A critical discussion on applying user-generated content to interdisciplinary research in tourism and health science

Jun Wen, Fangli Hu, Shaohua Yang and Haifeng Hou

Current Issues in Tourism, 2025, vol. 28, issue 20, 3237-3245

Abstract: The increasing popularity of user-generated content (UGC) as a type of secondary data is evident in many social science disciplines, including tourism. Although tourism research can enjoy numerous advantages from adopting UGC as a data source, relevant limitations must be acknowledged – especially for interdisciplinary studies combining tourism with other domains such as medical science. For example, some methodological caveats should be kept in mind when seeking to understand specific populations’ behaviours, experiences, and the therapeutic efficacy of tourism engagement (e.g. for vulnerable populations with health conditions). UGC data have been critiqued in the hard sciences for not adhering to the fundamental principles of reproducibility, reliability, and relevance; these data are thus typically seen as supplementary rather than a principal knowledge source. This article is meant to open a constructive academic debate on the use of UGC in interdisciplinary research between tourism and health science to ensure study rigour via suitable sampling strategies and data. A framework is also proposed to guide UGC adoption in studies between these disciplines. Research involving tourists with intellectual disabilities is described to illustrate the importance of leveraging UGC effectively.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13683500.2024.2404999 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:rcitxx:v:28:y:2025:i:20:p:3237-3245

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/rcit20

DOI: 10.1080/13683500.2024.2404999

Access Statistics for this article

Current Issues in Tourism is currently edited by Jennifer Tunstall

More articles in Current Issues in Tourism from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().