In China, the first Tourism Law came into effect on 1 October 2013. The 112-article law includes various measures to address issues such as unfair competition. Adopting a social representations framework, this study investigates the perceived impacts of China’s new Law from the perspectives of eight groups of stakeholders. Data were collected from 152 articles published in the Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure. This material was used to access the commentaries and social representations of the impacts of the Law. A consistent array of positive and negative comments was uncovered using content analysis, justifying a view that a hegemonic representation exists across the groups. Additionally, and somewhat unexpectedly, it was discovered that the new Law is also a catalyst for further conflicts requiring additional management. Pursuing a social representations framework as a way of integrating stakeholder views was seen to be valuable for future studies in China and elsewhere.     

The impact of social media and offline influences on consumer behaviour. An analysis of the low-cost airline industry

This study analyses the impact of social media as well as offline environments upon tourist online purchase and recommendation behaviour of low-cost airline services. Drawing on the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), this research considers the effect of offline social influences (interpersonal and external influences) and analyses online Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C) information exchanges as a driver of customer attitude towards online purchases. We propose that these factors improve online repurchase intentions and positive word-of-mouth communication (WOM and e-WOM) in low-cost settings. Using structural equation modelling, the conceptual model is tested with a sample of 441 Spanish Internet buyers of low-cost airline services. Interpersonal offline influences (e.g. friends, relatives, and family) have a significant effect on online repurchase intentions and WOM but do not affect e-WOM. External offline influences (e.g. media and experts), however, only affect consumer intentions to recommend future purchases of low-cost airline services on social networking travel sites and have no effect on online repurchase intentions or WOM. Findings also show that online C2C information exchanges influence attitude which, in turn, has a significant effect on repurchase intentions WOM and e-WOM.     

‘Troll alert!’: Provocation and harassment in tourism and hospitality social media

With the advent of Web 2.0, social media have emerged as new spaces of hybrid interaction, comprising customer-to-customer, as well as customer-to-business/service-provider communicative exchanges. In the best case scenario, social media sites are communities where members find and share information, experience a sense of belonging, and provide mutual support. However, in many instances, the relatively anonymous nature of social media relieves some of the inhibitions of social interaction, resulting in negative behaviours such as harassment (for instance, in the form of trolling), flaming, and hate speech. This paper examines the phenomenon of trolling as a form of online provocation and harassment which targets users (including customers and businesses) in tourism social media spaces. Trolling remains largely unaddressed in the context of tourism (and hospitality) social media. Specifically, drawing data from TripAdvisor and other online media, the paper examines the incidences of (perceived) trolling and considers TripAdvisor's responses to trolling behaviours.     

Understanding tourism development of historic districts from a representational perspective

This study investigated the tourism development of historic districts in Old South Downtown of Nanjing (China) from a representational perspective. Twenty-six residents, who are living or had lived within the four main historic districts of Old South Downtown area, were interviewed using snowball sampling. All written notes and audio records collected during the interviews were transcribed and coded by themes in the framework of social representation theory. The findings indicated that tourism development, as an unfamiliar phenomenon, was generally considered as negative impacts in the beginning (e.g. deprivation of residents’ homes and loss of traditional culture), especially by residents living within the districts for decades. Thereafter, tourism development in historic districts experienced an anchoring and objectification process. Anchoring is reflected in images of construction, reconstruction and demolition. In the objectifying process, struggling for individual's rights is obviously observed. Finally, propaganda conducted by mainstream media has helped residents of historic districts to form common sense and foster social identity. Problems of tourism development in historic districts were discussed as well.     

Generation Y: An Agenda for Future Visitor Attraction Research

This study provides a comprehensive secondary‐based synthesis of previous studies on the profile and patterns of consumption of Generation Y, their consumption experiences and the role of information communication technologies and social media in determining their emerging patterns of behaviour at visitor attractions. The paper concludes by advancing a management‐oriented attraction research framework specific to Generation Y with a set of research propositions proposed to stimulate further research and management action on this specific and highly influential generational cohort. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Bali Bombings: Tourism Crisis Management and Conflict Avoidance

The combination of the bombings, SARS, the Iraq War and bird flu has brought about an acute decline in tourism in Bali, but despite widespread unemployment and a collapse in living standards the island has not experienced widespread strife. Despite severe provocation from the alleged Bali bombers, all of whom are Muslim, Hindu Balinese did not seek retribution by persecuting the island’s minorities. Bali’s politicians and opinion leaders appreciated the potential volatility of the situation and called for restraint using all available media and Bali’s network of village councils and urban wards. Various cultural and religious strategies, such as inter-religious worship and village security capacity building, were adopted to help manage the crisis. Rumours of ‘ethnic cleansing’ and the forced repatriation of non-Balinese, especially Muslim Javanese, appear to be unfounded. The widespread adoption of measures designed to avoid conflict appears to have helped restore confidence in Bali’s tourism industry. Some Balinese responses to the bombings are probably culturally specific, but this example of crisis management may have wider applications within the context of tourism.     

Using cellular data to analyze the tourists' trajectories for tourism destination attributes: A case study in Hualien,Taiwan

This study adopts social network analysis (SNA) to identity the spatial role of nodes in a tourism region. The trajectory of multi-destination tourists will provide great information for tourism management, but tracking tourists' movements is a big challenge. Thanks to the popularity of mobile communication devices (mobile phones) nowadays, these can passively or actively provide information on owners' movement. This study uses call detail records (CDR), which are mobile phone positioning data, to construct a trajectory network of tourists in Hualien, Taiwan. Three types of centralities, as well as brokerage analysis and role analysis, are used to measure the relations in a complicated network. Degree centrality (DC) reveals popular nodes that have good relationships with others directly. Reach closeness centrality (RCC) shows indirect relationships with others. Betweenness centrality (BC) indicates the most important mediator nodes that help others to connect. BC and brokerage analysis are used to classify destinations into five brokers: the coordinator, consultant, gatekeeper, representative, and liaison. We also identify social positions of each destination by role analysis. This study identifies a total of 78 nodes (origins and destinations) and their functions in the tourism network. We find some nodes have more than one mission, while some only have one. The functions of nodes can be different on weekdays and weekends. We distinguish the tourism region into different size of districts. The results of this study can help managers consolidate strategies for tourism marketing.     

Systemic crisis,weltschmerz and tourism: meaning without incense during vacations

The present global economic crisis is revealing manifold fissures in the economic/social/value/sense-making system and that inevitably has an effect on people’s psyche, on their beliefs and desires, even on their perception of needs. Many effects of the present situation are symptoms of a broader type of crisis. The economic crisis may have acted as a catalyst for increasing (social, political, and spiritual) awareness, and it could be paradoxically a landmark and a far-reaching impetus to renewal and awakening of humanity, to build a sounder and more sustainable (social, educational, political, and economic) system. At this crossroad, the reappearance in the last decade of the term weltschmerz is not coincidental. Whereas the extent to which the current economic crisis has produced a personal or integral crisis remains to be measured, it is clear that concepts such as meaning or transcendence – to combat meaninglessness and weltschmerz – have become central in the discussion on qualitative implications in tourism. The paper suggests a meaningful learning framework to identify required elements for a particular, desired outcome (coping with the second domain of existential pain/ weltschmerz), whose empirical relevance and practical developments are examined in this piece of research on tourism experience.     

A comparative study of social interaction frequencies among social network members in five countries

Social interaction patterns are relevant to explain (social) travel behavior. As such, the objective of this paper is to comparatively study the factors that influence social interaction frequency among social network members with different communication modes. Based on data from seven surveys on social networks, this analysis seeks to shed some light on (i) the similarities and differences in social interaction frequency patterns, (ii) the relation of personal and network characteristics with observed patterns, and (iii) the extent to which these associations are consistent across contexts, in terms of effect direction and magnitude.A multilevel-multivariate lognormal hurdle model is used to jointly analyze social interaction frequency patterns across all datasets. Level 1 includes information on ego-alter dyad characteristics, level 2 includes ego-level socio-demographic and aggregate social network characteristics, while level 3 includes information specific to each context where data was collected. In line with network capital theory, results show the existence of very consistent associations between social interaction frequency and some network and dyad characteristics such as network size, ego-alter distance, and emotional closeness, which showed some degree of generality irrespective of context. Building up on previous research, results also suggest that the effect of a higher transport cost-to-earnings ratio is more likely to manifest in the tie-formation phase, in such a way that the geographical spread of the network will tend to be smaller, but conditional on such a network distribution, the cost-to-earnings ratio effect becomes negligible. For other variables such as education level, gender and relationship type, effect patterns were less clear, which might be explained by socio-economic, and other contextual factors, as well as methodological differences across studies.The model presented here can provide average levels of demand for social interactions, which bounded by the geographical distribution of networks, can be used to further understand travel demand in urban environments and transportation systems at the local or regional level.     

Network analysis of the Caucasus’ image

Destination image is influenced by many factors, including destination promotion materials, the mass media as a general familiarity agent, the perceivers’ own characteristics and even researchers’ methodological choices. To isolate and minimize the impact of research on destination image, different qualitative and quantitative designs and analysis techniques have been utilized. However, no previous study utilized the network analysis technique, which may be useful to reveal a picture of destination image with the interconnections and hidden dynamisms of dimensions as well as its correlates. The present study applies this technique on qualitative data from an online sample of Americans on their perceptions of a relatively remote and unfamiliar destination, the Caucasus region, in order to hone in on the dramatic impact of mass media on destination image. Results revealed networks of meanings with residue of mass media messages about Boston bombing, with some differences among different genders and education levels.     

Home as a communication hub: the domestic use of ICT

With the rapidly increasing ease of access to the Internet in people’s homes, more and more of our everyday activities are being carried out online. While the home has become what might be called a communication hub, open to question is the impact this virtual mobility is having on our physical mobility. The questions we address in this article concern the extent to which network communication is carried out in our homes and this in relation to (1) activities that demand transport, (2) those of us who utilize these options, and (3) the virtual and physical mobility/communication patterns. Data from a nationwide Norwegian sample are utilized in investigating these questions. The dataset comprises 2700 respondents with access to the Internet at home and who answered questions about daily travel and home-based use of information and communication technology (ICT) for purposes such as information-seeking, shopping, paid work, net-banking, chatting and playing games. The analysis indicates that while use of the Internet for many of these activities is common, it varies between groups. We discuss whether virtual activities have physical equivalents – physical twins - or whether these come in addition to previous equivalent activities. It is shown that the relation between virtual and physical mobility varies depending on type of activity and social group, but, overall, that is not very strong. One possible explanation is that many new ICT services and applications do not have as clear-cut functional equivalents – or physical twins – as many of the earlier ICT technologies had, and, if true, will make it increasingly difficult to track down the interplay between transport and communication.     

A GIS-based time-geographic approach of studying individual activities and interactions in a hybrid physical–virtual space

Modern information and communication technologies (ICT) are changing human activity and travel patterns that could have significant implications to our everyday lives and the human organization of space. Time geography, which examines human activities under various constraints in a space–time context, provides a useful framework to analyze the complex spatio-temporal relationships among activities and interactions taking place in both physical and virtual spaces. However, virtual activities and interactions conducted via ICT have characteristics that cannot be properly represented and analyzed under the classical time-geographic framework. This paper extends classical time-geographic concepts to accommodate the needs of representing and analyzing all activities and interactions in a hybrid physical–virtual space. In addition, this paper presents a space–time geographic information system (GIS) design that is capable of organizing complex activity and interaction data as spatio-temporal processes in an integrated space–time environment. This space–time GIS design offers a useful analytical environment for researchers to study increasingly dynamic human activity and travel patterns in today’s society and their implications toward changing travel demand patterns from both spatial and temporal perspectives.     

Tourists’ destination image: an exploratory study of alternative tourism in Palestine

This study aims to understand how alternative tourism can contribute to the destination image of Palestine, given its negative image in the media. It proposes a framework for various destination image aspects and applies this framework in the context of alternative tourism in Palestine. It seeks to explore the key image formation factors, the perceived images of Palestine, and the post-visit behaviours of tourists who had engaged in alternative tourism in Palestine. This research contributes in fulfilling intriguing gaps in the Palestinian destination’s image literature, as well as the alternative tourism field that has emerged manifestly in Palestine. This study is exploratory in nature applying qualitative methodology by using open-ended questions in email interviews, and the interviews were analysed using thematic analysis. The empirical results proved that tourists who had visited Palestine and engaged in alternative tourism, had positive destination images, opposite to the ones portrayed in the media that show Palestine as a dangerous place to visit. Finally, this research provides academic and managerial implications.