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Destination Image Gaps Between Official Tourism Websites and User-Generated Content

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Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2016

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyse and compare destination image on official tourism websites with the image expressed by tourists in travel blogs and reviews in order to assess image congruency and identify image gaps at different geographical brand levels. This is done through a massive computerized semi-automatic content analysis of attraction factors and geographical elements on official tourism websites and in 46,576 travel blogs and review entries about Catalonia and its sub-regional brands. Our results show relative image congruency at regional level, but significant image gaps at sub-regional levels, indicating the need for coordinated image policies at different geographical levels.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness [Grant id.: MOVETUR CSO2014-51785-R].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Business Administration and Economic Management of Natural Resources (AEGERN), University of Lleida, Catalonia, Spain

    Estela Marine-Roig

  2. Research Group on Territorial Analysis and Tourism Studies (GRATET), Rovira i Virgili University, Catalonia, Spain

    Salvador Anton Clavé

Authors
  1. Estela Marine-Roig
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  2. Salvador Anton Clavé
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Estela Marine-Roig .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Tourism, Bournemouth University, Poole, Dorset, United Kingdom

    Alessandro Inversini

  2. HES-SO Valais, Sierre, Valais, Switzerland

    Roland Schegg

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Marine-Roig, E., Clavé, S.A. (2016). Destination Image Gaps Between Official Tourism Websites and User-Generated Content. In: Inversini, A., Schegg, R. (eds) Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2016. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28231-2_19

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