The project Comtur 2.0in which teachers from the Universities Rovira i Virgili, Malaga, Vigo and Surrey (U.K.) participated, which between 2013 and 2016, focused on the study of the use and influence of social media and communication 2.0 in tourism decision-making and the brand image of destinations. Useful applications for Spanish tourist destinations, at a time when social media and 2.0 communication have become essential tools for the communication of tourist destinations. destinations and their brands.
The main objective of this project was to to analyse the use of social media as a communication tool by tourist destinations and the use made of them by travellersin their search for information, to find out how they influence their decisions and the creation of the brand image of the destinations. This is a challenge in order to propose useful practical recommendations for all Spanish tourist destinations on the use of social media.
The methodology applied in this project was based on the study of the planning of the strategy of tourist destinations in social media, its reflection in the content shared and the opinion of users. In the first case, strategic planning, interviews were conducted with the Dircoms of the main tourist destinations in Spain and a survey was carried out on digital communication managers of 36 territories that excel in this field.
Most of them acknowledge having a strategic plan and a social media manual, while at the same time claiming that the agenda is one of the predominant topics shared on official accounts, where they aim to increase the number of followers, rather than to improve conversation with tourists and potential tourists and active listening.
Then, more than two thousand messages and images were analysed on the main social networks of these 36 destinations - Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Flickr - to assess the tourist attractions, emotions and impact on users. In this sense, the methodological technique of content analysis -both quantitative and qualitative- was applied. The main conclusion in this section: conversation and a good combination of different formats and tone are the great unresolved issues in digital communication in a tourist destination..
Finally, a survey was conducted among 800 people who travelled during 2016, to find out what information they seek and through which digital media, as well as the credibility they give to these channels; and a focus group was convened to deepen some aspects of the survey.
Among the results that should be highlighted in this part, it is worth noting that the travellers who give the most confidence are TripAdvisor, official destination Facebook, travel blogs, official destination blog and friends on social networksThey are mainly looking for accommodation, excursions, leisure and tourist attractions before deciding to make a trip.
Finally, it is striking that approximately half of the respondents have ever shared negative messages about a trip they have made; messages from which destinations are supposed to learn in order to renew their strategy. These messages are sometimes deleted when they are offensive.
What's next: bots, artificial intelligence, big data? This requires that the tourism industry also invests in these lines of research, the benefits are already worth it.
Francisco Javier Paniagua
Professor of Communication at the University of Malaga