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What ought we morally to do in a tourism academia dominated by metrics, quantification and digital codification? The purpose of this paper is to address this question by presenting the idea of “hyper academia” and exploring ethical perspectives and values related to hyper-digital cultures.

Drawing inspiration from classical and post-disciplinary traditions, the topic is exposed in a creative and multi-layered way using conceptual, philosophical and artistic tools. It is structured in four sections: An introductory essay on gratitude, a philosophical thought experiment, a literary short story and a manifesto.

Gratitude referencing is a method of personalizing the attribution of influence in scholarship and restoring the importance of depth and slowness over speed, novelty and quantity. The thought experiment allows us to see how we make value judgements on academic work under different scenarios. The dystopian short story shows the radical power that such a genre has to create emotional engagement whilst activating our critical reflexivity. Finally, the manifesto answers the question of what we morally “ought to do” by inviting scholars to engage with five duties.

This paper looks beyond previous descriptive studies of academic rankings and metrics, inviting tourism scholars to reflect on the values and moral justifications behind our evaluation cultures.

This chapter introduces a metaphor—the house—and applies Habermas’ philosophy to examine the environment where knowledge production takes place. The analysis shows the dominance of “the systemic paradigm,” which is characterized by increased bureaucratization and commercialization. This paradigm has severe consequences for two core features of universities: the open-ended search for deeper understanding and the principle of autonomy. The chapter advances the idea of reclaiming the political dimension of the epistemic endeavor and presents a series of initiatives which help to advance tourism scholarship by non-conforming to the steering conditions of this paradigm and instead reclaiming the personal and subjective; promoting multiple knowledges; and building alternative platforms of knowledge production, cooperation, and dissemination.

Academic inquiries have predominantly treated destination branding as a marketing phenomenon that happens to involve tourists as customers in a marketplace. The practice of it has been entrenched in deploying tactical marketing tools such as attention-grabbing slogans. This opening chapter provides a critical review of destination and place branding literature, as well as a synopsis of each of the 15 chapters assembled in this state-of-the-art collection. Considering tourism branding as a community affair, this volume is distinguished from previous publications by adopting a global and more multidisciplinary approach and by placing the subject of tourism branding outside of the conventional domains of marketing and destination. By having the host community at the central stage, many chapters explicitly consider different stakeholders in the process of branding. Built on theoretical foundations with both empirical findings and practical cases, this book brings together different perspectives and offers an intellectual and open dialogue among academics and practitioners of the field.

This chapter addresses emerging social media cultures and socio-technical practices through the theoretical lens of Theory of Communicative Action. This conceptual scene is used to explain the interplay between social media and tourism. It analyzes the paradoxical role of interactive technologies as forces for the reproduction and transformation of this industry. The chapter discusses processes of colonization of personal relations and life-spaces. The analysis shows the ambivalent potential of tourism social media as communicative technologies for emancipation but also as tools for hierarchization, control, and exploitation. Finally, further theoretical examination of technological development and tourism practices is sought.

The study explores the issue of branding in tourism from the perspective of two processes related to globalization: the expansion of the world market and the use of information and communication technologies. The question addressed is how these processes affect tourism branding. This chapter shows that while the global market expansion in tourism enhances the relevance of brands, the digitalization of the experience made by the tourists and the expansion of virtual communities both represent an unprecedented challenge to the research and practice of tourism branding. The analysis reveals an empowerment of the tourists which may affect the residents, employees, and managers’ roles in branding. The chapter ends with new organizational strategies of brand enhancement which take into consideration the digitalization era.