User-Generated Social Media Events in Tourism

Estela Marine-Roig, Eva Martin-Fuentes and Natalia Daries-Ramon
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Estela Marine-Roig: Faculty of Law, Economics and Tourism, University of Lleida (Catalonia), 25001 Lleida, Spain
Eva Martin-Fuentes: Faculty of Law, Economics and Tourism, University of Lleida (Catalonia), 25001 Lleida, Spain
Natalia Daries-Ramon: Faculty of Law, Economics and Tourism, University of Lleida (Catalonia), 25001 Lleida, Spain

Sustainability, 2017, vol. 9, issue 12, 1-23

Abstract: Social media and mobile technologies have revolutionised communication and particular attention has been given to user-generated content (UGC) and the formation of online communities; however, little attention has been given to tourist events entirely generated by users through social media. This paper aims to define and characterise the phenomenon of tourism user-generated events (UGEs) through social media around the user’s new empowered role and to assess user-generated social media events’ online socialness. It is also our aim to provide a useful mixed-methodology analysis framework for UGEs in relation to social media and to highlight their interest for organisations. The methodological approach includes a quantitative model to store, analyse and compare events’ online socialness, which is combined with qualitative, participant observation at the events. This approach is applied to the analysis of three Instagram meetups organised by a specific online community at Catalan ski resorts. The paper’s results show the differential characteristic of tourism UGEs: user initiative and empowerment, full organisation and structure, great social media use and UGC production, brand dissemination, attraction capacity, strong online community bond and faithfulness. With UGEs, an event management paradigm shift occurs as organisations are no longer the main initiators and controllers of the event.

Keywords: user-generated event; social media; online community; mobile media; user empowerment; convocation; engagement; promotion; Instagram; Catalonia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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