Information and Communication Technologies in

Iis Tussyadiah Alessandro Inversini Editors

Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2015 Proceedings of the International Conference in Lugano, Switzerland, February 3–6, 2015

Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2015

ThiS is a FM Blank Page

Iis Tussyadiah • Alessandro Inversini Editors

Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2015 Proceedings of the International Conference in Lugano, Switzerland, February 3 - 6, 2015

Editors Iis Tussyadiah School of Hospitality Business Management Carson College of Business Washington State University Vancouver, WA USA

Alessandro Inversini Faculty of Management Bournemouth University Poole, Dorset United Kingdom

ISBN 978-3-319-14342-2 ISBN 978-3-319-14343-9 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-14343-9 Library of Congress Control Number: 2015930331 Springer Cham Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. Printed on acid-free paper Springer International Publishing AG Switzerland is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www. springer.com)

Preface

Organized by the International Federation for IT and Travel & Tourism (IFITT), ENTER2015 eTourism Conference is to take place in Lugano, Switzerland, on February 3–6, 2015. The 22nd annual international conference features the latest research and industry case studies on the application of information and communication technologies (ICT) to travel and tourism. The conference theme, “eTourism: Transforming Mobility,” was an invitation to discuss the transformation in travel and tourism due to the latest development in digital technologies. The research track of ENTER2015 received a total of 125 submissions, 107 of which were full research papers covering a diverse variety of fields within the area of ICT and tourism. Each research paper submission went through a rigorous double-blind review process with members of ENTER2015 Scientific Committee assigned as reviewers. Where issues remained, additional reviews were commissioned. As a result, 63 full research papers were accepted for presentation at the conference and are included in these proceedings. While still maintaining a broad topic of ICT applications in travel and tourism, the papers presented in this volume advance the state-of-the-art research on big data and analytics, social media, electronic marketing, mobile computing and recommender systems, mobile sensors and geosocial services, augmented reality, wearable computing, smart tourism, electronic distribution for tourism and hospitality products and services, e-learning, responsive web design and management, and eTourism for development. The papers featured in these proceedings bring new perspectives to the field and give promising evidence that the field of ICT and tourism will continue to contribute to our society. We hope these proceedings will serve as a valuable source of information on the state of the art in ICT and tourism research. We greatly appreciate the considerable time put in by all members of ENTER2015 Scientific Committee who helped us ensure that the content of the research papers was of high quality. We are indebted to the panel of experts who helped us with additional reviews to select candidates for best paper award.

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We are also thankful to ENTER2015 Overall Chair, Aurkene Alzua-Sorzabal, IFITT President, Lorenzo Cantoni, other ENTER2015 organizers, IFITT Board, and all members of IFITT for their support and for accommodating the many inquiries we have made while managing the research track. Importantly, we thank all authors for their willingness to disseminate their latest research at ENTER2015. This conference would not be possible without their efforts. Lastly, we thank all who have expressed interest in the conference and contributed to it. We hope you enjoy Lugano. Iis Tussyadiah Alessandro Inversini

ENTER2015 Scientific Committee

Philip Alford Aurkene Alzua Norman Au Florian Aubke Rodolfo Baggio Srikanth Beldona Pierre Benckendorff Dimitrios Buhalis Lorenzo Cantoni Cynthia Correâ Silvia de Ascaniis Giacomo del Chiappa Astrid Dickinger Leonardo Dioko Roman Egger Daniel Fesenmaier Matthias Fuchs Jon Kepa Gerrikagoitia Robert Goecke Robert Govers Ulrike Gretzel Sunny Ham Wolfram Ho¨pken Alessandro Inversini Timothy Jung Nadzeya Kalbaska

Bournemouth University, UK CICtourGUNE, Spain Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong MODUL University Vienna, Austria Bocconi University, Italy University of Delaware, USA University of Queensland, Australia Bournemouth University, UK Universita` della Svizzera Italiana, Switzerland University of Saõ Paolo, Brazil Universita` della Svizzera Italiana, Switzerland University of Sassari, Italy MODUL University Vienna, Austria Institute for Tourism Studies, Macau, China University of Applied Sciences Salzburg, Austria University of Florida, USA Mid Sweden University, Sweden CICtourGUNE, Spain Munich University of Applied Sciences, Germany University of Leuven, Belgium University of Queensland, Australia Gachon University, Korea University of Applied Sciences Ravensburg-Weingarten, Germany Bournemouth University, UK Manchester Metropolitan University, UK Universita` della Svizzera Italiana, Switzerland vii

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Hidenori Kawamura Jeongmi (Jamie) Kim Stefan Klein Dejan Krizaj Yohei Kurata Carlos Lamsfus Rob Law Andy Lee Miranda Lee Rosanna Leung Maria Lexhagen Gang Li Maria Teresa Linaza Berendien Lubbe Bernd Ludwig Elena Marchiori Anastasia Mariussen Christian Maurer Michael Mcgrath Luisa Mich Valeria Minghetti Oriol Miralbell Nina Mistilis Hilary Catherine Murphy Jamie Murphy Barbara Neuhofer Elena Not Peter O’Connor ¨ nder Irem O Bing Pan Cody Morris Paris Harald Pechlaner Juho Pesonen Gert Van Der Pijl Birgit Proell Sofia Reino Francesco Ricci Miriam Scaglione Roland Schegg Marianna Sigala Brigitte Stangl Jason Stienmetz


Hokkaido University, Japan University of Florida, USA University of Mu¨nster, Germany University of Primorska, Slovenia Tokyo Metropolitan University, Japan CICtourGUNE, Spain Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong University of Queensland, Australia University of New Haven, USA Caritas Institute of Higher Education, Hong Kong Mid-Sweden University, Sweden Deakin University, Australia VICOMTech, Spain University of Pretoria, South Africa Erlangen University, Germany Universita` della Svizzera Italiana, Switzerland Oslo School of Management, Norway University of Applied Sciences Krems, Austria Victoria University, Australia University of Trento, Italy CISET—Ca’ Foscari University, Italy Open University of Catalonia, Spain University of New South Wales, Australia Ecole Hoteliere de Lausanne, Switzerland University of Western Australia, Australia Bournemouth University, UK Fundazione Bruno Kessler, Italy Essec Business School, France MODUL University Vienna, Austria College of Charleston, USA Middlesex University Dubai, UAE Catholic University Eichsta¨tt-Ingolstadt, Germany University of Eastern Finland, Finland Erasmus University, the Netherlands FAW—Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria University of Bedfordshire, UK Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy University of Applied Sciences Western Switzerland, Switzerland University of Applied Sciences Western Switzerland, Switzerland University of the Aeagean, Greece University of Surrey, UK University of Florida, USA


Iis Tussyadiah Serena Volo Dan Wang Hannes Werthner Karl Wo¨ber Zheng Xiang Masahito Yamamoto Kyung-Hyan (Angie) Yoo Florian Zach Markus Zanker Wei Zhu

Washington State University Vancouver, USA Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong Vienna University of Technology, Austria MODUL University Vienna, Austria Virginia Tech, USA Hokkaido University, Japan William Paterson University, USA Washington State University Vancouver, USA Alpen-Adria-Universita¨t Klagenfurt, Austria Beijing Union University, China

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Contents

Part I

Consumer Intelligence and Analytics

A Method for Analysing Large-Scale UGC Data for Tourism: Application to the Case of Catalonia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Estela Marine-Roig and Salvador Anton Clave

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A Visual Analysis of Social Influencers and Influence in the Tourism Domain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chiara Francalanci and Ajaz Hussain

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What Types of Hotels Make Their Guests (Un)Happy? Text Analytics of Customer Experiences in Online Reviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Zheng Xiang, Zvi Schwartz, and Muzaffer Uysal

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Analysing User Reviews in Tourism with Topic Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . Marco Rossetti, Fabio Stella, Longbing Cao, and Markus Zanker

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Listen to Your Customers! How Hotels Manage Online Travel Reviews. The Case of Hotels in Lugano . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Silvia De Ascaniis, Alessia Borre`, Elena Marchiori, and Lorenzo Cantoni

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Information Gathering by Ubiquitous Services for CRM in Tourism Destinations: An Explorative Study from Sweden . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nina Kolas, Wolfram Ho¨pken, Matthias Fuchs, and Maria Lexhagen

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An Analysis of Consumer Search Patterns in the German Airline Market Using Panel Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Christopher P. Holland, Julia A. Jacobs, and Stefan Klein

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Behaviour of Virtual Visitor Based on E-Shop and DMO Websites: A Comparative Study by Means of Data Mining Techniques . . . . . . . . . 101 Fidel Reb on, Gloria Oca´riz, Jon Argandonã, Jon Kepa Gerrikagoitia, and Aurkene Alzua-Sorzabal

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An Auto-Coding Process for Testing the Cognitive-Affective and Conative Model of Destination Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Ainhoa Serna, Elena Marchiori, Jon Kepa Gerrikagoitia, Aurkene Alzua-Sorzabal, and Lorenzo Cantoni OpeNER: Open Tools to Perform Natural Language Processing on Accommodation Reviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 Aitor Garcıá-Pablos, Montse Cuadros, and Maria Teresa Linaza An Application of Apriori Algorithm Association Rules Mining to Profiling the Heritage Visitors of Macau . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 Shanshan Qi and Cora Un In Wong Part II

Data Management

Integration of Data Mining Results into Multi-dimensional Data Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 Volker Meyer, Wolfram Ho¨pken, Matthias Fuchs, and Maria Lexhagen A Practical Approach to Big Data in Tourism: A Low Cost Raspberry Pi Cluster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 Mariano d’Amore, Rodolfo Baggio, and Enrico Valdani Methodology for the Publication of Linked Open Data from Small and Medium Size DMOs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 Ander Garcıá, Maria Teresa Linaza, Javier Franco, and Miriam Juaristi Linked Data for Cross-Domain Decision-Making in Tourism . . . . . . . . 197 ¨ nder Marta Sabou, Adrian M.P. Brașoveanu, and Irem O Part III

Social Media

Travel Social Media Involvement: A Proposed Measure . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 Suzanne Amaro and Paulo Duarte Mediating Roles of Self-image Expression: Sharing Travel Information of SNSs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227 Chulmo Koo, Youhee Joun, Heejeong Han, and Namho Chung Social Media Return on Investment and Performance Evaluation in the Hotel Industry Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241 Dimitrios Buhalis and Emmanouil Mamalakis An Exploratory Study on Social Media in China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255 Li Li, Siming Zheng, and Zihao Wang Social Media on Smartphones for Restaurant Decision-Making Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269 Jooyoung Hwang and Sangwon Park

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The Social Impact of Events in Social Media Conversation . . . . . . . . . . 283 Alessandro Inversini, Rogan Sage, Nigel Williams, and Dimitrios Buhalis Destination Brand Communication Through the Social Media: What Contents Trigger Most Reactions of Users? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295 Assumpcio Huertas and Estela Marine-Roig @Spain Is Different: Co-branding Strategies Between Spanish National and Regional DMOs on Twitter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309 Frederic Guerrero-Sole´ and Jose´ Fernańdez-Cavia “This City Is Absolutely Fun and Trendy” A Destination Brand Personality Analysis in a Web 2.0 Setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321 Astrid Dickinger and Lidija Lalicic Reframing the Image of a Destination: A Pre-Post Study on Social Media Exposure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335 ¨ nder Elena Marchiori and Irem O Studying Online Contents Navigation: A Comparison Between Eye-Tracking Technique and Self-Reported Investigation . . . . . . . . . . . 349 Elena Marchiori and Lorenzo Cantoni Part IV

eTourism and Smart Destinations

Smart Tourism Destinations: An Extended Conception of Smart Cities Focusing on Human Mobility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363 Carlos Lamsfus, David Martıń, Aurkene Alzua-Sorzabal, and Emilio Torres-Manzanera Smart Tourism Destinations Enhancing Tourism Experience Through Personalisation of Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377 Dimitrios Buhalis and Aditya Amaranggana Conceptualising Smart Tourism Destination Dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . . 391 Kim Boes, Dimitrios Buhalis, and Alessandro Inversini Strategic E-Tourism Alternatives for Destinations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405 Marıá del Carmen Calatrava Moreno, Gernot Ho¨rhager, Rainer Schuster, and Hannes Werthner The Rise of eTourism for Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419 Alessandro Inversini, Isabella Rega, Isabella Nunes Pereira, and Roberto Bartholo Part V

Intelligence Systems: Mobile, Wearable, and Sensor

The Acceptance of NFC Smart Posters in Tourism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435 Kim Boes, Larissa Borde, and Roman Egger

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Exhibition Attendees’ Smart Technology Actual Usage: A Case of Near Field Communications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449 Heejeong Han, Namho Chung, Chulmo Koo, and Kyoung Jun Lee Google Glass Augmented Reality: Generic Learning Outcomes for Art Galleries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463 M. Claudia Leue, Timothy Jung, and Dario tom Dieck Examining the Cultural Differences in Acceptance of Mobile Augmented Reality: Comparison of South Korea and Ireland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 477 Hyunae Lee, Namho Chung, and Timothy Jung Investigating User’s Information Needs and Attitudes Towards Proactivity in Mobile Tourist Guides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 493 Adem Sabic and Markus Zanker Mobile Technologies Effects on Travel Behaviours and Experiences: A Preliminary Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 507 Roberta Minazzi and Aurelio G. Mauri Transportation Mode Annotation of Tourist GPS Trajectories Under Environmental Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 523 Hidekazu Kasahara, Mikihiko Mori, Masayuki Mukunoki, and Michihiko Minoh User Personality and the New User Problem in a Context-Aware Point of Interest Recommender System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 537 Matthias Braunhofer, Mehdi Elahi, and Francesco Ricci Spatiotemporal Analysis of Rambling Activities: Approach to Inferring Visitor Satisfaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 551 Masakatsu Ohta, Yuta Watanabe, and Toshiaki Miyazaki Tourists and Municipal Wi-Fi Networks (MWN): The Case of Lugano (Switzerland) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 565 Anna Picco-Schwendener and Lorenzo Cantoni Part VI

Tourism Website Analytics

Drivers of Responsive Website Design Innovation by Destination Marketing Organizations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 581 Chris Gibbs and Ulrike Gretzel Perceived Usability, Attractiveness and Intuitiveness of Responsive Mobile Tourism Websites: A User Experience Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 593 Aleksander Groth and Daniel Haslwanter Visual Appeal of Hotel Websites: An Exploratory Eye Tracking Study on Chinese Generation Y . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 607 Jin-Xing Hao, Rui Tang, Yan Yu, Nao Li, and Rob Law

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Hotel Attributes and Visual Image: A Comparison Between Website and User-Generated Photos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 621 Francesca Negri and Vania Vigolo Corporate Identity Communication on Corporate Websites: Evidence from the Hong Kong Hotel Industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 635 Ibrahim Mohammed, Basak Denizci Guillet, and Rob Law How Effective Are Asian Hotels in Communicating CSR Efforts Through the Property Websites? The Case of Hong Kong . . . . . . . . . . . 651 Elise Wong, Rosanna Leung, and Rob Law Part VII

Distribution Systems

Distribution Channels for Travel and Tourism: The Case of Crete . . . . 667 Paraskevi Fountoulaki, M. Claudia Leue, and Timothy Jung The Impact of Attribute Preferences on Adoption Timing of Hotel Distribution Channels: Are OTAs Winning the Customer Race? . . . . . . 681 Miriam Scaglione and Roland Schegg Travellers’ Intended Future Trip Arrangement Strategies for Things to Do During a Trip: Implications for Travel Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . 695 Niklas Eriksson Offline Versus Online Intermediation: A Study of Booking Behaviour of Tourists Travelling to Sardinia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 709 Giacomo Del Chiappa and Andrea Zara An Investigation of Hotel Room Reservation: What Are the Diverse Pricing Strategies Among Competing Hotels? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 723 Sunny Sun, Rob Law, Markus Schuckert, and Lawrence Hoc Nang Fong Dynamic Pricing Patterns on an Internet Distribution Channel: The Case Study of Bilbao’s Hotels in 2013 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 735 Noelia Oses Fernandez, Jon Kepa Gerrikagoitia, and Aurkene Alzua-Sorzabal Using Technology to Align the Needs of Corporate Travel Managers with the Functions of Travel Management Companies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 749 Anneli Douglas, Berendien Lubbe, and Jarmo Ritalahti An Examination of the E-Bookers and E-Browsers in Emerging Markets: Online Browsing Behaviour in Independent Hotels in Hoi An . . . . . . . . 763 Hilary Catherine Murphy, Yung Dang, and Meng-Mei Chen Part VIII

ICT and Tourism Experiences

Changing Practices/New Technologies: Photos and Videos on Vacation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 777 Anja Dinhopl and Ulrike Gretzel

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Technology as a Catalyst of Change: Enablers and Barriers of the Tourist Experience and Their Consequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 789 Barbara Neuhofer, Dimitrios Buhalis, and Adele Ladkin Disconnected and Unplugged: Experiences of Technology Induced Anxieties and Tensions While Traveling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 803 Cody Morris Paris, Edward Alexander Berger, Simon Rubin, and Mallory Casson An Exploratory Study on Drivers and Deterrents of Collaborative Consumption in Travel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 817 Iis P. Tussyadiah Senior Travellers as Users of Online Travel Services: A Qualitative Enquiry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 831 Juho Pesonen, Raija Komppula, and Annina Riihinen Part IX

e-Learning

Online Learning and MOOCs: A Framework Proposal . . . . . . . . . . . . . 847 Jamie Murphy, Nadzeya Kalbaska, Laurel Horton-Tognazzini, and Lorenzo Cantoni The Evolution of eTourism Research: A Case of ENTER Conference . . . 859 Shahab Pourfakhimi and Tianyu Ying Investigating E-learning Effects on Continuance Intentions of Hospitality Management Students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 873 Tsong-Zen Liu, Tai-Yi Huang, and Chia-Shiang Hsu

Part III

Social Media

Destination Brand Communication Through the Social Media: What Contents Trigger Most Reactions of Users? Assumpcio Huertas and Estela Marine-Roig

Abstract The social media have become important tools for the communication of destinations and their brands. Multiple studies have demonstrated that the interactivity generated in this communication leads to greater engagement and better brand image among users [Munar and Jacobsen (Tourism Manag 43:46–54, 2014)], but the aim of this study is to unveil what contents generate the most reactions among users and if the communication of brands and their emotional values also generate reactions. The results show that the most destination-specific and identifying themes/attributes and values are the ones generating most reactions and interactivity, although very often destinations communicate generic values with which all destinations identify. Moreover, it is shown that the communication of emotional values and brands also generates reactions and interactivity. Keywords Communication • Social media • Facebook • Interactivity • Reactions • Destination brands • Content analysis

1 Introduction The social media have revolutionised communication in all domains (Agarwal et al. 2011), but especially for tourism and destinations (Xiang and Gretzel 2010) becoming key tools for their communication. Given that in general the places for visiting are not previously known, the opinions and appreciations of other users, who have no economic or other interests in the territory, become highly credible (Litvin et al. 2008), can be perceived as more trustworthy than the information from sources such as official destination websites (Leung et al. 2013), and influence A. Huertas (*) Communication Research Group (ASTERISC), Rovira i Virgili University, Catalonia, Spain e-mail: [email protected] E. Marine-Roig Department of Business Administration and Economic Management of Natural Resources (AEGERN), University of Lleida, Catalonia, Spain e-mail: [email protected] © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015 I. Tussyadiah, A. Inversini (eds.), Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2015, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-14343-9_22

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tourists’ decision-making (Schmallegger and Carson 2010; Yoo and Gretzel 2011). However, some authors (Jacobsen and Munar 2012) ascertain that the social media are complementary information sources for tourists, who continue to use traditional sources for information purposes. Within the social media, Facebook is the most used social network both by users worldwide, according to Alexa.com, and Spanish tourist destinations (Huertas and Marine-Roig 2014). Given the importance of the social media as communication tools for Destination Management Organisations (DMOs) and National Tourism Organisations (NTOs) (Leung et al. 2013; Hays et al. 2013), most of them have started to use them (mainly Facebook) in their communications; however, many do not know very well how to manage them in order to reach their target publics, what communications strategies to follow or what information to transmit (Huertas and Marine-Roig 2014). In fact, social media usage among top DMOs is still largely experimental and strategies vary significantly (Hays et al. 2013). Because of this, destinations need to assess the results of their social media communications (Hays et al. 2013; Huertas and Marine-Roig 2014) and with that purpose, an increase has been seen in the creation of professional tools for data collection, classification and analysis (Marchiori and Cantoni 2012). These tools are especially useful to analyse social media data which is often too voluminous, changing and diverse. It has been observed that some aspects of interactivity, especially user reactions (e.g. likes, comments or shares), is the main item measured by these online tools, but that conversely, they have great limitations in the content analysis of posts (Huertas and Marine-Roig 2014). They basically measure the most frequent words or keywords, but they still have a long way to go in a more qualitative analysis of the content of posts (Mandelli and Cantoni 2010) or of the communication of brand values. Therefore, the contribution of this study is to conduct a content analysis of Facebook posts with the aim of seeing what contents generate comparatively more reactions and, consequently, more interactivity between destinations and users, and to test if the communication of emotional values of destination brands also generates more user reactions. All of this taking into account different types of destination and with the purpose that it might prove useful for them. This methodology will be applied to the official Facebook fanpages of a selection of Spanish destinations.

2 Background 2.1

Reactions and Interactivity

The social media, and among them Facebook, are characterised by their inherent interactivity (Lovejoy and Saxton 2012), as they enable the reactions of users and the establishment of dialogue with them (Saffer et al. 2013). Interactivity indicates the extent to which the user is actively engaged with the content or promotion of the site (Jung and Butler 2000). Therefore, users’ reactions to contents are fundamental items to measure interactivity in the social media. These reactions are measured in likes, comments and shares in Facebook.