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nternational Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Researchmerald Article: Tourist-created content: rethinking destination branding

na Mara Munar

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o cite this document: Ana Mara Munar, (2011),"Tourist-created content: rethinking destination branding", International Journal

Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research, Vol. 5 Iss: 3 pp. 291 - 305

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Tourist-created content: rethinking

destination branding

Ana Mara Munar

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationship between tourists user-generated

content on the web and destination branding, as well as to discuss the online strategies used by

destination management organizations.

Design/methodology/approach The research adopts an exploratory study of social media sites and

destination brands, relying on qualitative research methods, content analysis and field research.

Findings Tourists are largely contributing to destination image formation, while avoiding the use of the

formal elements of the brands. The most popular strategies used by destination management

organizations exhibit some crucial weaknesses. However, a strategy based on analytics brings new

opportunities for destination branding.

Originality/value The study provides an innovative analysis of tourist-created content and its impact

on destination branding and presents a theoretical model of generic web-based strategies.

Keywords Destination branding, User-generated content, Information technology, Tourism

Paper type Research paper

Introduction

Information and communication technologies (ICT) are of great importance in understanding

the development of todays tourism destinations (Buhalis and Law, 2008). Their impact isconsiderable in the branding of tourism products in general and in the branding of

destinations in particular. However, a review of the literature reveals minimal knowledge

related to the impact of one of the latest developments in ICT, the popular phenomenon

known as Web 2.0, on destination branding. This term describes a Web which is

increasingly influenced by intelligent Web services that empower users to contribute to

developing, rating, collaborating and distributing Internet content and customizing Internet

applications (Vickery and Wunsch-Vincent, 2007, p. 9). These forms of virtual social

communication are based on Content Management System software (Stillman and McGrath,

2008) and include a mixture of different tools such as blogs, wikis, podcasts, messaging

applications and others which are meant to encourage the sharing of information.

Web 2.0 tools are widely used by tourists to get information about tourism destinations and to

share their tourism experiences. The digital content provided by these tourists has increasingly

influenced destination awareness and image creation (Tussyadiah and Fesenmaier, 2009). This

development is due to the following factors: more powerful and affordable hardware and

software, a faster network edge, advances in easy-to-use tools for creating and sharing

content, a higher e-literacy in the population of the world, and the increase of portable and

wireless platforms (Parameswaran and Whinston, 2007). These factors entail a change in the

locus of control of the creation process of the online branding of destinations. Nowadays, web

branding content, previously controlled by organizations and corporations, is to a larger extent

the expression of the interaction and participation of end-users.

DOI 10.1108/17506181111156989 VOL. 5 NO. 3 2011, pp. 291-305, Q Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1750-6182 j INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CULTURE, TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY RESEARCH j PAGE 291

Ana Mara Munar is an

Associate Professor at

Copenhagen Business

School, Frederiksberg,

Denmark.

Received: June 2009Revised: June 2010Accepted: June 2010

The author thanks the NordicInnovation Center for researchfunding, and Carina Hallin andBjarke Mller for reading andproviding comments to thismanuscript.


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One of the main characteristics of the Web 2.0 turn is that it enables user generated content

(UGC). UGC refers to the information that is digitalized, uploaded by the users and made

available through the internet. This paper focuses on a specific type of user generated

content: tourist created content (TCC). The study departs from findings presented in earlier

studies on TCC (Munar, 2010) and analyzes the impact of TCC on destination branding.

A large number of researchers focus on how the technological revolution of ICT has

transformed tourism (Buhalis and Law, 2008) and several studies analyze the interrelation

between destinations, consumer searches and ICT (Fodness and Murray, 1997; Bonn et al.,

1999; Weber and Roehl, 1999; Buhalis, 1998; Luo et al., 2004; Werthner and Ricci, 2004;

Fras et al., 2008; Li et al., 2009; Weinberg, 2009). Tourism research has many relevant

studies relating to destination branding (Gartner, 1986; Cai, 2002; Ooi, 2004; Konecnik and

Gartner, 2007; Murphy et al., 2007; Marzano and Scott, 2009), but a specific focus on UGC

and destination branding is missing. Nevertheless, several social scientists focus on the

Internet as a factor of social, cultural and economic change (Castells, 1996, 1997, 2001;

Poster, 2006; Basu et al., 2007; Schwanen and Kwan, 2008; Stillman and McGrath, 2008)

and on the importance of UGC (Lenhart and Fox, 2006; Cooke and Buckley, 2008; Lenhart

et al., 2008). Dellarocas (2003) analyzes the consequences of the digitalization of

word-of-mouth, a relevant factor concerning destination image formation, and several

popular books cover the issue of social media and business management (Qualman, 2009;

Weinberg, 2009).

Most of the knowledge and sources available on the topic of Web 2.0 and UGC in tourism are

organizational reports or newspaper and magazine articles, many of which containinformation provided by web sources and consultancy firms, weakening their level of

reliability and validity. Although tourism research has interesting contributions on the topic of

the internet and tourism branding, the impact of TCC and destination branding remains

unexplored.

Tourist created content and destination branding

UGC is the aggregation and leveraging of users contributions on the web. UGC is the digital

transformation of cultural objects: text, sounds and images (Poster, 2006). Several definitions

and classifications of this content exist in the literature (Cook, 2008; Cooke and Buckley, 2008;

Deshpande and Jadad, 2006; Lenhart and Fox, 2006; Stillman and McGrath, 2008; Vickery

and Wunsch-Vincent, 2007; Wellman, 2007; World Tourism Organization, 2008). Cook (2008)

defines UGC as a part of broader user contribution systems. These systems aggregate and

leverage various types of user input in ways that are valuable to others (p. 62) and consist of

various types of contributions: active contributions (aggregating content or items for sale) and

passive contributions (aggregating behavioral data or resources). Vickery and

Wunsch-Vincents (2007) analysis of the participative web provides a difference between

UGC and user created content (UCC) and focuses on the creative element of the content

generation. Tourist created content refers to the active and creative contributions of tourists on

the web (Munar, 2010). Many of the tools related to UGC (e.g. blogs, podcasts, wikis, etc.) are

used by tourism corporations and organizations to increase and enhance interaction with their

employees/members and the connectivity with suppliers and other business partners.

However, an analysis of this business-to-business perspective would lie beyond the aims of

this study. The focusof this researchis on the participative end-user, the tourist and the impact

of his/her contributions to destination branding.

The importance of the UGC is evident in the fact that a number of companies, whichintensively use Web 2.0 tools, are already among the top ten most visited sites by US internet

users: eBay (n.7), Amazon (n.8), Wikimedia Foundation (n. 9) (Nielsen, 2008). Youtube, eBay

and Wikipedia are also listed as numbers six, eight and 10 in the ranking of the top 10 brands

(Nielsen, 2008). Data from firms measuring Internet traffic show high levels of concentration

on some of the most important UGC web sites: MySpace, having 64 percent of the market

share of the US and YouTube, accounting for 75 percent of all U.S. visits in May 2008 among

a custom category of 63 online video web sites (Hitwise, 2008). Facebook announced a total

of 200 million members in March 2009 (Stone, 2009).

PAGE 292 j INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CULTURE, TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY RESEARCHj VOL. 5 NO. 3 2011


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The proportion of TCC on specific tourism sites examined in this study is also very large.

TripAdvisor received more than 25 million visits during the month of July 2008 (Weisman,

2008); Wayn is a community site with 13 million members (The Times, 2009); and

Virtualtourist has more than 1,100,000 members, over 1,700,000 reviews and 3,500,100

photos (Virtualtourist, 2009).

While UGC is a massive phenomenon, not everybody is an active virtual contributor. Castells

(2001) argues that countries unequal distributions of wealth, education and technological

infrastructure have led to great territorial diversity, which characterizes the use of the

Internet. Other critical perspectives on UGC address the lack of quality of content as well as

issues of identity theft (Aspan, 2008; Keen, 2007; Poster, 2006; Stillman and McGrath, 2008).

Destination branding

An intense competition among destinations characterizes tourism today (Kim and

Fesenmaier, 2008). Globalization processes (Munar, 2009), an increased interest in place

(Anholt, 2003), and destination branding are key factors that have contributed to an increase

in this competition (Cai, 2002; Konecnik and Gartner, 2007; Murphy et al., 2007; Pike, 2004).

Several authors discuss the differences between product or service branding and the

branding of a destination (Cai et al ., 2009; Marzano and Scott, 2009; Ooi, 2004).

Destinations are more complex and diverse than specific tourism products (Ooi and

Stoeber, 2010). The creation of a destination brand has to address multiple groups of

stakeholders, socio-cultural identities and take into consideration the intangibility and

multifaceted features of a destination.

The image and the brand of a destination are two distinct concepts. However, the brands

existence is dependent on the image formation of the destination (Cai, 2002). The image

represents the sum of beliefs, attitudes, and impressions that a person or group has of an

object (Nadeau et al., 2008, p. 84). The image of a destination is owned by tourists and

permeated by the socio-cultural and economic changes that impact on their sensitiveness.

The organic evolution of the image, which is brought about by word-of-mouth and all other

types of information received about the destination, is different from the induced evolution of

the image that results from destination management organizations (DMO) brand promotion

(Gartner, 1986).

Destinations compete through the images held in the minds of potential tourists (Baloglu and

McCleary, 1999). However, DMOs do not have control over the specific attributes of the

tourism experience. Therefore, their main effort is in brand awareness and image formation.

This lack of ownership of the destination product makes the taglines, slogans, logos and

commercial campaigns the focus of the destination brand and represents the formal

elements of the brand. Tourists relate to the destination brand by participating in image

formation and by adopting and using these formal elements in their different types of

generated content on the web.

Methodology

This paper is an exploratory study of tourist created content, a specific subtype of UGC, and

destination branding. The study relies on qualitative research methods, including textual

analysis through documentary studies of web content and field research, based on the

project Travel 2.0 promotion in Asia and Pacific, conducted by the Scandinavian Tourism

Board Asia/Pacific. The theoretical background of the study is founded in the literature of ICTin tourism, in the more general literature of branding and destination management, and other

related social sciences on the evolution and impact of the internet. Other literature consulted

during the study includes documents and reports provided by organizations which study

ICTs usage and development.

The research design had several phases. The first phase, based on preliminary studies,

involved designing a classification system. This task included: first, the establishment of a

sample of destination brands and a theoretical sample of web sites based on rankings of

VOL. 5 NO. 3 2011 j INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CULTURE, TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY RESEARCHj PAGE 293


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social media sites (Comscore, 2009; Hitwise, 2008); second, the examination of content of

the sites according to the classification of the UGC of sites as developed by Munar (2010);

and third, the selection and analysis of a larger sample of sites based on a larger literature

review. The sampling focused on sites that indicated the use and development of UGC as

primary purpose (not including sites of organizations which display Web 2.0 tools to a minor

degree) and to tourism related sites. The great majority of the analyzed sites are online

communities and social network sites. Sample of web sites and tourist-created content

(TCC) are:

B Blogabond.com

B Couchsurfing.org

B Dopplr.com

B Gowander.com

B Hostelz.com

B IgoUgo.com

B iTourist.com

B Lonelyplanet.com (Thorn Tree)

B Travelblog.org

B Travelersfortravelers.com

B Travelistic.com

B Travelpod.com

B Tripadvisor.com

B Tripfilms.com

B Trustedplaces.com

B Virtualtourist.com

B Wayn.com

B Worldreviewer.com

B Digg.com

B Facebook.com

B Flickr.com

B Myspace.com

B Twitter.com

B Youtube.com

B IsAnyoneGoingTo.com

B Liftshare.com

The sampling considered many tourism and travel sites but many were also eliminated from

the sample, either because of their high commercial focus or because their prime content

was based on blogs provided by experts and not open to all tourists in general

(e.g. gridskipper.com, the coolhunter.com or spottedbylocals.com). These sites were

compared to the sample of 19 main destination brands: 18 national brands and one US statebrand.

The second phase included developing a model of strategic analysis. The model identified

how DMOs try to benefit from TCC and examined the relationship of TCC to destination

branding in each one of the stages of the tourism experience. The strategic analysis was

based on the work conducted during the project Travel 2.0 promotion in Asia and Pacific.

This project, which began in January 2009, includes the development of a Web 2.0 platform

for the Asian tourism market for the Scandinavian Tourism Board.



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The focus of the research is tourist created content and destination branding. The study

introduces some explanations related to other generated content in order to understand the

general phenomenon. The rapid change in the patterns of internet use, as well as the

fragmentation and massive amount of data associated with the object of analysis,

represents a challenge to the study of the web. However, the complexity of web analysis

does not make this study any less relevant. The aim here is not to map all the possibilities of

TCC, but to contribute to a wider understanding of how tourists contributions on the web

influences destination branding.

Brand, image formation and types of tourist created content

Tourists create three main categories of digitalized content: narrative, visual and audio.

Tourists use these different types of content to refer to the destination brand. The written

expression of the destination brand is the name of the destination combined with a word, a

tagline or slogan, as in the following cases:

B Denmark Feel Free;

B Greece The True Experience;

B Thailand Amazing Thailand;

B South Africa Its Possible;

B Italy Much More; or

B Singapore Uniquely Singapore.

In some cases the name of the brand is the same as the name of the DMO (e.g. Visit

Sweden). Tourists can use the written expression of the brand employing different narrative

genres (Table I). These genres represent a continuum from a more descriptive and

objectivistic narrative (the encyclopedic) on the one hand, to a more subjective and personal

narrative (the diary) on the other. (For in-depth analyses of the genres, see Munar (2010).)

The fluidity of genres, and of media, characterizes TCC. This fluidity makes it very difficult to

monitor and control all the possible ways in which the different formal elements of the brand

may appear in TCC. Furthermore, the different contents use hypertext at different levels, with

links to other sites or documents available in the cyberworld. In addition, depending on the

system architecture of the site, the tourists narrative contributions remain open to other

users contributions. For example, some of the sites allow users to grade how useful the

information provided in the review is or to give general comments. The views of these

contributors and technological platforms on copyright or authorship are highly informal, with

frequent use of pseudonyms and nicknames. The features of openness and collaborative

content are embedded in the system. Therefore, it can be argued that TCC is about

communication and personal expression and the content encourages both the knowledge

sharing of tourism products and the sociability of the tourism experience.

Table I Brand, destination image and TCC

Tourist-created content

Destination branding formal

elements Destination image formation

Narrative (encyclopedic,review, travel diary, blog,

microblog)

Narrative identity: Slogans,taglines, brand name

Narrative text of theimpressions, beliefs and

attitudes on the destination

experience

Visual (photography and video) Visual identity: Logo, advertising

campaigns (photos or video)

Images of the destination

experience

Audio (narrative and/or

musical)

Audio advertising campaigns

(music or text)

Audio stories about the

destination experience



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Narrative genres and destination branding

This section provides an analysis of TCC and destination branding examining four different

genres: encyclopedic, review, diary and blog. The encyclopedic genre is based on

knowledge sharing with a form of peer-review or critical evaluation of the content. One

example is Wikitravel, a project to create a free, complete, up to date and reliable

worldwide travel guide (Wikitravel, 2008). The encyclopedic feature of TCC increases the

amount of tourism information available, with a focus on a traditional socio-geographical

perspective. Tourists encyclopedic content uses the destination name, either without the

use of tags or slogans associated with it, or without any visual characteristics of the brand,such as logos. This genre provides an image of objectivity and neutrality and avoids any

commercial-like expressions, such as slogans. For example, in this type of content Spain is

expressed as Spain and not as Smile you are in Spain, which is the slogan of the

countrys latest destination branding campaign; Copenhagen is expressed as

Copenhagen and not as Wonderful Copenhagen or the most recent brand of

C-Open-hagen. The focus is on reliable and free-from-commercial-interests information on

the destination. This content is destination-, not product-oriented. The type of destination

presented in this content is not an emotive one, as attributes of a psychological or emotional

type associated to the brand image are seldom.

The review genre is based on the critical evaluation of a tourism product or experience. A

very popular site which relies mainly on this genre is TripAdvisor. This is a type of genre

which creates a lot of concern among tourism suppliers. The main focus of this type of

content is not the destination brand but brands of tourism products. This content has a

commercial bias. A large majority of the content examines and rates suppliers of hospitality,

attractions, travel and transport products and services. Although the focus of the review

genre is not on the destination as a whole but on specific tourism products, the composite

nature of the tourism experience also makes this type of TCC very pertinent to the overall

image formation of the destination brand.

In the architecture of the sites the focus is on the geographical name and not on the narrative

associated with the destination brand. Different destination brands were compared to the

sample sites, such as Trip Advisor, Virtual Tourist and IgoUgo. The results show that tourists

do not use the brand name, the taglines, or other similar formal elements in their review

content. At the same time, the findings show thousands of results when using the

geographical name of the destination. This name acts as an umbrella for the different tourism

products. For example, when searching Copenhagen in TripAdvisor, the informationdisplayed is not related to the official brand. The main title that appears is visiting the city of

Copenhagen, combined with links to other reviews on accommodation, attractions, etc. In

the case of Spain the destination is announced as visiting Spain, and the same pattern

applies to other destinations. Again, as in the previous case, the official brand name, tagline

or slogans are all missing. In the case of IgoUgo the word Italy has more than 2,000 reviews

linked and France receives over 1,900 reviews. Both cases display zero results when

searching the national brand, Rendez-vous en France or Italy Much more. The brand

Uniquely Singapore receives zero results, while the geographical name has more than 600

reviews linked. Amazing Thailand has one specific review (a tourist that commented on the

destinations official web site), while Thailand has more than 1,120.

The diary genre (or travel journal) relates to the narrative explanation of the personal

experience of the travel. This genre is also very popular on the web and is mostly expressed

in the form of travel blogs at the different sites. The formal elements of destination brands

with their taglines and slogans are mostly missing from this type of content. For example, the

new brand of Greece, Greece, the true experience, does not generate any results in travel

diary sites such as Travelersfortravelers or Gowander. However, this type of content displays

a strong focus on destination image formation. The diary genre includes a large amount of

narrative content. This content communicates the experience of the destination, including

emotional and personal perceptions, beliefs and attitudes.



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The general blog genre displays a similar tendency. Blogs have a high use of the

geographical name and image formation and a minimum reference to the brand formal

elements. This type of content relates to individual opinions about specific issues (Ryu et al.,

2009). This genre is a mixed-genre which contains many elements related to the diary, but

can also contain encyclopedic knowledge and review passages. The examination of

blogging sites (e.g. Travelblog) shows many references to some of the formal narrative

brand elements, for example, Amazing Thailand. However, these blogs are written by

organizations, not by tourists, and are therefore not TCC.

Visual and audio content and destination branding

The visual content has two main types:

1. photographic; and

2. audiovisual.

This UGC is a popular form of contribution in tourism sites. The visual expression also has

different genres and appears combined with hypertext and other forms of expression, such

as the use of titles, descriptions attached to images, tags on photos, etc. Some of the most

popular general sites for video and photo sharing are Flickr, Youtube or Travelistic. Many of

the images on these sites have a real life approach, without any or only a minimum amount of

manipulation. This form of content makes a very powerful contribution to destination image

formation. The main content and focus of these visual contributions is on the personalexperience and not on the formal visual elements of the brand. Some of these sites, like

Youtube, are not tourism specific and, therefore, the information provided about the

destinations does not necessarily have a tourism focus. Destination managers upload visual

content advertising the brand in many of these social network sites (e.g. Amazing Thailand in

Travelistic or 100% pure New Zealand in Youtube). However, these corporative contributions

do not qualify as TCC. The audio content is to be found in the form of podcasts. This type of

UGC is increasingly popular, thanks to the iPod and other mobile technologies. This content

shows different combinations of multiple media. Audio content is seldom in the sample of

web sites studied.

Examination of the web sites and different destination brands show that tourists do not use

the brands formal elements. At the same time, tourists are extremely active in destination

image formation. The destination brands taglines, slogans, logos, video or audio advertising

are not essential parts of TCC. An extensive analysis of social network sites shows that the

image formations provided by TCC are simply a large collage of digitalized personal

expressions that do not have any structured commercial goals. The tendency to focus on the

destination image and ignore the destination brand formal elements can be a conscious

decision made by the tourist in order to appear independent from commercial interests. This

could be a consequence of TCC being embedded in Internet cultures with a strong

anti-commercial background, such as the hacker culture or the open source movement

(Castells, 2001). Another possible explanation is the lack of reach of todays destination

branding campaigns in relation to the TCC target group.

Digitalization of the tourism experience

TCC has expanded the ways by which tourists see and interpret the world. Traditionally,tourism conceptualization resulted from a basic binary division of the ordinary/everyday and

the extraordinary (Jafari, 1987). However, modern sociological analysis challenges the

assumption of the separation between home and away (Franklin and Crang, 2001; Larsen

et al., 2007). According to Jansson (2002) tourism is intertwined with the consumption of

media images the tourism industry and the culture industry create. TCC is a new form of

mediation in the creation of the tourism experience, which neither represents the industry nor

the cultural industry, but which airs peoples personal reflexive considerations of the tourism

experience. TCC functions as virtual mediator.



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Jafaris (1987) tourism model identifies several components representing the different

stages of the tourism experience:

1. Corporation.

2. Emancipation.

3. Animation.

4. Repatriation.

5. Incorporation.

TCC takes place during the different stages of the tourism experience and has different

types of impact on the destination brand. In the corporation component the tourist-to-be is

in a search position and this stage corresponds to the pre-purchase and decision-making

phases. Destination marketing campaigns largely focus on pre-purchase stages. Therefore,

official channels of information about the destinations that make intensive use of the formal

elements of the brand compete with the social networks of tourist-to-tourist communication

and their focus on multilateral image formation.

The destination brand tries to induce the person to choose a specific destination among all

others (Gartner, 1986). The brand enhances recognition and awareness within the huge

amount of information available. To achieve this, traditional destination branding utilizes

marketing campaigns while depending heavily on the word-of-mouth and the organic image

of the destination. The introduction of the web expands these strategies to include active

web sites with a locus of control on DMOs and extensive web marketing tools.

The Web 2.0 and, specifically, TCC increase the channels of communication with the

consumer base in tourism generating regions. However, this new channel of communication

presents several challenges to DMOs. TCC implies the digitalization of the word-of-mouth

mechanisms that are so powerful in shaping tourism demand. The Web 2.0 expands the

word-of-mouth through a global distribution system of information. The locus of control of

communication is no longer on a business-to-customer basis but largely on a

customer-to-customer. The Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey (Nielsen, 2009) of

over 25,000 online consumers from 50 countries found that opinions posted by consumers

online are among the most trusted forms of advertising globally.

In the search position stage the tourism consumer (tourist-to-be) is only in search mode, a

self-reflecting watcher of destinations, and is not actively uploading images, texts or videos of

the destination. Rather, the tourist-to-be is looking for information and is enriching his/her imageof the destination. TCC during corporation includes blogs and other types of content (audio

and/or visual podcasts) that refer to the desire and motivation to travel and the possibilities or

impossibilities of doing so. TCC works as an important complement to the knowledge and

opinions the tourist-to-be has about a specific destination. Therefore, the TCC on destinations

provided by tourists who already have visited the destination may have the largest impact at

this stage, by affecting other users motivation for travel and purchase choices.

Emancipation is the second component of the model. This stage refers to the physical

journey to the tourist destination as well as the mental travelling entering into touristhood.

The TCC at this stage corresponds to the content produced and uploaded during the physical

travel to the destination. Destination branding has a weak interest on transportation sites.

Usually, destination brands, like the ones examined in this study, focus on the cultural, social

and natural features of the destination. Transportation sites are regarded as facilitators of the

travel experience but are still standardized international places without much local flavor.

The repatriation is, due to its focus on transport and the movement in space, very similar to

the emancipation component. However, the psychological perspective of this stage is very

different. During repatriation tourists create and share content on the Web that indicates their

satisfaction or disappointment with the destination experience. The empirical experience of

the destination, with all its features and products, transforms tourists images of the

destination, as well as their brand perception, and a modified image takes form in the

tourists mind. At this stage TCC can reflect a more complete image of the destination.



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The animation component corresponds to the tourist doing tourism in his animated

world (Jafari, 1987, p. 151) and in spatial terms relates to staying at the tourism destination.

The most important content at this stage is the visual one. The tourist can write stories about

the destination back home, but he/she can only produce images of the destination while

actually being in the geographic location. The visual TCC provides valuable insights into the

ways in which tourists contribute to image formation. TCC produced at this stage relates to

the core of the tourism industry offering: for example, reviews of attractions,

accommodations and other types of services at the destination. Content created during

this stage document the tourists ongoing perceptions of the trip, and their narrative texts

and visual content are presented as a combination of published travel diaries and virtualpostcards. The content displayed aims to give an impression of reality or authenticity,

compared to the manipulated or inauthentic commercial version of the destination. However,

this reality of TCC is embedded in Internet cultures and is dependent on both the limitations

of site architecture and the personal gaze and cultural background of the tourist.

Destination branding is about focus, coherence, the establishment of attributes and image

formation. However, TCC at the animation stage reveals the lack of control that DMOs have

on their own tourist destination product. A tourist with a combined mobile and photo/video

phone can show any detail of a destination to the rest of the world, 24 hours a day. It is

possible to consider TCC as a form of global late-modern risk. Global risks are characterized

by being de-localized, incalculable and non-compensable (Beck, 1992). TCC occurs thanks

to the de-localized web, because its impact is not limited to a specific geographical space.

The impact is incalculable, because it is difficult to measure the consequences of a negative

video or a terrible review on a destination, and non-compensable because a scientific

control of all the dangers and consequences of TCC does not seem possible. Furthermore,

TCC allows tourists to send instant, real-time information about any problem, deception or

situation experienced at the destination.

This situation is the realization of a surveillance society whereby big brother is no longer

the state or any authoritarian bureaucracy, but thousands of web-empowered tourism

consumers. The perception of risk is also increased by the impossibility of knowing which of

these billions of pieces of information may end up having a viral impact and reach thousands

of other consumers, and which ones will just get lost in the massive amount of virtual

information. TCC brings destination branding to a new level of transparency.

Finally, a very relevant phase in TCC is the incorporation phase. At this stage the tourist

returns to his/her place of residence and daily life activities. This phase corresponds, in

many cases, to the post-purchase and post-experience phase, in which tourists upload texts

presenting their opinions and memories of the travel experience. Many of the sites studied

show a very high level of activity at this stage, making the initiatives and strategies related to

the post-purchase extremely important for tourism businesses or DMOs. The analysis of

UGC cannot verify the locations from where the tourists created and uploaded their

contributions. However, the use of past tense (we were, we travelled to, etc) and temporal

indications (last week, last month, etc) in the narrative contributions points towards the

importance of the post-experience for destination branding and TCC.

Rethinking destination branding

DMOs face the challenge of TCC using three different strategies: mimetic, advertising

(Figure 1) and analytic (Figure 2). The first type of strategy is mimetic. In this strategy, a DMOcopies the style and e-culture of social network sites to create its own web site. The

organization pursues this strategy by opening its official web site to TCC and enhancing the

creation, uploading and downloading of content by tourists. The mimetic strategy is a type of

conservative strategy, which is characterized by the organization keeping the main locus of

control of web content on the organization. Nevertheless, this option offers only a narrow

opening for contribution from users. This strategy pursues the establishment of a fake social

network, the main reason still being the official promotion of the destination and not the

user-to-user communication. Some examples of these strategies are DMOs web sites that



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invite users to write about their destination experiences or to upload/download photos or

videos about their travels.

The analysis shows many different initiatives that share this type of strategy, for example the

Videoblog for Visit Britain initiative, Your Words in New Zealands site or Your

Copenhagen in Wonderful Copenhagens portal. Some other tools allow tourists to share

official brand content with their social networks by exporting the information to Facebook,

Twitter, MySpace, etc. This strategy targets tourists, who are experiencing or have

experienced the destination, in the animation, repatriation and incorporation components.

This approach pays little attention to the corporation component.

The mimetic strategy is an easy and less expensive way to participate in Web 2.0 and it

allows DMO to keep control of the TCC displayed, because the organization can remove

unwanted or inappropriate content. However, this approach has several weaknesses. A

corporate site representing a brand has a very different logic from social network sites that

provide value-managing user contributions, and that have an e-culture based on unclear

rules of ownership and openness of content. This strategy achieves some level ofparticipation by tourists, but has a poor scalability and does not benefit from the massive

volume of contributions that are taking place in the most popular social network sites such as

TripAdvisor, IgoUgo, Youtube, Facebook, etc.

The second strategy, the advertising strategy, follows traditional and conservative ways of

dealing with social network sites and TCC. This strategy understands the new sites as

advertising platforms. It uses banners and other possibilities of advertising of the sites.

DMOs include advertisements of their new campaigns in social network sites that allow it, for

Figure 1 Mimetic and advertising strategic model of destination branding and TCC

Figure 2 Analytic strategic model of destination branding and TCC



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example: Dopplr, Wayn, Facebook, etc. Another example is the increased use of news

related to microblogging in Twitter, with 350 DMOs active on that site in June 2009 (Go Sell

Tell, 2009). DMO microblogging is still mostly based on a one-way communication from the

DMO (Hubard, 2009). This strategy increases the social media presence of the DMO and

their brands. However, the organization does not benefit from the pool of information

provided by TCC. These initiatives only re-direct the ads and news to those sites with the

largest traffic of users, or increase the volume of DMO information on those sites.

The analytic strategy has two main dimensions: prevention and knowledge. Through

prevention DMOs try to understand how TCC develops in relation to their brands and then

prevent crises or take action to minimize damage or improve marketing. This dimension does

not need very advanced ICTsystems or interdisciplinary knowledge. The initiatives are applied

by using consultancy firms or webmasters to search and monitor how social network sites

portray the destination and report back to the DMOs departments. An example of this strategy

is GoSellTells monitoring of Twitter for DMOs, such as Travel Portland (Go Sell Tell, 2009).

The second dimension, knowledge, is seldom a feature. This aspect is highly demanding

and implies investments in ICT development and training, and a concerted innovation effort

from an organizational perspective. Nevertheless, this strategy allows DMOs to transform

massive and chaotic amounts of TCC into strategic knowledge. This transformation can be

achieved thanks to the possibilities of the advanced search engines and artificial

intelligence.

The analytic strategy has the opposite logic to that of the mimetic or advertising strategies.

This approach does not aim to fake social network sites on corporation sites or to enhance

traditional commercial campaigns with new tools. The analytic strategy is based on the

massive amount of TCC that is already available via the web and is extremely flexible,

because this tactic follows the tourists to where they contribute. Furthermore, an analytic

perspective considers all the different stages of the tourism experience from corporation to

incorporation. Analytics use ICT to examine, select, classify, monitor and evaluate TCC.

The previous analysis showed how TCC could be considered to be a new type of global risk

for the management of destination branding. None of the strategies mentioned above can

totally manage this type of risk. However, the analytic strategy that is based on monitoring

and trend analysis is a valuable tool in forecasting and therefore may be more useful in risk

analysis.

An example of this strategy is the case of the project Travel 2.0 promotion in Asia and

Pacific developed by the Scandinavian Tourism Board, Asia-Pacific (STB). The project is

based on two main tools:

1. the search engine; and

2. the knowledge exchange database.

The search engine allows Asian tourists to examine, select and rank digital creative content

relating to Scandinavia. The knowledge exchange database stores, classifies and structures

the content. This tool gives administrators and partners of the project access to historical

data, and enables users to examine tourism trends and patterns over periods of time, as well

as statistical and graphical representations of TCC. It also allows DMOs sites to publish

selected content. The development of these tools demands a high level of interdisciplinary

skills. In this case, tourism researchers provide semantic classifications and segmentations;

STB managers monitor the functionality of the database and the coordination among fourdifferent DMOs, and ICT researchers handle software and search specifications. Managers

in Asia translate these texts into local languages. All of these tasks develop through a

constant dialogue between the different disciplines and by combining practical and

theoretical knowledge. For example, the project allows tourism managers to monitor the

trends in Japanese or Korean tourists perceptions of a destination like Oslo, to identify

increases or decreases in interest in specific attractions or types of tourism (e.g. nature

tourism or spa-wellness tourism), to select TCC with positive stories about the destination as

part of their branding campaigns, or to examine negative TCC for quality management.



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Analytic strategy in relation to TCC means viewing tourist contributions on the Web as a pool

of knowledge. It has enormous potential as an active tool in helping DMOs to understand the

image formation of their destinations brands. However, this demands the enhancement of

skills and competences of those responsible for destination branding. Furthermore, a type of

destination branding tailored mainly by the wishes and desires of tourists, as expressed

through their TCC, is problematic. The danger is that the host community and other local

stakeholders may lose their influence on the destination brand. The local community is not an

active participant of TCC. The analytic strategy focuses on tourists wishes and behavior

and, thus, other mechanisms will have to ensure local communities participation in these

processes. Without compensating analytics with participation, the brand may become bothan international success and a local catastrophe.

Conclusion

The purpose of this study is to broaden knowledge of the relationship between TCC and

destination branding and to contribute to a better understanding of the strategies that DMOs

use in relation to TCC. This explorative study relies on qualitative research methods, content

analysis and field research. It examines a sample of relevant social network sites, the

majority with a clear tourism focus. The findings allow the classification of formal elements of

the destination brand and image formation in relation to the different genres and types of

TCC. The analysis of the use of destination brands in TCC shows that tourists do not

incorporate the formal elements of the brands in their story-telling and experience sharing of

destinations. Elements such as taglines, slogans or logos are virtually non-existent as part ofTCC. However, tourists are extremely active in destination image formation through their

narrative, visual and audio contributions. These results point towards the embedding of user

contribution systems and TCC in Internet cultures with strong anti-commercial backgrounds,

such as the hacker culture or the open source movement (Castells, 2001).

The paper explains the different ways in which tourists may relate to destination branding

when producing and uploading TCC during their tourism experience. The analysis based on

the tourism model (Jafari, 1987) shows that traditionally destination management

organizations have focused on the incorporation stage. However, at this stage tourists are

watchers rather than active contributors of TCC. During this first stage, TCC developed by

other tourists can be expected to have the largest impact. The animation, repatriation and

incorporation components are those stages that show the highest activity of TCC in

destination image formation. TCC at the animation stage shows the lack of control that DMOs

have on the tourist destination product. Mobile and audiovisual technology, combined withWeb 2.0, turns TCC into a new type of global late-modern risk that is characterized by being

de-localized, incalculable and non-compensable. Furthermore, TCC shows how tourists are

active contributors to a new version of a surveillance society where the big brother is

thousands of web empowered tourism consumers.

The study presented three different strategies used by DMOs in relation to TCC and

destination branding. The three strategies are the mimetic, the advertising and the analytic.

The mimetic strategy is conservative and its main instrument is the introduction of Web 2.0

tools which allow for the inclusion of TCC in DMOs web sites. This strategy provides a fake

imitation of the logic of social network sites without changing the locus of control, which still

remains in the organization and not in the users. The organization does not benefit from the

amount of TCC available on the web. The advertising strategy focuses on the corporation

component and enters social network sites by placing traditional ads or news. This type of

strategy only benefits from TCC as a platform for increased awareness.

Analytics is a very demanding strategic proposal based on the intensive use of IT. This

strategy has two dimensions, the first focusing on monitoring and prevention and the second

focusing on knowledge. The latest allows DMOs to transform massive amounts of TCC into

strategic knowledge by using the possibilities of the web and artificial intelligence tools. The

analysis of the project Travel 2.0 promotion in Asia and Pacific shows the strengths of this

strategy but also indicates some of the possible dangers such as lack of community

involvement.



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The paper demonstrates the schism between traditional destination branding and the image

formation enhanced by TCC. Tourists do not use the formal elements of the destination

brands. If TCC gains in intensity and impact capacity, user contributions may challenge the

capacity of destination branding to tailor and frame the image of the destination. This

exploratory study is a call for further research on a topic that is still highly unexplored. Further

analysis should focus on several main issues: the possible combinations of different

strategic agendas for the use of TCC in destination branding, the analysis of TCC and risk,

the impact of these developments on the involvement of local communities, and the

challenges of the analytic model for traditional DMO management.

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tourist created content

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