Abstract
With the aim of communicating their identities and brands, tourist destinations have started to use social media. However, many do not know very well how to manage them in order to improve their online communication. Several studies have shown that a high level of interactivity generated with users in social media leads to greater engagement and a better brand image. The aim of this study is to analyse the brand contents that generate the most reactions among users and to ascertain if the communication of the brand image and its emotional values also generates reactions. Results show that the most identifying or destination-specific themes/attributes are the ones that trigger the most reactions (interactivity), although very often generic attributes are also communicated. Moreover, this study shows that the communication of emotional brand values also generates reactions, although emotional values are rarely communicated by tourist destinations. The brand values and attributes that trigger the most user reactions do not usually coincide with the most mentioned ones by destinations in their posts.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aaker JL (1997) Dimensions of brand personality. J Mark Res 34:347–356
Agarwal S, Mondal A, Nath A (2011) Social media—the new corporate playground. Int J Res Rev Comput Sci 2:696–700
Algesheimer R, Dholakia UM, Herrmann A (2005) The social influence of brand community: evidence from European car clubs. J Mark 69:19–34. doi:10.1509/jmkg.69.3.19.66363
Arlt WG (2006) Not very willkommen: the Internet as a marketing tool for attracting German-speaking tourists to non-European destinations. Inf Technol Tour 8:227–238. doi:10.3727/109830506778690803
Baloglu S, McCleary K (1999) A model of destination image formation. Ann Tour Res 26:868–897. doi:10.1016/S0160-7383(99)00030-4
Beerli A, Martin JD (2004) Factors influencing destination image. Ann Tour Res 31:657–681. doi:10.1016/j.annals.2004.01.010
Bigné E, Sánchez I, Sanz S (2009) The functional-psychological continuum in the cognitive image of a destination. A confirmatory analysis. Tour Manag 30:715–723. doi:10.1016/j.tourman.2008.10.020
Buhalis D, Law R (2008) Progress in information technology and tourism management: 20 years on and 10 years after the Internet—the state of eTourism research. Tour Manag 29:609–623. doi:10.1016/j.tourman.2008.01.005
Choi S, Lehto XY, Morrison AM (2007) Destination image representation on the web: content analysis of Macau travel related websites. Tour Manag 28:118–129. doi:10.1016/j.tourman.2006.03.002
De Moya M, Jain R (2013) When tourists are your “friends”: exploring the brand personality of Mexico and Brazil on Facebook. Public Relat Rev 39:23–29. doi:10.1016/j.pubrev.2012.09.004
Del Chiappa G (2011) Trustworthiness of Travel 2.0 applications and their influence on tourist behaviour: an empirical investigation in Italy. In: Law R, Fuchs M, Ricci F (eds) Information and communication technologies in tourism 2011. Springer, New York, pp 331–342
Echtner CM, Ritchie JRB (1991) The meaning and measurement of destination image. J Tour Studies 2:2–12
FEMP, TourSpain (eds) (2008) Modelos de gestión turística local: Principios y prácticas. Federación Española de Municipios y Provincias, Secretaría General de Turismo, Madrid
Fernandez-Cavia J, Rovira C, Diaz-Luque P, Cavaller V (2014) Web quality index (WQI) for official tourist destination websites: proposal for an assessment system. Tour Manag Perspect 9:5–13. doi:10.1016/j.tmp.2013.10.003
Fischer E, Reuber AR (2011) Social interaction via new social media: (How) can interactions on Twitter affect effectual thinking and behavior? J Bus Ventur 26:1–18. doi:10.1016/j.jbusvent.2010.09.002
Fotis J, Buhalis D, Rossides N (2012) Social media use and impact during the holiday travel planning process. In: Fuchs M, Ricci F, Cantoni L (eds) Information and communication technologies in tourism 2012. Springer, Vienna, pp 13–24. doi:10.1007/978-3-7091-1142-0_2
Govers R, Go FM (2003) Deconstructing destination image in the information age. Inf Technol Tour 6:13–29. doi:10.3727/109830503108751199
Govers R, Go FM (2009) Place branding: Glocal, virtual and physical identities, constructed, imagined and experienced. Palgrave Macmillan, UK
Govers R, Go FM, Kumar K (2007) Promoting tourism destination image. J Travel Res 46:15–23. doi:10.1177/0047287507302374
Hays S, Page SJ, Buhalis D (2013) Social media as a destination marketing tool: its use by national tourism organisations. Curr Issues Tour 16:211–239. doi:10.1080/13683500.2012.662215
Hosany S, Ekinci Y, Uysal M (2006) Destination image and destination personality: an application of branding theories to tourism places. J Bus Res 59:638–642. doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2006.01.001
Huertas A (2014) La comunicación de los territorios, los destinos y sus marcas. Guía práctica de aplicación desde las relaciones públicas. DIRCOM-UOC, Barcelona
Huertas A, Fernández Cavia J (2006) Ciudades en la web: usabilidad e interactividad de las páginas oficiales de los destinos turísticos. In: TURITEC 2006. Universidad de Málaga, Spain, pp 403–422
Huertas A, Marine-Roig E (2014) Uso y utilidades de las herramientas de análisis online para la evaluación de la comunicación de las marcas de destino a través de los social media (Use and utilities of online analysis tools for the communication evaluation of destination tourist brands through social media). Sphera Publica, pp 117–134
Inversini A, Buhalis D (2009) Information convergence in the long tail: The case of tourism destination information. In: Hopken W, Gretzel U, Law R (eds) Information and communication technologies in tourism 2009. Springer, Vienna, pp 381–392
Jacobsen JKS, Munar AM (2012) Tourist information search and destination choice in a digital age. Tour Manag Perspect 1:39–47. doi:10.1016/j.tmp.2011.12.005
Jang HJ, Sim J, Lee Y, Kwon O (2013) Deep sentiment analysis: mining the causality between personality-value-attitude for analyzing business ads in social media. Expert Syst Appl 40:7492–7503. doi:10.1016/j.eswa.2013.06.069
Jenkins OH (1999) Understanding and measuring tourist destination images. Int J Tour Res 1:1–15
Jung TH, Butler R (2000) Perceptions of marketing managers of the effectiveness of the Internet in tourism and hospitality. Inf Technol Tour 3:167–176
Kapferer JN (1997) Strategic brand management. Kogan Page, London
Kaplan AM, Haenlein M (2010) Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of social media. Bus Horiz 53:59–68. doi:10.1016/j.bushor.2009.09.003
Keller K (2003) Strategic brand management: building, measuring, and managing brand equity, 2nd edn. Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River
Kim H, Stepchenkova S (2015) Effect of tourist photographs on attitudes towards destination: manifest and latent content. Tour Manag 49:29–41. doi:10.1016/j.tourman.2015.02.004
Ko H, Cho CH, Roberts MS (2005) Internet uses and gratifications. A structural equation model of interactive advertising. J Advert 34:57–70. doi:10.1080/00913367.2005.10639191
Koltringer C, Dickinger A (2015) Analyzing destination branding and image from online sources: a web content mining approach. J Bus Res 68:1836–1843. doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.01.011
Laroche M, Habibi MR, Richard MO (2013) To be or not to be in social media: how brand loyalty is affected by social media? Int J Inf Manag 33:76–82. doi:10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2012.07.003
Lawson F, Band-Bovy M (1977) Tourism and recreational development. Architectural Press, London
Leung D, Law R, van Hoof H, Buhalis D (2013) Social media in tourism and hospitality: a literature review. J Travel Tour Mark 30:3–22. doi:10.1080/10548408.2013.750919
Li X, Stepchenkova S (2012) Chinese outbound tourists’ destination image of America. J Travel Res 51:250–266. doi:10.1177/0047287511410349
Litvin SW, Goldsmith RE, Pan B (2008) Electronic word-of-mouth in hospitality and tourism management. Tour Manag 29:458–468. doi:10.1016/j.tourman.2007.05.011
Lovejoy K, Saxton GD (2012) Information, community, and action: how nonprofit organizations use social media. J Comput Mediat Commun 17:337–353. doi:10.1111/j.1083-6101.2012.01576.x
Mandelli A, Cantoni L (2010) Social media impact on corporate reputation: proposing a new methodological approach. Cuadernos de Informacion 27:61–74
Marchiori E, Cantoni L (2012) The online reputation construct: does it matter for the tourism domain? A literature review on destinations’ online reputation. Inf Technol Tourism 13:139–159. doi:10.3727/109830512X13283928066715
Marine-Roig E (2013) From the projected to the transmitted image: the 2.0 construction of tourist destination image and identity in Catalonia, PhD dissertation. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/135006 (accessed 31 May 2015)
Marine-Roig E (2014) A webometric analysis of travel blogs and reviews hosting: the case of Catalonia. J Travel Tour Mark 31:381–396. doi:10.1080/10548408.2013.877413
Marine-Roig E (2015) Identity and authenticity in destination image construction. Anatolia 26:574–587. doi:10.1080/13032917.2015.1040814
Michaelidou N, Siamagka NT, Moraes C, Micevski M (2013) Do marketers use visual representations of destinations that tourists value? Comparing visitors image of a destination with marketer-controlled images online. J Travel Res 52:789–804. doi:10.1177/0047287513481272
Miralbell O, Alzua A, Kepa J (2014) Content curation and narrative tourism marketing. In: Xiang Z, Tussyadiah I (eds) Information and communication technologies in tourism 2014. Springer, Austria, pp 187–199. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-03973-2_14
Morgan NJ, Pritchard A, Piggott R (2003) Destination branding and the role of the stakeholders: the case of New Zealand. J Vacat Mark 9:285–299. doi:10.1177/135676670300900307
Munar AM (2011) Tourist-created content: rethinking destination branding. Int J Cult Tour Hosp Res 5:291–305. doi:10.1108/17506181111156989
Munar AM, Jacobsen JKS (2014) Motivations for sharing tourism experiences through social media. Tour Manag 43:46–54. doi:10.1016/j.tourman.2014.01.012
Niemann-Struweg I (2014) An integrated communication implementation model for the post-2000 business environment. Public Relat Rev 40:184–192. doi:10.1016/j.pubrev.2013.08.011
Nusair K, Bilgihan A, Okumus F, Cobanoglu C (2013) Generation Y travelers’ commitment to online network websites. Tour Manag 35:13–22. doi:10.1016/j.tourman.2012.05.005
Opoku RA (2006) Towards a methodological design for evaluating online brand positioning, Doctoral dissertation, p 61. http://pure.ltu.se/portal/en/ (accessed 31 May 2015)
Pan B, Li X (2011) The long tail of destination image and online marketing. Ann Tourism Res 38:132–152. doi:10.1016/j.annals.2010.06.004
Pike S (2002) Destination image analysis—a review of 142 papers from 1973 to 2000. Tour Manag 23:541–549. doi:10.1016/S0261-5177(02)00005-5
Qu H, Kim LH, Im HH (2011) A model of destination branding: integrating the concepts of the branding and destination image. Tour Manag 32:465–476. doi:10.1016/j.tourman.2010.03.014
Sabate F, Berbegal-Mirabent J, Cañabate A, Lebherz PR (2014) Factors influencing popularity of branded content in Facebook fan pages. Eur Manag J 32:1001–1011. doi:10.1016/j.emj.2014.05.001
Saffer AJ, Sommerfeldt EJ, Taylor M (2013) The effects of organizational Twitter interactivity on organization-public relationships. Public Relat Rev 39:213–215. doi:10.1016/j.pubrev.2013.02.005
Schmallegger D, Carson D (2010) Destination image projection on consumer generated content websites (CGC): a case study of the Flinders Ranges. Inf Technol Tour 11:111–127. doi:10.3727/109830509789994838
Sicilia M, Ruiz S, Munuera JL (2005) Effects of interactivity in a web site: the moderating effect of need for cognition. J Advert 34:31–44. doi:10.1080/00913367.2005.10639202
Stepchenkova S, Zhan F (2013) Visual destination images of Peru: comparative content analysis of DMO and user-generated photography. Tour Manag 36:590–601. doi:10.1016/j.tourman.2012.08.006
Tasci ADA, Gartner WC, Cavusgil ST (2007) Conceptualization and operationalization of destination image. J Hosp Tour Res 31:194–223. doi:10.1177/1096348006297290
Tsimonis G, Dimitriadis S (2014) Brand strategies in social media. Mark Intell Plan 32:328–344. doi:10.1108/MIP-04-2013-0056
Tussyadiah IP, Fesenmaier DR (2009) Mediating tourist experiences: access to places via shared videos. Ann Tourism Res 36:24–40. doi:10.1016/j.annals.2008.10.001
Valentini C (2015) Is using social media “good” for the public relations profession? A critical reflection. Public Relat Rev 41:170–177. doi:10.1016/j.pubrev.2014.11.009
Walther JB, Jang J (2012) Communication processes in participatory websites. J Comput Mediat Commun 18:2–15. doi:10.1111/j.1083-6101.2012.01592.x
Wenger A (2008) Analysis of travel bloggers’ characteristics and their communication about Austria as a tourism destination. J Vacat Mark 14:169–176. doi:10.1177/1356766707087525
Xiang Z, Gretzel U (2010) Role of social media in online travel information search. Tour Manag 31:179–188. doi:10.1016/j.tourman.2009.02.016
Xiang Z, Wober K, Fesenmaier DR (2008) Representation of the online tourism domain in search engines. J Travel Res 47:137–150. doi:10.1177/0047287508321193
Yoo KH, Gretzel U (2011) Antecedents and impacts of trust in travel-related consumer-generated media. Inf Technol Tour 12:139–152. doi:10.3727/109830510X12887971002701
Zhang L, Pan B, Smith W, Li X (2010) An exploratory study of travelers’ use of online reviews and recommendations. Inf Technol Tour 11:157–167. doi:10.3727/109830509789994775
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by Spain’s Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Grant ID: CSO2012-34824 “Uso e influencia de los social media y la comunicación 2.0 en la toma de decisiones turísticas y en la imagen de marca de los destinos”).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
This paper is an extended and updated version of a conference paper previously published in ENTER Proceedings of the International Conference in Lugano, Switzerland, February 3–6, 2015.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Huertas, A., Marine-Roig, E. User reactions to destination brand contents in social media. Inf Technol Tourism 15, 291–315 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40558-015-0045-9
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40558-015-0045-9