Barcelona seen through the eyes of TripAdvisor: actors,typologies and components of destination image in social media platforms

Recent literature has emphasized the emerging role of social media in generating a destination image. Even so, there is still no clear definition of the main actors, typologies and components prevailing in these environments or the possible differences between diverse social platforms. Specific analysis and comparison of the Barcelona TripAdvisor Forum and a traditional Destination Management Organization (DMO) website showed that actors, typologies and components are platform specific and have both similarities and differences with other sources, including DMO websites and other social media platforms.     

Orientation to sustainability and strategic positioning of destinations: an analysis of international tourism websites

The communication that Destination Management Organizations (DMOs) address to destination stakeholders plays a central role in attracting attention and resources for sustainable destination development and disclosing the efforts made to be a sustainable territory. There has been extensive analysis on the role of official tourism websites that addresses both DMO's internal and external stakeholders. However, less exploration is available on the relationship between the contents disclosed through tourism websites and the strategic positioning of the destination. This study empirically examines that link with a focus on ‘green/sustainable/responsible' travel. Results show a positive association between the orientation to sustainability in online communication and both sustainable regulation of the tourism sector and tourism development. In contrast, there is no significant association with destination size, tourism maturity and pricing policies.     

Tourism and development challenges in the least developed countries: the case of The Gambia

Despite some recognition of the role of destination marketing organisations (DMOs) in crisis management, limited attention has focused on the role of DMOs in crisis events, and in particular their role in managing knowledge across diverse stakeholder groups and domains. This theoretical paper attempts to address this deficiency by synthesising knowledge management and tourism crisis management literature, to outline the potential role of DMOs in managing knowledge across boundaries during crises. Carlile's [(2004). Transferring, translating, and transforming: An integrative framework for managing knowledge across boundaries. Organization Science, 15(5), 555–568] work on boundary spanning is used to consider potential organisational and management issues for DMOs dealing with crisis events and how they should be managed. This paper argues that because of the role and nature of DMOs, they should play an important role as knowledge spanners/brokers to transfer, translate and transform knowledge to stakeholders. The paper concludes with future research avenues related to knowledge management, DMOs and crises.     

The destination‐management organisation and the integrative destination‐marketing process

A main function of destination‐management organisations (DMOs) is that of being responsible for marketing their destinations. Many destinations involve stakeholders of different kinds. DMOs often have modest resources, and this creates a challenge: how should the DMO manage their marketing activities and achieve an outcome that benefits both the individual stakeholder and the destination? This study describes how DMOs can mobilise resources among the stakeholders and identifies the processes leading to integrated destination marketing. Basing our conclusions on a case study, we find that DMOs need to develop both pragmatic and moral legitimacy in order to develop integrated destination marketing. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Destination Marketing Organization as an intelligent agent: Evaluating engagement in knowledge management practices

DMOs have been increasingly called upon to adopt the role of knowledge management, becoming intelligent agents with the capacity to gather, assess, and disseminate information among internal and external stakeholders. While knowledge management has remained a prominent topic in the literature, its application within the field of tourism management has been limited. The purpose of this study, therefore, was to ascertain to what extent DMOs have engaged in knowledge management practices through a nation-wide survey of 30 Canadian DMOs. The results demonstrate that, while DMOs have made progress toward becoming intelligent agents, there remains a long way to go.     

What does the consumer want from a DMO website? A study of US and Canadian tourists' perspectives

Destination marketing organisations (DMOs) are facing intriguing challenges to provide quality information online in an era of information overload. Insufficient knowledge of tourist's online information preferences and search behaviour has hindered them from effective information management. This research aimed to examine consumers' perspectives of the information role of the DMOs and their preferences and attitudes towards what constitute engaging and relevant Web contents and functionalities for a DMO website. The results suggested that tourists' preference of information content varied across the different levels of DMO websites (country, state/province and city). In addition, the study revealed that travellers' information needs and behaviour change over the entire information consumption process, which include the before, during and post‐trip period. Implications for DMOs were discussed at the end. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Does distributed leadership have a place in destination management organisations? A policy-makers perspective

Within an increasingly networked environment and recent transitions in the landscape of funding for destination management organisations (DMOs) and destinations, pooling knowledge and resources may well be seen as a prerequisite to ensuring the long-term sustainability of reshaped, yet financially constrained DMOs facing severe challenges to deliver value to destinations, visitors and member organisations. Distributed Leadership (DL) is a recent paradigm gaining momentum in destination research as a promising response to these challenges. Building on the scarce literature on DL in a DMO context, this paper provides a policy-makers’ perspective into the place of DL in reshaped DMOs and DMOs undergoing transformation and explores current challenges and opportunities to the enactment and practice of DL. The underpinned investigation used in-depth, semi-structured interviews with policy-makers from VisitEngland following an interview agenda based on the DMO Leadership Cycle. Policy-makers within VisitEngland saw a multitude of opportunities for DMOs with regards to DL, but equally, they emphasised challenges acting as barriers to realising the potential benefits of introducing a DL model to DMOs as a response to uncertainty in the funding landscape.     

Hotel performance and knowledge sources in Spanish tourism districts

The present paper brings together two of the research lines which have proved most relevant in the field of strategic management during the last few years: the importance of knowledge as a source of competitive advantage; and the ease of access to that resource within clusters and/or industrial districts. More specifically, our work focuses on the tourism sector, analysing the extent to which the profitability of Spanish vacation hotels located along the Mediterranean coastline depends on internal and external knowledge, that is, on the knowledge resources generated at each destination. A multiple linear regression is designed for the empirical analysis. The evidence supports the hypothesis that the external knowledge generated at each destination is statistically significant, even though internal knowledge turns out to be more relevant in terms of hotel profitability.     

The development of a destination brand identity: a story of stakeholder collaboration

Literature has demonstrated the central role of stakeholders and collaboration in destination branding. However, empirical studies on stakeholder interactions and their dynamics in destination and place branding are still rare. The objective of this study is to examine how different kinds of factors and internal stakeholders’ actions contribute to destination brand identity development. Drawing from social identity and place branding theories, and empirical research from a ski destination, we identify five factors and four actions contributing to the destination brand identity development process. Our findings indicate that a strong informal stakeholder group can take the leadership in brand development and that the role of the destination marketing organisation might be overemphasised in the literature on destination marketing and management.     

Film-induced tourist motivations. The case of Seville (Spain)

Tourists' attraction to filmed sites has increased destination marketing organisations (DMOs) interest in film-induced tourism. Seville, Spain, has been the setting of many national and international film productions. Film tourism research has focused on impacts, travel preferences and destination choice, but there is a lack of research on motivations of film tourism. As a consequence, DMO actions in film tourism are often developed ad hoc, in an unplanned and opportunistic way without understanding the phenomenon. This research tries to fill this gap by focusing on film tourism in Seville in order to identify film tourists' motivations. Results identify film tourism activity and find five motivations of the film-induced tourist in Seville: film site experiences, fantasy, novelty, touring the film and personal film-location connection. Results show films add something valuable to destination experience (as a secondary or tertiary attraction). Destination managers should consider novelty factor as an element to enhance tourist experience, especially for non-European ones as well as for female tourists and tourist above 25 years, to motivate a slightly positive site experience.     

Destination management plans – a new approach to managing destinations in England: evidence from Milton Keynes

Within a new political and economic context, Destination Management Organizations (DMOs) across England are expected to facilitate a more holistic and inclusive approach to destination management and provide core leadership functions, rather than being solely responsible for the marketing and development of destinations. Destination Management Plans (DMPs) are an expression of a government-mandated, current policy-driven approach to guiding the work of private-led DMOs. These DMOs are being challenged to achieve a more sustainable level of performance in times of decreasing state funding. Building on the scarce literature surrounding this new approach to managing destinations, this paper looks into how an emerging destination has approached the development of such a plan in practice. The paper examines the case of Milton Keynes and its local destination management structure, the collaborative approach to policy development and the resultant DMP. The paper concludes by discussing the importance of the key aims of the plan and their relevance to comparable emerging destinations, which are developing DMPs.     

Destination Ireland: an ancestral and emotional connection for the American tourist

The direction of the research in this paper is dictated by the particular characteristics attaching to the special relationship that exists between Ireland and the USA. In order to understand the complexities that govern the motivating factors underlying American tourist interest in Ireland, this research examines the singular historical, psychological, emotional, and connectional dimensions that will afford us the knowledge from which deductible theories, conclusions, and recommendations can be extracted. This paper, therefore, seeks to outline the historical framework governing the development of the relationship between the USA and Ireland, and identifies the historical, ancestral, emotional, and connectional factors that bind the two nations. This research presents new empirical findings on the American tourist's quest for ancestral tangibility in destination Ireland. Destination Ireland is marketed in a highly competitive environment and the future of the Irish tourism industry will inevitably be dependent on the ability of tourism industry managers to deliver new viable options and motivations to travel to Ireland. A significant finding in this current research suggests that the development of an ancestral product would address this requirement in the market place.     

Structural Relationships among Destination Preference,Satisfaction and Loyalty in Chinese Tourists to Australia

This study quantifies the relationship among destination preference, destination satisfaction and destination loyalty. Destination loyalty consists of two dimensions: word‐of‐mouth (WOM) and destination attachment (DA). It is found that WOM is directly affected by destination satisfaction, whereas DA is predetermined by the destination preference of tourists before a visit. Thus, the destination experience is the crucial factor in the spread of positive WOM about a destination. Nevertheless, to develop tourists' DA, effective loyalty schemes should be implemented through marketing efforts before they visit a destination. The findings of this study can be used by destinations to analyze and evaluate their loyalty‐building process and marketing strategy. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Understanding and measuring tourist destination images

A destination image is ‘the expression of all objective knowledge, impressions, prejudice, imaginations, and emotional thoughts an individual or group might have of a particular place’ (Lawson and Baud Bovy, 1977 ). Destination images influence a tourist's travel decision-making, cognition and behaviour at a destination as well as satisfaction levels and recollection of the experience. This paper looks at the concept of tourist destination images and how destination image research has been approached from different academic disciplines and by practitioners such as tourism marketers. In particular, different techniques for the measurement of a tourist's destination images are reviewed and the dominance of structured, word-based approaches is highlighted. This paper adds to previous work that has listed the main attributes used in image studies by including recent studies, many of which are Australian. In the paper it is argued that to provide valid image research, a preliminary phase of qualitative research is important in order to distil the constructs relevant to the population being studied. Construct elicitation techniques, such as free-elicitation, interactive interviews and focus group interviews, are discussed along with new techniques that include the visual aspect of image, such as photo-elicitation. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Sampling method for monitoring the alternative accommodation market

Tourism is an extremely competitive industry where effective destination management is necessary to compete. One of the main destination management stakeholders is the hotel industry. Since the advent of the Internet websites that facilitate the sharing economy, the hotel industry has had to compete with an alternative accommodation market. This alternative market is difficult to monitor as there is no official data. Current research works on developing methods for calculating tourism metrics for a destination based on digital footprint with the objective of offering figures to complement official statistics. The objective of our research is to develop a method to monitor the alternative accommodation market based on data collected from Airbnb. This paper reports the results of the first step: the design of a sampling method for data scraping from this website that provides a representative sample of the accommodation offer of the Basque Country distributed through it and its prices. The results show that the length-of-stay (LOS) parameter of the queries to the website is key to obtaining a representative sample of the accommodation offered through this channel. A sampling method based on the representative values of LOS inferred from a data sample is proposed.     

Reprint of “Linking rival and stakeholder pressure to green supply management: Mediating role of top management support”

Drawing upon the Schumpeterian view of competition and stakeholder theory, the purpose of our study is to examine how issues of rivalry and stakeholder pressure motivate firms to implement green supply management practices. We also consider the role of top management support as an important enabler to how firms react to competitive pressures to pursue green supply management practices. Our model is tested using a sample of supply chain professionals. Our results indicate that environmental pressure from rivals and stakeholders influences green supply management implementation through the mediating role of top management support for environmental initiatives.     

Destination competitiveness through the lens of brand positioning: the case of Australia's Sunshine Coast

The purpose of the paper is to provide a collaborative practitioner/academic interpretation of a destination's competitiveness through the lens of brand positioning in the domestic short break drive market. A 173 item questionnaire, which was mailed to a systematic random sample of 3000 households in the target market, attracted a 17% useable response. The paper compares how one destination, the Sunshine Coast, is positioned in its most important market, in relation to the brand identity intended by the destination marketing organisation (DMO). Key constructs were brand salience, brand associations and brand resonance. The Sunshine Coast was found to hold a leadership position in the minds of consumers, and the results indicated a strong level of congruence between actual market perceptions and the brand identity intended by the DMO. There were strong associations between brand salience, brand associations and brand resonance. The findings provided the destination of interest with both a measure of past marketing effectiveness as well as positive indicators of future performance. The paper represents collaboration between a tourism practitioner and a tourism academic, and attempts a contribution to the emerging literature on destination competitiveness through the lens of positioning theory.     

Tourist Word of Mouth and Revisit Intentions to Rural Tourism Destinations: a Case of North Dakota,USA

Destination managers in rural states, like North Dakota, understand the benefits of tourism and, thus, the importance of studying visitors' intentions. This study investigated visitors' perceptions of destination image, value and satisfaction and those variables’ relationship with future behaviors, with a specific focus on their intent to return and make recommendations to others. The results showed that destination image directly affects visitors' perception of value and revisit intentions, and it indirectly affects satisfaction and recommendation intentions. The results also demonstrate how tourism practitioners can apply past models to their destination. The overall findings support the concept that a positive image is important to attracting repeat visitors. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

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.