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This chapter focuses on the importance of social media for pop culture fans. A web survey for fans of the Twilight Saga is implemented, using the concepts of cognitive, affective, and evaluative social identity and personal, product, and situational involvement. The purpose is to examine to what degree social identity and involvement can explain pop culture fans’ future intention to travel, make recommendations to others, and use social media. Findings show that pop culture fans use social media to a large extent and that these means are important for making decisions about traveling and event participation. Moreover, the chapter shows that involvement dimensions are more important than social identity dimensions to explain future intention to travel, to recommend to others, and to use social media.

While quantitative survey design represents a default research method in the field of hospitality and tourism, qualitative approaches remain largely sidelined. This is particularly true for netnography, a novel method of scientific enquiry that targets the online interactions of various actors. The present chapter seeks to introduce the netnographic approach, outline its implementation in hospitality and tourism, as well as demarcate it from other methods, such as survey, text mining and content analysis. By giving an overview of recent studies employing netnography, the chapter demonstrates applied examples of ethnographic research online, presents a cross-cultural study on disappointing travel experiences and suggests further research avenues, such as cross-cultural investigation. It concludes by discussing strengths and weaknesses of the netnographic approach. The value of this chapter lies in its reflection of state-of-the-art research in hospitality and tourism based on netnography and the proposition of further directions of research.

With the development of tourism industry, online travel agencies (OTA) have gradually become an important channel for tourism product supplies and sales. Some OTAs provide consumers with a platform for tourism guidance and online travel sharing. They not only satisfy some tourists’ desire to share their experiences but also provide reference for more consumers to choose travel products. This process is the process of value co-creation by customers and online travel companies. This study is conducted under DART theory, a theoretical framework of value co-creation composed of four dimensions, namely dialog, access, risk-assessment, and transparency. Brand equity is divided into four aspects: brand loyalty, brand awareness, customer perceived value, and brand image. This study uses the structural equation model to investigate the impact of customer value co-creation behavior on brand equity of online travel enterprises and interprets the process and mechanism of customer value co-creation behaviors for online travel business brand equity, which provides more efficient strategies and methods for platform interaction and value co-creation.

The aim of this chapter is twofold: (i) to perform a synthesis of the academic research regarding the changes of tourist consumer behavior brought about by social media; and (ii) to suggest a set of strategies for tourism businesses to address resulting challenges.

Extensive literature reviews have been executed on the motivating factors and the effects of online reviews.

This analysis of the related research identified three main topics, namely: (1) the antecedents, the factors motivating tourists to write online reviews; (2) the impact of eWOM on providers of tourism services (business perspective); and (3) the influence of online reviews on consumers’ behavior (demand perspective). This chapter focuses on the impact of online reviews on tourism businesses and suggests suitable strategies.

This study is based on a literature review and implications indicated by previous studies; hence the suggestions are indicative rather than conclusive. A need exists for empirical studies to fully validate the chapter’s suggestions.

This chapter outlines a series of adequate strategies formulated for business practitioners divided into two fields, namely managerial and marketing activities.

This study provides practical recommendations/suggestions for tourism businesses in addressing the challenges and opportunities raised within the online context.

Cyberethnographic accounts of behavior are just emerging as a legitimate and useful way of exploring new forms of communication including the digital co-presence found in cyber communities. The chapter represents the first known account of such a research approach applied to issues of climate change in online travel communities as manifested through travelblogs. The research undertook observations of five online websites where experiences are shared and issues discussed. This first round of findings revealed no discussions on the topic of travel and climate change, which the researchers imputed to mean a lack of interest in the topic. A further round of observations was conducted on a site with a more nuanced approach to travel (though not an overtly green site). This revealed sufficient data for frame analysis: budding green, ironic cynics, reluctant cynics, candourants, and rational cynics. The findings suggest that the tourism and climate change issue as seen by these tourists is confused, paradoxical, and cynical. The main conclusion is that there must be greater efforts in creating public understanding of science so as to change behavior in ways favorable to diminishing greenhouse gas emissions.

The objective of the research is to explore the importance of online reputation management through some core concepts: technologies and entrepreneurship. Specifically, the research will explore how in a tourism ecosystem context, it is strategically relevant through the use of Big Data Analytics (BDA) to manage and improve online reputation management. An emphasis will also be placed on the concept of entrepreneurship and dynamic capabilities. Finally, the research also explores empowerment issue to shed some considerations on the development of tourists' online reviews.

The majority of scholarly contributions in tourism social media have focused on assisting practitioners to optimize online platforms or to describe the digital behavior of prospective individual tourists. These studies are dominated by mechanistic ontological frameworks, which take little notice of the inherently social nature of tourism consumption. Acknowledging the sociality of Web 2.0 communications, this chapter explores the potentials of an alternative analytical framework informed by symbolic convergence theory. The linkages between tourism social media, virtual communities, and symbolic convergence processes are illustrated by examples of postings taking place on the Facebook fan site of Roskilde festival. These examples highlight the significance of symbolic communities in shaping the visitor experience against the backdrop of contemporary consumer culture.