TY - JOUR AB - 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. VL - 5 IS - 3 SN - 1750-6182 DO - 10.1108/17506181111156989 UR - https://doi.org/10.1108/17506181111156989 AU - María Munar Ana ED - Leonardo Dioko ED - Rich Harrill PY - 2011 Y1 - 2011/01/01 TI - Tourist‐created content: rethinking destination branding T2 - International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research PB - Emerald Group Publishing Limited SP - 291 EP - 305 Y2 - 2024/04/25 ER -