International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research

Emerald Article: Tourist-created content: rethinking destination branding Ana Mara Munar

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To cite this document: Ana Mara Munar, (2011),"Tourist-created content: rethinking destination branding", International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research, Vol. 5 Iss: 3 pp. 291 - 305 Permanent link to this document: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/17506181111156989 Downloaded on: 06-04-2012 References: This document contains references to 63 other documents To copy this document: permissions@emeraldinsight.com This document has been downloaded 1013 times.

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Tourist-created content: rethinking destination branding

Ana Mara Munar

Ana Mara Munar is an Associate Professor at Copenhagen Business School, Frederiksberg, Denmark.

Abstract Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationship between tourists user-generated content on the web and destination branding, as well as to discuss the online strategies used by destination management organizations. Design/methodology/approach The research adopts an exploratory study of social media sites and destination brands, relying on qualitative research methods, content analysis and eld research. Findings Tourists are largely contributing to destination image formation, while avoiding the use of the formal elements of the brands. The most popular strategies used by destination management organizations exhibit some crucial weaknesses. However, a strategy based on analytics brings new opportunities for destination branding. Originality/value The study provides an innovative analysis of tourist-created content and its impact on destination branding and presents a theoretical model of generic web-based strategies. Keywords Destination branding, User-generated content, Information technology, Tourism Paper type Research paper

Introduction
Information and communication technologies (ICT) are of great importance in understanding the development of todays tourism destinations (Buhalis and Law, 2008). Their impact is considerable in the branding of tourism products in general and in the branding of destinations in particular. However, a review of the literature reveals minimal knowledge related to the impact of one of the latest developments in ICT, the popular phenomenon known as Web 2.0, on destination branding. This term describes a Web which is increasingly inuenced by intelligent Web services that empower users to contribute to developing, rating, collaborating and distributing Internet content and customizing Internet applications (Vickery and Wunsch-Vincent, 2007, p. 9). These forms of virtual social communication are based on Content Management System software (Stillman and McGrath, 2008) and include a mixture of different tools such as blogs, wikis, podcasts, messaging applications and others which are meant to encourage the sharing of information. Web 2.0 tools are widely used by tourists to get information about tourism destinations and to share their tourism experiences. The digital content provided by these tourists has increasingly inuenced destination awareness and image creation (Tussyadiah and Fesenmaier, 2009). This development is due to the following factors: more powerful and affordable hardware and software, a faster network edge, advances in easy-to-use tools for creating and sharing content, a higher e-literacy in the population of the world, and the increase of portable and wireless platforms (Parameswaran and Whinston, 2007). These factors entail a change in the locus of control of the creation process of the online branding of destinations. Nowadays, web branding content, previously controlled by organizations and corporations, is to a larger extent the expression of the interaction and participation of end-users.

Received: June 2009 Revised: June 2010 Accepted: June 2010 The author thanks the Nordic Innovation Center for research funding, and Carina Hallin and Bjarke Mller for reading and providing comments to this manuscript.

DOI 10.1108/17506181111156989

VOL. 5 NO. 3 2011, pp. 291-305, Q Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1750-6182

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One of the main characteristics of the Web 2.0 turn is that it enables user generated content (UGC). UGC refers to the information that is digitalized, uploaded by the users and made available through the internet. This paper focuses on a specic type of user generated content: tourist created content (TCC). The study departs from ndings presented in earlier studies on TCC (Munar, 2010) and analyzes the impact of TCC on destination branding. A large number of researchers focus on how the technological revolution of ICT has transformed tourism (Buhalis and Law, 2008) and several studies analyze the interrelation between destinations, consumer searches and ICT (Fodness and Murray, 1997; Bonn et al., 1999; Weber and Roehl, 1999; Buhalis, 1998; Luo et al., 2004; Werthner and Ricci, 2004; Fras et al., 2008; Li et al., 2009; Weinberg, 2009). Tourism research has many relevant studies relating to destination branding (Gartner, 1986; Cai, 2002; Ooi, 2004; Konecnik and Gartner, 2007; Murphy et al., 2007; Marzano and Scott, 2009), but a specic focus on UGC and destination branding is missing. Nevertheless, several social scientists focus on the Internet as a factor of social, cultural and economic change (Castells, 1996, 1997, 2001; Poster, 2006; Basu et al., 2007; Schwanen and Kwan, 2008; Stillman and McGrath, 2008) and on the importance of UGC (Lenhart and Fox, 2006; Cooke and Buckley, 2008; Lenhart et al., 2008). Dellarocas (2003) analyzes the consequences of the digitalization of word-of-mouth, a relevant factor concerning destination image formation, and several popular books cover the issue of social media and business management (Qualman, 2009; Weinberg, 2009). Most of the knowledge and sources available on the topic of Web 2.0 and UGC in tourism are organizational reports or newspaper and magazine articles, many of which contain information provided by web sources and consultancy rms, weakening their level of reliability and validity. Although tourism research has interesting contributions on the topic of the internet and tourism branding, the impact of TCC and destination branding remains unexplored.

Tourist created content and destination branding

UGC is the aggregation and leveraging of users contributions on the web. UGC is the digital transformation of cultural objects: text, sounds and images (Poster, 2006). Several denitions and classications of this content exist in the literature (Cook, 2008; Cooke and Buckley, 2008; Deshpande and Jadad, 2006; Lenhart and Fox, 2006; Stillman and McGrath, 2008; Vickery and Wunsch-Vincent, 2007; Wellman, 2007; World Tourism Organization, 2008). Cook (2008) denes UGC as a part of broader user contribution systems. These systems aggregate and leverage various types of user input in ways that are valuable to others (p. 62) and consist of various types of contributions: active contributions (aggregating content or items for sale) and passive contributions (aggregating behavioral data or resources). Vickery and Wunsch-Vincents (2007) analysis of the participative web provides a difference between UGC and user created content (UCC) and focuses on the creative element of the content generation. Tourist created content refers to the active and creative contributions of tourists on the web (Munar, 2010). Many of the tools related to UGC (e.g. blogs, podcasts, wikis, etc.) are used by tourism corporations and organizations to increase and enhance interaction with their employees/members and the connectivity with suppliers and other business partners. However, an analysis of this business-to-business perspective would lie beyond the aims of this study. The focus of this research is on the participative end-user, the tourist and the impact of his/her contributions to destination branding. The importance of the UGC is evident in the fact that a number of companies, which intensively use Web 2.0 tools, are already among the top ten most visited sites by US internet users: eBay (n.7), Amazon (n.8), Wikimedia Foundation (n. 9) (Nielsen, 2008). Youtube, eBay and Wikipedia are also listed as numbers six, eight and 10 in the ranking of the top 10 brands (Nielsen, 2008). Data from rms measuring Internet trafc show high levels of concentration on some of the most important UGC web sites: MySpace, having 64 percent of the market share of the US and YouTube, accounting for 75 percent of all U.S. visits in May 2008 among a custom category of 63 online video web sites (Hitwise, 2008). Facebook announced a total of 200 million members in March 2009 (Stone, 2009).

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The proportion of TCC on specic tourism sites examined in this study is also very large. TripAdvisor received more than 25 million visits during the month of July 2008 (Weisman, 2008); Wayn is a community site with 13 million members (The Times, 2009); and Virtualtourist has more than 1,100,000 members, over 1,700,000 reviews and 3,500,100 photos (Virtualtourist, 2009). While UGC is a massive phenomenon, not everybody is an active virtual contributor. Castells (2001) argues that countries unequal distributions of wealth, education and technological infrastructure have led to great territorial diversity, which characterizes the use of the Internet. Other critical perspectives on UGC address the lack of quality of content as well as issues of identity theft (Aspan, 2008; Keen, 2007; Poster, 2006; Stillman and McGrath, 2008).

Destination branding
An intense competition among destinations characterizes tourism today (Kim and Fesenmaier, 2008). Globalization processes (Munar, 2009), an increased interest in place (Anholt, 2003), and destination branding are key factors that have contributed to an increase in this competition (Cai, 2002; Konecnik and Gartner, 2007; Murphy et al., 2007; Pike, 2004). Several authors discuss the differences between product or service branding and the branding of a destination (Cai et al., 2009; Marzano and Scott, 2009; Ooi, 2004). Destinations are more complex and diverse than specic tourism products (Ooi and Stoeber, 2010). The creation of a destination brand has to address multiple groups of stakeholders, socio-cultural identities and take into consideration the intangibility and multifaceted features of a destination. The image and the brand of a destination are two distinct concepts. However, the brands existence is dependent on the image formation of the destination (Cai, 2002). The image represents the sum of beliefs, attitudes, and impressions that a person or group has of an object (Nadeau et al., 2008, p. 84). The image of a destination is owned by tourists and permeated by the socio-cultural and economic changes that impact on their sensitiveness. The organic evolution of the image, which is brought about by word-of-mouth and all other types of information received about the destination, is different from the induced evolution of the image that results from destination management organizations (DMO) brand promotion (Gartner, 1986). Destinations compete through the images held in the minds of potential tourists (Baloglu and McCleary, 1999). However, DMOs do not have control over the specic attributes of the tourism experience. Therefore, their main effort is in brand awareness and image formation. This lack of ownership of the destination product makes the taglines, slogans, logos and commercial campaigns the focus of the destination brand and represents the formal elements of the brand. Tourists relate to the destination brand by participating in image formation and by adopting and using these formal elements in their different types of generated content on the web.

Methodology
This paper is an exploratory study of tourist created content, a specic subtype of UGC, and destination branding. The study relies on qualitative research methods, including textual analysis through documentary studies of web content and eld research, based on the project Travel 2.0 promotion in Asia and Pacic, conducted by the Scandinavian Tourism Board Asia/Pacic. The theoretical background of the study is founded in the literature of ICT in tourism, in the more general literature of branding and destination management, and other related social sciences on the evolution and impact of the internet. Other literature consulted during the study includes documents and reports provided by organizations which study ICTs usage and development. The research design had several phases. The rst phase, based on preliminary studies, involved designing a classication system. This task included: rst, the establishment of a sample of destination brands and a theoretical sample of web sites based on rankings of

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social media sites (Comscore, 2009; Hitwise, 2008); second, the examination of content of the sites according to the classication of the UGC of sites as developed by Munar (2010); and third, the selection and analysis of a larger sample of sites based on a larger literature review. The sampling focused on sites that indicated the use and development of UGC as primary purpose (not including sites of organizations which display Web 2.0 tools to a minor degree) and to tourism related sites. The great majority of the analyzed sites are online communities and social network sites. Sample of web sites and tourist-created content (TCC) are:
B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B

Blogabond.com Couchsurng.org Dopplr.com Gowander.com Hostelz.com IgoUgo.com iTourist.com Lonelyplanet.com (Thorn Tree) Travelblog.org Travelersfortravelers.com Travelistic.com Travelpod.com Tripadvisor.com Triplms.com Trustedplaces.com Virtualtourist.com Wayn.com Worldreviewer.com Digg.com Facebook.com Flickr.com Myspace.com Twitter.com Youtube.com IsAnyoneGoingTo.com Liftshare.com

The sampling considered many tourism and travel sites but many were also eliminated from the sample, either because of their high commercial focus or because their prime content was based on blogs provided by experts and not open to all tourists in general (e.g. gridskipper.com, the coolhunter.com or spottedbylocals.com). These sites were compared to the sample of 19 main destination brands: 18 national brands and one US state brand. The second phase included developing a model of strategic analysis. The model identied how DMOs try to benet from TCC and examined the relationship of TCC to destination branding in each one of the stages of the tourism experience. The strategic analysis was based on the work conducted during the project Travel 2.0 promotion in Asia and Pacic. This project, which began in January 2009, includes the development of a Web 2.0 platform for the Asian tourism market for the Scandinavian Tourism Board.

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The focus of the research is tourist created content and destination branding. The study introduces some explanations related to other generated content in order to understand the general phenomenon. The rapid change in the patterns of internet use, as well as the fragmentation and massive amount of data associated with the object of analysis, represents a challenge to the study of the web. However, the complexity of web analysis does not make this study any less relevant. The aim here is not to map all the possibilities of TCC, but to contribute to a wider understanding of how tourists contributions on the web inuences destination branding.

Brand, image formation and types of tourist created content

Tourists create three main categories of digitalized content: narrative, visual and audio. Tourists use these different types of content to refer to the destination brand. The written expression of the destination brand is the name of the destination combined with a word, a tagline or slogan, as in the following cases:
B B B B B B

Denmark Feel Free; Greece The True Experience; Thailand Amazing Thailand; South Africa Its Possible; Italy Much More; or Singapore Uniquely Singapore.

In some cases the name of the brand is the same as the name of the DMO (e.g. Visit Sweden). Tourists can use the written expression of the brand employing different narrative genres (Table I). These genres represent a continuum from a more descriptive and objectivistic narrative (the encyclopedic) on the one hand, to a more subjective and personal narrative (the diary) on the other. (For in-depth analyses of the genres, see Munar (2010).) The uidity of genres, and of media, characterizes TCC. This uidity makes it very difcult to monitor and control all the possible ways in which the different formal elements of the brand may appear in TCC. Furthermore, the different contents use hypertext at different levels, with links to other sites or documents available in the cyberworld. In addition, depending on the system architecture of the site, the tourists narrative contributions remain open to other users contributions. For example, some of the sites allow users to grade how useful the information provided in the review is or to give general comments. The views of these contributors and technological platforms on copyright or authorship are highly informal, with frequent use of pseudonyms and nicknames. The features of openness and collaborative content are embedded in the system. Therefore, it can be argued that TCC is about communication and personal expression and the content encourages both the knowledge sharing of tourism products and the sociability of the tourism experience. Table I Brand, destination image and TCC
Tourist-created content Narrative (encyclopedic, review, travel diary, blog, microblog) Destination branding formal elements Narrative identity: Slogans, taglines, brand name Destination image formation Narrative text of the impressions, beliefs and attitudes on the destination experience

Visual (photography and video) Visual identity: Logo, advertising Images of the destination campaigns (photos or video) experience Audio (narrative and/or musical) Audio advertising campaigns (music or text) Audio stories about the destination experience

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Narrative genres and destination branding

This section provides an analysis of TCC and destination branding examining four different genres: encyclopedic, review, diary and blog. The encyclopedic genre is based on knowledge sharing with a form of peer-review or critical evaluation of the content. One example is Wikitravel, a project to create a free, complete, up to date and reliable worldwide travel guide (Wikitravel, 2008). The encyclopedic feature of TCC increases the amount of tourism information available, with a focus on a traditional socio-geographical perspective. Tourists encyclopedic content uses the destination name, either without the use of tags or slogans associated with it, or without any visual characteristics of the brand, such as logos. This genre provides an image of objectivity and neutrality and avoids any commercial-like expressions, such as slogans. For example, in this type of content Spain is expressed as Spain and not as Smile you are in Spain, which is the slogan of the countrys latest destination branding campaign; Copenhagen is expressed as Copenhagen and not as Wonderful Copenhagen or the most recent brand of C-Open-hagen. The focus is on reliable and free-from-commercial-interests information on the destination. This content is destination-, not product-oriented. The type of destination presented in this content is not an emotive one, as attributes of a psychological or emotional type associated to the brand image are seldom. The review genre is based on the critical evaluation of a tourism product or experience. A very popular site which relies mainly on this genre is TripAdvisor. This is a type of genre which creates a lot of concern among tourism suppliers. The main focus of this type of content is not the destination brand but brands of tourism products. This content has a commercial bias. A large majority of the content examines and rates suppliers of hospitality, attractions, travel and transport products and services. Although the focus of the review genre is not on the destination as a whole but on specic tourism products, the composite nature of the tourism experience also makes this type of TCC very pertinent to the overall image formation of the destination brand. In the architecture of the sites the focus is on the geographical name and not on the narrative associated with the destination brand. Different destination brands were compared to the sample sites, such as Trip Advisor, Virtual Tourist and IgoUgo. The results show that tourists do not use the brand name, the taglines, or other similar formal elements in their review content. At the same time, the ndings show thousands of results when using the geographical name of the destination. This name acts as an umbrella for the different tourism products. For example, when searching Copenhagen in TripAdvisor, the information displayed is not related to the ofcial brand. The main title that appears is visiting the city of Copenhagen, combined with links to other reviews on accommodation, attractions, etc. In the case of Spain the destination is announced as visiting Spain, and the same pattern applies to other destinations. Again, as in the previous case, the ofcial brand name, tagline or slogans are all missing. In the case of IgoUgo the word Italy has more than 2,000 reviews linked and France receives over 1,900 reviews. Both cases display zero results when searching the national brand, Rendez-vous en France or Italy Much more. The brand Uniquely Singapore receives zero results, while the geographical name has more than 600 reviews linked. Amazing Thailand has one specic review (a tourist that commented on the destinations ofcial web site), while Thailand has more than 1,120. The diary genre (or travel journal) relates to the narrative explanation of the personal experience of the travel. This genre is also very popular on the web and is mostly expressed in the form of travel blogs at the different sites. The formal elements of destination brands with their taglines and slogans are mostly missing from this type of content. For example, the new brand of Greece, Greece, the true experience, does not generate any results in travel diary sites such as Travelersfortravelers or Gowander. However, this type of content displays a strong focus on destination image formation. The diary genre includes a large amount of narrative content. This content communicates the experience of the destination, including emotional and personal perceptions, beliefs and attitudes.

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The general blog genre displays a similar tendency. Blogs have a high use of the geographical name and image formation and a minimum reference to the brand formal elements. This type of content relates to individual opinions about specic issues (Ryu et al., 2009). This genre is a mixed-genre which contains many elements related to the diary, but can also contain encyclopedic knowledge and review passages. The examination of blogging sites (e.g. Travelblog) shows many references to some of the formal narrative brand elements, for example, Amazing Thailand. However, these blogs are written by organizations, not by tourists, and are therefore not TCC.

Visual and audio content and destination branding

The visual content has two main types: 1. photographic; and 2. audiovisual. This UGC is a popular form of contribution in tourism sites. The visual expression also has different genres and appears combined with hypertext and other forms of expression, such as the use of titles, descriptions attached to images, tags on photos, etc. Some of the most popular general sites for video and photo sharing are Flickr, Youtube or Travelistic. Many of the images on these sites have a real life approach, without any or only a minimum amount of manipulation. This form of content makes a very powerful contribution to destination image formation. The main content and focus of these visual contributions is on the personal experience and not on the formal visual elements of the brand. Some of these sites, like Youtube, are not tourism specic and, therefore, the information provided about the destinations does not necessarily have a tourism focus. Destination managers upload visual content advertising the brand in many of these social network sites (e.g. Amazing Thailand in Travelistic or 100% pure New Zealand in Youtube). However, these corporative contributions do not qualify as TCC. The audio content is to be found in the form of podcasts. This type of UGC is increasingly popular, thanks to the iPod and other mobile technologies. This content shows different combinations of multiple media. Audio content is seldom in the sample of web sites studied. Examination of the web sites and different destination brands show that tourists do not use the brands formal elements. At the same time, tourists are extremely active in destination image formation. The destination brands taglines, slogans, logos, video or audio advertising are not essential parts of TCC. An extensive analysis of social network sites shows that the image formations provided by TCC are simply a large collage of digitalized personal expressions that do not have any structured commercial goals. The tendency to focus on the destination image and ignore the destination brand formal elements can be a conscious decision made by the tourist in order to appear independent from commercial interests. This could be a consequence of TCC being embedded in Internet cultures with a strong anti-commercial background, such as the hacker culture or the open source movement (Castells, 2001). Another possible explanation is the lack of reach of todays destination branding campaigns in relation to the TCC target group.

Digitalization of the tourism experience

TCC has expanded the ways by which tourists see and interpret the world. Traditionally, tourism conceptualization resulted from a basic binary division of the ordinary/everyday and the extraordinary (Jafari, 1987). However, modern sociological analysis challenges the assumption of the separation between home and away (Franklin and Crang, 2001; Larsen et al., 2007). According to Jansson (2002) tourism is intertwined with the consumption of media images the tourism industry and the culture industry create. TCC is a new form of mediation in the creation of the tourism experience, which neither represents the industry nor the cultural industry, but which airs peoples personal reexive considerations of the tourism experience. TCC functions as virtual mediator.

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Jafaris (1987) tourism model identies several components representing the different stages of the tourism experience: 1. Corporation. 2. Emancipation. 3. Animation. 4. Repatriation. 5. Incorporation. TCC takes place during the different stages of the tourism experience and has different types of impact on the destination brand. In the corporation component the tourist-to-be is in a search position and this stage corresponds to the pre-purchase and decision-making phases. Destination marketing campaigns largely focus on pre-purchase stages. Therefore, ofcial channels of information about the destinations that make intensive use of the formal elements of the brand compete with the social networks of tourist-to-tourist communication and their focus on multilateral image formation. The destination brand tries to induce the person to choose a specic destination among all others (Gartner, 1986). The brand enhances recognition and awareness within the huge amount of information available. To achieve this, traditional destination branding utilizes marketing campaigns while depending heavily on the word-of-mouth and the organic image of the destination. The introduction of the web expands these strategies to include active web sites with a locus of control on DMOs and extensive web marketing tools. The Web 2.0 and, specically, TCC increase the channels of communication with the consumer base in tourism generating regions. However, this new channel of communication presents several challenges to DMOs. TCC implies the digitalization of the word-of-mouth mechanisms that are so powerful in shaping tourism demand. The Web 2.0 expands the word-of-mouth through a global distribution system of information. The locus of control of communication is no longer on a business-to-customer basis but largely on a customer-to-customer. The Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey (Nielsen, 2009) of over 25,000 online consumers from 50 countries found that opinions posted by consumers online are among the most trusted forms of advertising globally. In the search position stage the tourism consumer (tourist-to-be) is only in search mode, a self-reecting watcher of destinations, and is not actively uploading images, texts or videos of the destination. Rather, the tourist-to-be is looking for information and is enriching his/her image of the destination. TCC during corporation includes blogs and other types of content (audio and/or visual podcasts) that refer to the desire and motivation to travel and the possibilities or impossibilities of doing so. TCC works as an important complement to the knowledge and opinions the tourist-to-be has about a specic destination. Therefore, the TCC on destinations provided by tourists who already have visited the destination may have the largest impact at this stage, by affecting other users motivation for travel and purchase choices. Emancipation is the second component of the model. This stage refers to the physical journey to the tourist destination as well as the mental travelling entering into touristhood. The TCC at this stage corresponds to the content produced and uploaded during the physical travel to the destination. Destination branding has a weak interest on transportation sites. Usually, destination brands, like the ones examined in this study, focus on the cultural, social and natural features of the destination. Transportation sites are regarded as facilitators of the travel experience but are still standardized international places without much local avor. The repatriation is, due to its focus on transport and the movement in space, very similar to the emancipation component. However, the psychological perspective of this stage is very different. During repatriation tourists create and share content on the Web that indicates their satisfaction or disappointment with the destination experience. The empirical experience of the destination, with all its features and products, transforms tourists images of the destination, as well as their brand perception, and a modied image takes form in the tourists mind. At this stage TCC can reect a more complete image of the destination.

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The animation component corresponds to the tourist doing tourism in his animated world (Jafari, 1987, p. 151) and in spatial terms relates to staying at the tourism destination. The most important content at this stage is the visual one. The tourist can write stories about the destination back home, but he/she can only produce images of the destination while actually being in the geographic location. The visual TCC provides valuable insights into the ways in which tourists contribute to image formation. TCC produced at this stage relates to the core of the tourism industry offering: for example, reviews of attractions, accommodations and other types of services at the destination. Content created during this stage document the tourists ongoing perceptions of the trip, and their narrative texts and visual content are presented as a combination of published travel diaries and virtual postcards. The content displayed aims to give an impression of reality or authenticity, compared to the manipulated or inauthentic commercial version of the destination. However, this reality of TCC is embedded in Internet cultures and is dependent on both the limitations of site architecture and the personal gaze and cultural background of the tourist. Destination branding is about focus, coherence, the establishment of attributes and image formation. However, TCC at the animation stage reveals the lack of control that DMOs have on their own tourist destination product. A tourist with a combined mobile and photo/video phone can show any detail of a destination to the rest of the world, 24 hours a day. It is possible to consider TCC as a form of global late-modern risk. Global risks are characterized by being de-localized, incalculable and non-compensable (Beck, 1992). TCC occurs thanks to the de-localized web, because its impact is not limited to a specic geographical space. The impact is incalculable, because it is difcult to measure the consequences of a negative video or a terrible review on a destination, and non-compensable because a scientic control of all the dangers and consequences of TCC does not seem possible. Furthermore, TCC allows tourists to send instant, real-time information about any problem, deception or situation experienced at the destination. This situation is the realization of a surveillance society whereby big brother is no longer the state or any authoritarian bureaucracy, but thousands of web-empowered tourism consumers. The perception of risk is also increased by the impossibility of knowing which of these billions of pieces of information may end up having a viral impact and reach thousands of other consumers, and which ones will just get lost in the massive amount of virtual information. TCC brings destination branding to a new level of transparency. Finally, a very relevant phase in TCC is the incorporation phase. At this stage the tourist returns to his/her place of residence and daily life activities. This phase corresponds, in many cases, to the post-purchase and post-experience phase, in which tourists upload texts presenting their opinions and memories of the travel experience. Many of the sites studied show a very high level of activity at this stage, making the initiatives and strategies related to the post-purchase extremely important for tourism businesses or DMOs. The analysis of UGC cannot verify the locations from where the tourists created and uploaded their contributions. However, the use of past tense (we were, we travelled to, etc) and temporal indications (last week, last month, etc) in the narrative contributions points towards the importance of the post-experience for destination branding and TCC.

Rethinking destination branding

DMOs face the challenge of TCC using three different strategies: mimetic, advertising (Figure 1) and analytic (Figure 2). The rst type of strategy is mimetic. In this strategy, a DMO copies the style and e-culture of social network sites to create its own web site. The organization pursues this strategy by opening its ofcial web site to TCC and enhancing the creation, uploading and downloading of content by tourists. The mimetic strategy is a type of conservative strategy, which is characterized by the organization keeping the main locus of control of web content on the organization. Nevertheless, this option offers only a narrow opening for contribution from users. This strategy pursues the establishment of a fake social network, the main reason still being the ofcial promotion of the destination and not the user-to-user communication. Some examples of these strategies are DMOs web sites that

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Figure 1 Mimetic and advertising strategic model of destination branding and TCC

Figure 2 Analytic strategic model of destination branding and TCC

invite users to write about their destination experiences or to upload/download photos or videos about their travels. The analysis shows many different initiatives that share this type of strategy, for example the Videoblog for Visit Britain initiative, Your Words in New Zealands site or Your Copenhagen in Wonderful Copenhagens portal. Some other tools allow tourists to share ofcial brand content with their social networks by exporting the information to Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc. This strategy targets tourists, who are experiencing or have experienced the destination, in the animation, repatriation and incorporation components. This approach pays little attention to the corporation component. The mimetic strategy is an easy and less expensive way to participate in Web 2.0 and it allows DMO to keep control of the TCC displayed, because the organization can remove unwanted or inappropriate content. However, this approach has several weaknesses. A corporate site representing a brand has a very different logic from social network sites that provide value-managing user contributions, and that have an e-culture based on unclear rules of ownership and openness of content. This strategy achieves some level of participation by tourists, but has a poor scalability and does not benet from the massive volume of contributions that are taking place in the most popular social network sites such as TripAdvisor, IgoUgo, Youtube, Facebook, etc. The second strategy, the advertising strategy, follows traditional and conservative ways of dealing with social network sites and TCC. This strategy understands the new sites as advertising platforms. It uses banners and other possibilities of advertising of the sites. DMOs include advertisements of their new campaigns in social network sites that allow it, for

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example: Dopplr, Wayn, Facebook, etc. Another example is the increased use of news related to microblogging in Twitter, with 350 DMOs active on that site in June 2009 (Go Sell Tell, 2009). DMO microblogging is still mostly based on a one-way communication from the DMO (Hubard, 2009). This strategy increases the social media presence of the DMO and their brands. However, the organization does not benet from the pool of information provided by TCC. These initiatives only re-direct the ads and news to those sites with the largest trafc of users, or increase the volume of DMO information on those sites. The analytic strategy has two main dimensions: prevention and knowledge. Through prevention DMOs try to understand how TCC develops in relation to their brands and then prevent crises or take action to minimize damage or improve marketing. This dimension does not need very advanced ICT systems or interdisciplinary knowledge. The initiatives are applied by using consultancy rms or webmasters to search and monitor how social network sites portray the destination and report back to the DMOs departments. An example of this strategy is GoSellTells monitoring of Twitter for DMOs, such as Travel Portland (Go Sell Tell, 2009). The second dimension, knowledge, is seldom a feature. This aspect is highly demanding and implies investments in ICT development and training, and a concerted innovation effort from an organizational perspective. Nevertheless, this strategy allows DMOs to transform massive and chaotic amounts of TCC into strategic knowledge. This transformation can be achieved thanks to the possibilities of the advanced search engines and articial intelligence. The analytic strategy has the opposite logic to that of the mimetic or advertising strategies. This approach does not aim to fake social network sites on corporation sites or to enhance traditional commercial campaigns with new tools. The analytic strategy is based on the massive amount of TCC that is already available via the web and is extremely exible, because this tactic follows the tourists to where they contribute. Furthermore, an analytic perspective considers all the different stages of the tourism experience from corporation to incorporation. Analytics use ICT to examine, select, classify, monitor and evaluate TCC. The previous analysis showed how TCC could be considered to be a new type of global risk for the management of destination branding. None of the strategies mentioned above can totally manage this type of risk. However, the analytic strategy that is based on monitoring and trend analysis is a valuable tool in forecasting and therefore may be more useful in risk analysis. An example of this strategy is the case of the project Travel 2.0 promotion in Asia and Pacic developed by the Scandinavian Tourism Board, Asia-Pacic (STB). The project is based on two main tools: 1. the search engine; and 2. the knowledge exchange database. The search engine allows Asian tourists to examine, select and rank digital creative content relating to Scandinavia. The knowledge exchange database stores, classies and structures the content. This tool gives administrators and partners of the project access to historical data, and enables users to examine tourism trends and patterns over periods of time, as well as statistical and graphical representations of TCC. It also allows DMOs sites to publish selected content. The development of these tools demands a high level of interdisciplinary skills. In this case, tourism researchers provide semantic classications and segmentations; STB managers monitor the functionality of the database and the coordination among four different DMOs, and ICT researchers handle software and search specications. Managers in Asia translate these texts into local languages. All of these tasks develop through a constant dialogue between the different disciplines and by combining practical and theoretical knowledge. For example, the project allows tourism managers to monitor the trends in Japanese or Korean tourists perceptions of a destination like Oslo, to identify increases or decreases in interest in specic attractions or types of tourism (e.g. nature tourism or spa-wellness tourism), to select TCC with positive stories about the destination as part of their branding campaigns, or to examine negative TCC for quality management.

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Analytic strategy in relation to TCC means viewing tourist contributions on the Web as a pool of knowledge. It has enormous potential as an active tool in helping DMOs to understand the image formation of their destinations brands. However, this demands the enhancement of skills and competences of those responsible for destination branding. Furthermore, a type of destination branding tailored mainly by the wishes and desires of tourists, as expressed through their TCC, is problematic. The danger is that the host community and other local stakeholders may lose their inuence on the destination brand. The local community is not an active participant of TCC. The analytic strategy focuses on tourists wishes and behavior and, thus, other mechanisms will have to ensure local communities participation in these processes. Without compensating analytics with participation, the brand may become both an international success and a local catastrophe.

Conclusion
The purpose of this study is to broaden knowledge of the relationship between TCC and destination branding and to contribute to a better understanding of the strategies that DMOs use in relation to TCC. This explorative study relies on qualitative research methods, content analysis and eld research. It examines a sample of relevant social network sites, the majority with a clear tourism focus. The ndings allow the classication of formal elements of the destination brand and image formation in relation to the different genres and types of TCC. The analysis of the use of destination brands in TCC shows that tourists do not incorporate the formal elements of the brands in their story-telling and experience sharing of destinations. Elements such as taglines, slogans or logos are virtually non-existent as part of TCC. However, tourists are extremely active in destination image formation through their narrative, visual and audio contributions. These results point towards the embedding of user contribution systems and TCC in Internet cultures with strong anti-commercial backgrounds, such as the hacker culture or the open source movement (Castells, 2001). The paper explains the different ways in which tourists may relate to destination branding when producing and uploading TCC during their tourism experience. The analysis based on the tourism model (Jafari, 1987) shows that traditionally destination management organizations have focused on the incorporation stage. However, at this stage tourists are watchers rather than active contributors of TCC. During this rst stage, TCC developed by other tourists can be expected to have the largest impact. The animation, repatriation and incorporation components are those stages that show the highest activity of TCC in destination image formation. TCC at the animation stage shows the lack of control that DMOs have on the tourist destination product. Mobile and audiovisual technology, combined with Web 2.0, turns TCC into a new type of global late-modern risk that is characterized by being de-localized, incalculable and non-compensable. Furthermore, TCC shows how tourists are active contributors to a new version of a surveillance society where the big brother is thousands of web empowered tourism consumers. The study presented three different strategies used by DMOs in relation to TCC and destination branding. The three strategies are the mimetic, the advertising and the analytic. The mimetic strategy is conservative and its main instrument is the introduction of Web 2.0 tools which allow for the inclusion of TCC in DMOs web sites. This strategy provides a fake imitation of the logic of social network sites without changing the locus of control, which still remains in the organization and not in the users. The organization does not benet from the amount of TCC available on the web. The advertising strategy focuses on the corporation component and enters social network sites by placing traditional ads or news. This type of strategy only benets from TCC as a platform for increased awareness. Analytics is a very demanding strategic proposal based on the intensive use of IT. This strategy has two dimensions, the rst focusing on monitoring and prevention and the second focusing on knowledge. The latest allows DMOs to transform massive amounts of TCC into strategic knowledge by using the possibilities of the web and articial intelligence tools. The analysis of the project Travel 2.0 promotion in Asia and Pacic shows the strengths of this strategy but also indicates some of the possible dangers such as lack of community involvement.

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The paper demonstrates the schism between traditional destination branding and the image formation enhanced by TCC. Tourists do not use the formal elements of the destination brands. If TCC gains in intensity and impact capacity, user contributions may challenge the capacity of destination branding to tailor and frame the image of the destination. This exploratory study is a call for further research on a topic that is still highly unexplored. Further analysis should focus on several main issues: the possible combinations of different strategic agendas for the use of TCC in destination branding, the analysis of TCC and risk, the impact of these developments on the involvement of local communities, and the challenges of the analytic model for traditional DMO management.

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Corresponding author
Ana Mara Munar can be contacted at: amm.int@cbs.dk To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: reprints@emeraldinsight.com Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints

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