Smart tourism is a social phenomenon arising from the convergence of information technology with the tourism experience New ways of doing business, new patterns of experience and new problems concerning tourism destination image management and marketing are emerging due to the ubiquitous presence and influence of the internet and mobile devices New conceptual tools are also available to enable researchers to further understand the social implications as well as the practical implementation of these new virtual and augmented smart tourism ecosystems To this effect this paper introduces the constructivist paradigm and associated research methodologies as another toolbox for interpreting how smart tourism works as a form of soft power The implications revealed by constructivism are that through smart tourism ecosystems, destination commodification and commoditization, experience and image formation are increasingly self-per-petuating, autonomous and organic social constructions Researchers in information technology can use con-structivist research to further explore these dynamic developments in smart tourism

Constructivist Research in Smart Tourism

Making the right impression is paramount to succeed in today’s very competitive market, where photographs have acquired a prominent role in doing so. The evaluation and analysis of destination imag...

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1356766717736350

Analysis of the projected image of tourism destinations on photographs: A literature review to prepare for the future:

China's Chairman Mao: a visual analysis of Hunan Province online destination image.

The objective of this research is to identify the main tourism dimensions that require an explicit decision and to determine the level of involvement of wives in the different tasks associated with pleasure trips. This study segments the tourism decision making tasks into 4 categories, namely, initial trips tasks, financing, pre departure, and destination. Wives were asked to assign a score to their level of involvement in each task.. "Level of involvement" is defined in a subjective way by the respondents using a 0-10 scale (10 indicates "total involvement" and 0 indicates "lack of involvement"). Results of the survey suggest 5 perspectives. First, wives have a marginal involvement in tasks related to the "financial aspects". Second, at the destination site wives are highly involved in the decision making process such as "shopping" and "selecting restaurants". Third, there are definite differences in involvement in "accommodation" decisions. Wives involvement increases by 28 6% from the "pre departure" to the "destination" stage. Fourth, this involvement confirms that for some tasks the gender dimension still has a determining role. Finally, research has established the importance of the family life cycle in understanding the tourism decision making. The results of the survey clearly indicate a wide divergence in the level of wives involvement. Involvement is the highest at the destination sites and the lowest in the decision involving financial matters. Two hypotheses were tested: the socioeconomic characteristics of wives and trip characteristics have a positive effect on the level of involvement in the tourism decisions; and levels of task involvement are consistent for the 17 tasks (stability in tasks involvement). That is, if a wife scores high in one task, she will also score high in the other 16 tasks. Better understanding of the degree of wives involvement in tourism decision would assist the industry in its marketing efforts and would provide operators with a more realistic assessment of the role played by wives in decisions and tasks associated with tourism. Recommendations for further research were also discussed.

Wives involvement in tourism decision processes

Online image of tourist destination has emerged as a crucial element in the construction of tourist destination image. The destination, along with the online tourism marketers, plays an increasingly significant role in forming online image of tourist destination. This study takes Huangshan as an example and collects photographic and textual information of Huangshan from its official online media and online tourism marketers. Built upon the semiotic theory, content analysis, and visual analysis are employed to explore the online image of Huangshan. The analysis comprises the coding manual formation, coding check, and formal encoding. The results indicate that online image of tourist destination of Huangshan is composed of three elements, that is, tourism resources, tourism facilities, and tourism services, which further comprise several secondary elements. Different information sources with different demonstration focuses of online image of tourist destination elements are different. Consistency te...

Representation of online image of tourist destination: a content analysis of Huangshan

The article argues that semiotic analysis can be applied advantageously in tourism studies. C. S. Peirce’s representation triad is applied to destination representations by conceptualizing destinations, related activities, or entities as objects; photographs or textual descriptions as signs; and potential tourists’ comprehension of the sign as interpretants. Three formal analyses of selected photographs used by convention and visitor bureaus (VISIT FLORIDA, Destination Halifax and VisitDenmark) illustrate how the sign–object relationship is always characterized by a combination of iconic, indexical, and symbolic qualities, each of which destination marketers should consider in choosing representations because of the influence those qualities exert on reception. It is argued that the semiotic model can help marketers make informed decisions about the relevance and probable impact of the iconicity, indexicality, or symbolism of a representation, and that the semiotic model helps avoid conceiving of...

A semiotic model of destination representations applied to cultural and heritage tourism marketing.

Thirty-four-year-old Edward Albee's first Broadway play debuted at the Billy Rose Theatre on October 13, 1962, directed by Alan Schneider. \"Whether such a dramatic ordeal will be successful may be questionable,\" Variety anticipated; \"whether it would be suitable for the road or pictures may be dubious.\"1 Variety raised the issue of suitability because of the play's dialogue, which included potentially obscene words and phrases, and its representation of sexual themes. In the play, a disjunction between truth and illusion that revolves around the public exposure of private behavior is central to the play 's naffative, the story of a middleaged college history professor, George, and his wife, Martha, who have a couple named Nick and Honey over for drinks on a Saturday night. The play represents private lives at variance with public impressions when the visit develops into a series of ugly confrontations between the four, particularly between George and Martha over his inadequacies and her infidelities. Albee's representation of a hidden private \"hell\" paralleled the

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Jody Pennington

Papers

A semiotic model of destination representations applied to cultural and heritage tourism marketing.

Public Discourse on Marriage & Privacy - Concealment or Revelation? The Reception of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?