The Application of Netnography as a Tool for Understanding Visitors’ Resilience: The Case of Villages in Central Java

Dwi Sugiharti (), Taha Chaiechi () and Josephine Pryce ()
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Dwi Sugiharti: James Cook University
Taha Chaiechi: James Cook University
Josephine Pryce: James Cook University

A chapter in Community Empowerment, Sustainable Cities, and Transformative Economies, 2022, pp 291-314 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Since the tourism industry plays a critical role in economic development, tourism resilience from both the supplier and demand sides needs to be considered. The tourism industry’s resilience is partly dependent on the adaptability and absorbability of visitors, without which the perpetuity of the industry would be threatened. This paper examines socio-economic resilience by exploring visitors’ reviews of the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Borobudur Temple in Central Java, Indonesia. The paper adopts a netnography approach to identify factors that could be used to build a visitors’ resilience index. Netnography is a naturalistic and predominantly unobtrusive technique developed for exploring online contributions. Using NVivo 12 Plus software, thematic analysis is conducted on a sample of 255 visitor reviews shared on TripAdvisor.com between March 2018 and March 2020. An interpretive coding approach was conducted by examining the reviews, selecting theoretically significant features from the reviews, coding the selected features systematically across the entire set of 255 reviews, and collating the reviews relevant to each code. The paper concludes that a visitors’ resilience index can be constructed using a range of multidimensional variables, including spiritual and cultural awareness, emotional aspect, educational aspect, care for the natural environment, physical challenges, recreational and tourist aspect, and economic and social aspect. Findings show that visitors’ resilience is reflected in online reviews by conveying their perceptions, experiences, personal feelings, and challenges during the visit. The results are significant as they demonstrate the critical role visitors’ resilience plays in building a resilient tourism industry. This paper complements the existing literature on developing resilience in the tourism industry as it improves our understanding of visitor’s characteristic and adaptive resilience.

Keywords: Netnography; Thematic analysis; Borobudur Temple; Visitors’ resilience; Experience; Perception (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-981-16-5260-8_17

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DOI: 10.1007/978-981-16-5260-8_17

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