Application of social media analytics in tourism crisis communication

Given the newly established communication environment of social media and highly unpredictable crisis situations, this study questioned how tourists facing an unexpected crisis situation use social media to communicate and search for information. To this end, this study developed a multi-phased social media analytic framework (data crawling, data processing and text mining, social network analysis, semantic network analysis, and network visualization) to assess the structure of information exchanges between the members of a tourism organization’s social network community and identified influential actors and information content within the social network. This study’s findings suggest genuine ways of relating with and utilizing opinion leaders and influencers in social media marketing communication as well as crisis communication. The authors expect this proposed methodological framework of social media analytics to help other scholars scientifically identify and implement the proper methodologies for utilizing social media data.     

Breach of traveller privacy in location-based social media

The availability of location-based social media (LBSM) presents various opportunities for tourism researchers and businesses to understand and enhance the traveller experience. However, privacy concerns can prevent users from sharing their location data, impeding the future development of LBSM applications. Privacy issues of LBSM remain under investigation in the tourism literature probably because social media platforms are often assumed to feature good security mechanisms. This paper argues that risks of privacy disclosure exist not from direct access to private data but indirectly through seemingly harmless data published by users. We present a social link mining technique and demonstrate how private and sensitive information in the form of social relationships between travellers can be revealed. The ?ndings can support managers and researchers in realizing the potential privacy risks of LBSM so that effective strategies can be developed to protect users and promote the gains that LBSM can bring.     

Application of cultural tourist typology in a gaming destination – Macao

The aim of the paper is to study how cultural tourist typologies apply in an urban gaming destination and how such typologies could aid in the segmentation and profiling of this niche tourist market. Results showed that there exists a certain demand for cultural tourism in Macao and there are different ways to distinguish between cultural and non-cultural tourists, as well as to identify sub-groups of cultural tourists. The three approaches used to distinguish between the two cohorts came up with different percentages of cultural tourists within the total tourist sample. Other findings showed significant differences in trip characteristics and information search behaviour between the two cohorts and among sub-groups of cultural tourists. Such information could be used for profiling purposes. The resulting profiles have implications on marketing and promotion strategies which should not focus only on tourists' primary motives but should attempt to induce or arouse their secondary interests. The methodology could be applied to other destinations hoping to develop cultural tourism.     

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.     

The impact of urban features in cycling potential – A tale of Portuguese cities

While the bicycle is commonly understood as a suitable alternative to fulfil most of urban mobility needs, adoption rates of this transport mode vary considerably among urban areas. Those at early stages of adoption, identified as starter cycling cities, face numerous challenges, reducing the effectiveness of policies and strategies. Much research has been dedicated at identifying social and physical environment conditions favouring the use of the bicycle. Assuming cycling potential results of a good combination of physical and socio-demographic factors, we set out to identify dominant contexts generating high levels of cycling potential. The previously developed Gross Potential for Cycling is applied to 21 Portuguese municipalities of different spatial contexts. By looking at the particularities of different typologies of urban territories, a set of k-means clustering analyses investigates which combination of factors contribute to the establishment of a high cycling potential.The results indicate that, in the set of case studies, high accessibility to schools and urban centralities are common in high cycling potential areas, regardless of spatial context. Three clusters were identified from the combination of the age profile of residents and the connectivity features of the territory, defining the main typologies of high cycling potential areas. As different urban typologies pose distinct configurations on the performance of the different evaluated indicators, these outcomes are crucial to inform policy makers on where to prioritize investment for the establishment of a new cycling culture.     

Historic Tourism to New Lanark and the Falls of Clyde 1795–1830. The Evidence of Contemporary Visiting Books and Related Sources

New Lanark and the falls of Clyde, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, show the coincidence of picturesque and industrial tourism in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Made famous by Robert Owen (1771–1851), the social reformer, the factory village of New Lanark attracted many visitors from Britain and abroad. This article examines early visitor data, typologies, origins, occupational profiles, motivations, and visitor experiences. A high proportion of visitors, it concludes, were interested in social and educational reform, as well as seeing romantic scenery. It also suggests that in line with Owen's agenda, the interpretation of the site for modern visitors is strongly influenced by similar social, educational, cooperative and environmental concerns.     

‘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.     

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.     

From vehicle suppliers to value co-creators: the evolving role of Italian motorhome manufacturers

Recreational vehicle (RV) manufacturers have traditionally been viewed as having no direct effect on caravanning experiences beyond their role as the suppliers of the vehicles. Drawing on the theoretical approach known as service-dominant logic, this paper suggests that RV manufacturers play an active role in the co-creation of tourism experiences. This study adopted the framework developed by Storbacka, K., Brodie, R. J., P., Böhmann, T., Maglio P. P., & Nenonen, S. [(2016). Actor engagement as a microfoundation for value co-creation. Journal of Business Research, 69(1), 3008–3017] that considers engagement as a microfoundation of value co-creation to investigate value co-creation in this context. A template analysis of the data collected from in-depth interviews with all Italian motorhome manufacturers revealed themes relating to five issues: engaging actors, engaging platforms, actors’ dispositions, engagement properties and resource integration patterns. The theoretical and managerial implications of these findings are discussed.     

Airline alliance survival analysis: typology,strategy and duration

Alliances have become the organization model of choice in many industries. This study uses data from the Airline Business annual surveys of airline alliances to test a proposed typology predicting survival and duration in airline alliances. The Rhoades-Lush typologies classified key activities of airline alliances by their level of complexity and resource commitment in order to suggest a series of propositions on alliance stability and duration. The results of our analysis indicate that alliances containing joint purchasing and marketing activities had lower risk of termination than alliances involving equity. Furthermore, alliances spanning more than two typologies showed lower risk of termination than one and two typology alliances. This is explained as the ‘strategy effect’ or in other words the tendency of alliances wide in scope to be more resistant to early termination.     

‘Pull’ motivation: an activity-based typology of international visitors to New Zealand

Using the push and pull framework, this study examines the relationship between tourist activities in New Zealand and behaviours such as tourist spending, travel style (group vs. independent travel) and length of stay. Data from the International Visitor Survey were analysed for a 19-year period (1997–2015). The findings, based on 62,288 respondents, identified 9 typologies of international visitors over this period. For example, type one visitors are primarily pulled by the nature-based activities offered in New Zealand while type two is pulled by adventure activities. Some of the typologies have activities that overlap reflecting the needs of international visitors. Significant relationships were found between the nine typologies, tourist spending, travel style and length of stay. Implications for destination marketing purposes are highlighted.     

Developing a TOD typology for Beijing metro station areas

Across the world, Transit Oriented Development (TOD) offers a strategy to integrate land use and transport systems by clustering urban developments around public transport nodes in functionally dense and diverse, pedestrian- and cycling-friendly areas. Even though the basic philosophy of TOD seems to be the same in all contexts, its specific applications greatly differ in form, function and impacts, calling for context-based TOD typologies that can help map these local specificities and better focus policy interventions. In recent years, TOD has also been widely advocated and applied in China; however, so far no study has systematically developed a TOD typology in a Chinese context. This paper fills this gap for the case of the Beijing metropolitan area. The approach is based on the node-place model, introduced by Bertolini (1996, 1999) to chart ‘Transit’ and ‘Development’ components, expanding it with a third, ‘Oriented’, dimension to quantify the degree of orientation of transit and development components towards each other. The paper reviewed the main TOD indicators in the international literature, selected those appropriate for the Beijing context, and classified the metro station areas into TOD types through a cluster analysis. The six identified types of metro station areas in Beijing demonstrate how the context-specific typology can support local urban and transport planners, designers and policymakers when considering future interventions.     

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.     

Path dependence in urban transport: An institutional analysis of urban passenger transport in Melbourne,Australia, 1956–2006

In order to deepen understanding of path dependence in urban transport, this article presents a case study of urban passenger transport institutions in Melbourne, Australia over 50 years. The institutional capacity of the roads and public transport sectors are explored separately and the trends are then compared and contrasted. The main components of the analysis are: structural changes to the organisations, participation on planning committees, access to financial resources, accountability frameworks, membership of forums and relationships with other actors. The conclusion is that, whilst the historical picture is complex, the trend is a strengthening of road planning institutions, and weakening public transport planning. This situation appears to be out of alignment with current needs.     

Transit-oriented development (TOD) typologies around metro station areas in urban China: A comparative analysis of five typical megacities for planning implications

Transit-oriented development (TOD), which is regarded as an efficient planning strategy for urban sustainability, has surged in use across the globe in the recent past. While the lessons learned from case studies of individual cities can provide valuable references, they also result in a gap between existing theoretical principles and actual planning practices. The comparative analysis of TOD typologies among cities affords unique strengths for addressing such a challenge. By extending the classic ‘node–place’ model with a third dimension, this paper first constructs a ‘node–functionality–place’ model in the form of a magic cube as the theoretical basis for classifying TOD typologies. Then, the model is applied to five typical Chinese megacities, namely, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Wuhan and Hangzhou. After establishing an indicator system, the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is used to determine the TOD degree, and a two-step cluster is employed to classify TOD typologies. The results show that the TOD degree, although it varies with cities, presents a similar spatial pattern, with a general tendency to decline from the central core to the outskirts. In total, six TOD types are distinguished and present notable variations within and across the five megacities. The identified TOD typologies thus equip urban planners and policymakers with a useful tool for designing more targeted strategies. The discoveries made in the comparative context differ from those made in the individual context in prior studies. This paper is thus believed to make a new contribution to the existing TOD literature.     

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.     

Spatial,temporal and institutional characteristics of entry strategies in inland container terminals: A comparison between Yangtze River and Rhine River

Recent decades have brought a growing commitment of investors in the (co-)funding and management of inland terminals, particularly container terminals. However, the actors involved, the forms of third-party entry and the emerging partnerships in inland terminals have only been investigated on a fragmented basis in inland port research. To complement existing inland port research on governance, management and spatial development, this paper analyses entry strategies of actors in inland container terminals on the Rhine and Yangtze in terms of their spatial, temporal and institutional characteristics. The unit of analysis in this paper is the inland container terminal, not necessarily the entire inland port (which might have more than one terminal). The entry strategies and the drivers behind these strategies are examined using a conceptual framework focused on five questions, i.e. who, where, when, why and which way. The empirical application is based on a large dataset of all container terminals on the Rhine and Yangtze. Our findings suggest clear differences between the two rivers in terms of the type of operators, the sequence of inland port development and also the major actors shaping the inland terminal landscape. Despite these differences, there is also some level of similarity, including a low presence of international players, the absence of deepsea (landlord) port authorities and observed waves of single acquisition, multiple-site acquisition, and capital entry in the terminals. Government policies, institutional frameworks and the nature of shipping network development are determinants of inland port investment and the entry strategies adopted by relevant actors. The findings contribute to a better understanding of the drivers and contextual environment guiding entry strategies in inland ports and can help policy makers and port operators in inland rivers to assess and benchmark their strategy. The paper adds to existing literature by considering spatiotemporal aspects of terminal ownership and the strategic considerations of and institutional drivers and impediments to the inland terminal strategies of the corresponding actors.     

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.     

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.