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This study utilises a case study approach to explore how local tourism providers in the Shire of Collie, Western Australia (Collie), a coal-mining region, use social media to promote the providers' businesses and the destination.

Semi-structured interviews with 11 local, small business tourism providers were conducted. These interviews explored the use of social media from local tourism providers' perspectives.

The findings show that local tourism providers in Collie recognise the benefits of using social media for promotion, although there are some barriers when using social media. Barriers included insufficient time, difficulty in measuring the impact of social media and a lack of knowledge on how to use social media effectively. Participant benefits included reaching a wider audience and a “younger” demographic.

As a small regional destination case study, a limited number of tourism businesses were included in the study. Therefore, this study utilised Dickman's 5 A's of a successful tourism destination to encapsulate a robust representation of tourism businesses.  

This study details the experiences of local tourism providers in a rural destination, providing insight into using social media to market a rural tourist destination. The study provides a methodology for application to other rural tourist destinations, particularly emerging tourism destinations, in order to understand how local tourism providers use social media.

This study provides insights on local tourism providers' perspectives by detailing their experiences in a town and region transforming their tourism offering. The introduction of small-scale renewable energy sees mining communities' economic landscape changing. Further, opportunities for employment within the coal mining sector are declining and there is a need to develop new industry to support the economy. Tourism is an integral part of this transition in Collie. This study offers insights into how local tourism providers are adapting and utilising social media to promote the town's newly established tourism offerings.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the information flows, in terms of content and process, underpinning the sharing of knowledge by managers and owners. Such an examination reveals similarities and differences that will influence the generation and dissemination of knowledge used in tourism business operations and contribute to innovation.

This paper examines information flows within the theoretical and methodological framework of social network analysis. The findings were derived from a quantitative study of tourism managers and owners of a tourism hub in South-West England.

The main finding was that network structure characteristics determine the flow of information within owners’ and managers’ social networks. The owners of smaller businesses received information from several sources and, therefore, had fewer structural constraints and reported larger structural holes. In comparison, the managers had more brokerage opportunities to disseminate the information within their social networks.

This paper highlights knowledge sharing between tourism business managers and owners in an open network structure. First, an open network structure builds innovation through the provision of nonredundant information. This is determined through the effective size of structural holes and the dissemination of information through brokerage roles. Second, the knowledge capability of a destination is built up through the social networking of managers and owners. The generation and dissemination of knowledge in a tourism destination are facilitated by the social networking activities of managers and owners.

Managers and owners of tourism businesses require knowledge through information to assist with innovative business practices. The practical implication of this is that the social networks of managers and owners have different network characteristics, and that these differences result in consequences for the innovation of business practices. Another practical implication relates to the importance of managers in knowledge dissemination based on having several brokerage roles in the tourism destination.

These findings are important because an understanding of social networks and the flow of information is one of the keys to determining the influences on knowledge sharing within tourism destination knowledge networks of owners or managers and their potential contributions to innovation.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the business model of a successful social tourism business in Granada, Nicaragua. The study assesses how the business provides an avenue to combat the challenges that restrict certain stakeholders from participating in tourism. The case identifies specific mechanisms, such as investing in the local community’s education and favoring local vendors and merchants, as ways in which social tourism businesses can disseminate value among all stakeholders and create a more equitable form of tourism.

The case study method was chosen for collecting and analyzing data. Data include in-depth interviews with business founders, managers and employees, field observation notes, photographic documentation and additional written documents. Data were analyzed using content analysis.

The study found that the business was able to produce a high-quality tourism product that disseminated value among all stakeholders. The study also proved the value of the additional building blocks within the Business Model Canvas for Social Enterprise, and the clear distinction between “co-creators” and “beneficiaries.”

This study uses the Business Model Canvas for Social Enterprise, a model unverified since inception, to analyze a successful social tourism business. It confirms the usefulness of the additional building blocks within the model, and the additional delineations between “co-creators” and “beneficiaries.” Furthermore, the paper recommends these distinctions are extended to all blocks in the canvas, to illustrate the many ways a company can distribute value based on its business model.

The unprecedented growth of social media in the past decade has resulted in an increasing interest on social media research. The purpose of this study is to examine the state-of-the-art developments in social media research and to develop a thematic research framework.

The study reviewed 262 social media-related articles published in eight top hospitality and tourism journals between 2007 and 2017. Content analysis was used to code data from the selected articles, and correspondence analysis was then used to compare the characteristics of research conducted on different social media platforms.

A thematic framework of social media research was developed based on a thorough review and systematic examination of the articles. The thematic framework consisted of the three key players – hospitality and tourism businesses, social media platforms and consumers – along with four categories of topical areas – marketing, managerial implication, user-generated content and impact – and 19 research topics. Three platform groups were identified to share similar article characteristics and research attributes.

This study offers a systematic overview of social media research in hospitality and tourism and is the first one to identify triadic relationships of social media platforms in thematic research framework. The innovative findings of correspondence analysis offer insights on future social media research from a platform perspective.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that in times of economic constraints particularly in countries such as Greece that have long been stereotyped as corrupt, business practices amongst small- and medium-sized organisations that make up the majority of these nations’ tourism operators may become less than ethical or legal. The purpose of this paper is to explore these issues empirically in order to understand the impact of both cultural values and economic constraints on tourism businesses’ practices.

An exploratory case study using mixed methods has been adopted. Quantitative data were gathered from tourism business owners, managers and employees via questionnaires to establish the nature and scope of various unethical, illegal or immoral practices. Qualitative data were gathered to explore the ways these issues are considered and enacted.

Results show that there are many unethical and illegal practices that have been witnessed first-hand. Businesses’ attempts at acting in an ethical and socially responsible manner tend to be affected by not only cultural issues, but also economic constraints, yet there remains a desire to act in a way that does not impact negatively on tourists or on the local society and environment.

This research fills a gap in the literature relating to the ethical stance and practices of tourism entrepreneurs. It also presents an original conceptualisation of these issues in light of their location within the extant literature on ethics, corporate social responsibility and both sustainable and responsible tourism.

This paper aims to contribute to the existing literature on social enterprises and business model innovation. Particularly, it sheds some light on those factors that turn a social innovation initiative into a success, both in terms of meeting social needs and achieving economic sustainability.

By using a grounded theory approach, an inductive comparative case study is conducted. Two work integration social enterprises in the hospitality and tourism sector are selected. Both companies are located in Barcelona (Spain) under the same legal regulation and economic situation and initially run a manufacturing business. Due to the economic crisis they were forced to reinvent themselves to survive. Data were collected from different sources and coded using content analysis procedures.

Results indicate that three factors, namely, value proposition, appropriate market research and stakeholder involvement, heavily contributed to firm’s success, corroborating previous studies. Furthermore, our study reveals that social need pressures and managerial trust on employees are additional factors that drive social business model innovation.

Changes in the demand, the rules governing the market or economic downturns are external drivers for demand-pull innovations. In such context, firms need to reformulate their business models if they wish to survive. Acknowledging the factors that help firms overcome these obstacles is of great interest for both academics and entrepreneurs.

Social innovation in business models is a topic still poorly defined in the literature, yet, its boundaries to other fields are still fuzzy. This paper aims to fulfill this gap by presenting the theoretical domain in which this topic fits in and evidencing those successful factors that should be considered when designing and implementing a business model innovation which may help other firms facing a similar process.

Sustainable luxury has often been seen to offer both environmental sustainability and the possibility for innovative entrepreneurial development of natural and cultural heritage. The possibility and challenges of sustainable luxury tourism for Indigenous groups have been discussed by Poelina and Nordensvärd (2018) at some length by including a cultural governance perspective that brings culture and nature together. They stressed how protecting our shared human heritage and human culture can be aligned with a new wave of sustainable luxury tourism. To achieve this, we need to create links to both management and protection of landscapes and ecosystems as vital parts of heritage protection and social development. This chapter explores how and why we need to integrate social sustainability into sustainable luxury tourism, where we can foresee potential pitfalls and conceptualise nature-based and Indigenous tourism to empower local Indigenous communities and provide them with sustainable employment, economic development and community services. The sustainable tourism model provides brokerage necessary to strengthen their capacity for innovation, entrepreneurship and transformational change. This transformational change requires tourist visitors and non-Indigenous tourism operators to be open to a new experience with Indigenous guides and tourism operators to see, share and learn how to feel ‘Country’ (Poelina, 2016; Poelina & Nordensvärd, 2018). We will use Martuwarra (Fitzroy River) and its communities in Kimberley (Western Australia) as a case study to develop a sociocultural sustainable luxury tourism framework that includes governance, legal and management and social policy perspective.

The main purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of digital technologies on the promotion of tourist offer from the perspective of family businesses. The paper tries to provide a better understanding of the factors that determine the use of digital technologies in the family tourism business, both in the modern digital world and in times of uncertainty and crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The survey method was used in the realization of the research. Data were collected using a stratified random sample of 86 tourism providers in Montenegro and analyzed by using SEM models, logistic regression and descriptive statistics.

The results showed that the demographic characteristics of the respondents were the least important factors in the analysis; while factors that significantly affected the use of digital technologies in Montenegrin tourism included the nature of future tourism trends perceived by respondents, crisis and uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, participants’ perceptions, attitudes and understanding of the specificities of digital technologies and benefits they offer to tourists, perceived from the perspective of the family business representative. Furthermore, the results of logistic regression revealed that pandemic had stronger consequences on micro and small enterprises, compared to those imposed on medium-sized firms. These impacts relate to changes in organization and redesign of workflows, altered communication from traditional to digital and increased importance of business innovations. On the other hand, the increased significance of integration of marketing channels for multiple target segments, as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, was stronger pronounced in medium-sized businesses compared to micro and small ones.

The results obtained may serve the holders of the tourist offer, managers and decision-makers when making decisions on the imposition of digital technologies in tourism, in order to secure global reach business, multi-channel tourist interaction, cost-saving and being ahead of competitors. This enables an integrated analysis that forms the basis for further creation of tourism and marketing policies at the individual and collective level to attract tourists and strengthen Montenegro’s competitiveness as a destination.

There is no doubt that social media have had a powerful impact on the way people experience the world around them. People love sharing new experiences and telling social networks about upcoming travel plans and reminiscing about them after they have returned. People prefer to buy products and services from brands they trust. Social media allow people to share written testaments to the brand's most amazing qualities, and share pictures and videos of their experiences. Social media make it easy to approach the enterprises and interact with them.

Connecting reputation management and social media is the process of monitoring and handling user-generated social media content such as reviews to impact the way a company is recognized. Tangible aspects of services and products are evaluated by customers of tourism and hospitality enterprises in an individual manner, and relevant opinions are shared on various social media platforms. The cost of a negative experience is rather high – the “eWOM” (electronic word-of-mouth) through social media essentially could destroy a business. For many businesses, a bad review or comment on one social networking site could spread to other social media tools.

The pattern of use of social media by customers of tourism and hospitality organizations can be divided into three stages: pretrip, during the trip, and posttrip use of social media. Customer experiences during each of these stages can be reflected on different social media networks. The manner of the use of social media by customers at all three stages could influence on performances of tourism and hospitality organizations as advantages and challenges. In this article authors are discussing both positive and negative impacts depending on consumer experiences and a range of other factors. Social media implementing blogs, social networking sites, photo and video stories, chats, forums, and other forms of communication need to be used by management of tourism and hospitality enterprises in an integrated manner. Great opportunities offered by viral marketing are fully appreciated and acted upon by managers of hospitality organizations.

It is important for the enterprise to develop an engaged audience by creating and sharing relevant content on social platforms. In addition to relevant content it is important to pay attention to interacting with the audience. Focus must be on products and services, but without interacting and engaging with the audience the enterprise might lose them. Social media are an option for tourism and hospitality to get the opportunity to control and present their contents including their products and services, and using it positively, solve their core values and draw and retain back their customers. Using social media channels can help enterprises to generate more profit. Setting special procedures or documents on how to respond to negative and positive comments guarantees correct and consistent execution. In this chapter the reader could find some real examples from tourism and hospitality enterprises.

As an important emerging topic in recent years, reviews on tourism and hospitality social entrepreneurship (THSE) by theme remain limited. This paper aims to map the current publication trends, reveal the formation path and identify the future research directions of THSE, providing comprehensive and in-depth insight.

This study presents a systematic review of 89 articles on THSE published in the Web of Science, ScienceDirect and EBSCOhost. It follows grounded theory to classify literature and an expert feedback process to ensure validity.

Research on THSE is mainly found in developing countries and regions. Qualitative methods have been the most popular for researchers. This paper classifies THSE research into four main themes: antecedents, processes, effects and challenges.

This review suggests that social enterprise managers should consider the inclusive business model and adopt empowerment, network construction, market approaches and bricolage to mobilize resources. Policymakers should disseminate relevant laws and regulations to provide a flexible and equal environment. Education and capacity building for people should be strengthened to train future social entrepreneurs.

This review provides an integrated process model by clustering articles to update the holistic picture of THSE. This work identifies research gaps that future research should address.