IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v12y2020i15p5905-d388147.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

New Frontiers in Travel Motivation and Social Media: The Case of Longyearbyen, the High Arctic

Author

Listed:
  • Carolina Aldao

    (Faculty of Tourism, University of Girona, 17004 Girona, Spain)

  • Tanja A. Mihalic

    (Faculty of Economics, University of Ljubljana, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia)

Abstract

Tourism explores new frontiers by traveling around unknown geographical and technological territories that bring new tourism opportunities and hazards to satisfy visitors’ needs and sustainability and responsibility in destinations. This study introduces a composite model for measuring travel motivation and the impact of social media on travel behavior and applies it to the town of Longyearbyen in the High Arctic. Both aspects were surveyed through qualitative semi-structured visitor interviews. While the motivation to visit Longyearbyen depended on travelers’ needs, their travel experiences, and push and pull motivational factors, respondents gave examples of how social media positively or negatively affected different elements of their motivation and visitation. The study indicates the opportunities and hazards analyzed from social media as well as future research directions needed in the pursuit of a more responsible tourism approach while exploring new technological and geographical frontiers.

Suggested Citation

  • Carolina Aldao & Tanja A. Mihalic, 2020. "New Frontiers in Travel Motivation and Social Media: The Case of Longyearbyen, the High Arctic," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(15), pages 1-18, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:15:p:5905-:d:388147
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/15/5905/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/15/5905/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kir Kuščer & Tanja Mihalič, 2019. "Residents’ Attitudes towards Overtourism from the Perspective of Tourism Impacts and Cooperation—The Case of Ljubljana," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(6), pages 1-16, March.
    2. Filieri, Raffaele & Alguezaui, Salma & McLeay, Fraser, 2015. "Why do travelers trust TripAdvisor? Antecedents of trust towards consumer-generated media and its influence on recommendation adoption and word of mouth," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 174-185.
    3. Wu, Mao-Ying & Pearce, Philip L., 2014. "Chinese recreational vehicle users in Australia: A netnographic study of tourist motivation," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 22-35.
    4. Yeajin Joo & Hwayoon Seok & Yoonjae Nam, 2020. "The Moderating Effect of Social Media Use on Sustainable Rural Tourism: A Theory of Planned Behavior Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(10), pages 1-14, May.
    5. Dunkley, Ria & Morgan, Nigel & Westwood, Sheena, 2011. "Visiting the trenches: Exploring meanings and motivations in battlefield tourism," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 860-868.
    6. Ko Koens & Albert Postma & Bernadett Papp, 2018. "Is Overtourism Overused? Understanding the Impact of Tourism in a City Context," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-15, November.
    7. Assumpcio Huertas & Estela Marine-Roig, 2016. "User reactions to destination brand contents in social media," Information Technology & Tourism, Springer, vol. 15(4), pages 291-315, January.
    8. Caber, Meltem & Albayrak, Tahir, 2016. "Push or pull? Identifying rock climbing tourists' motivations," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 74-84.
    9. Jarkko Saarinen & Kaarina Tervo, 2006. "Perceptions and adaptation strategies of the tourism industry to climate change: the case of Finnish nature-based tourism entrepreneurs," International Journal of Innovation and Sustainable Development, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 1(3), pages 214-228.
    10. Rodica-Manuela Gogonea & Adrian Aurel Baltălungă & Adrian Nedelcu & Daniela Dumitrescu, 2017. "Tourism Pressure at the Regional Level in the Context of Sustainable Development in Romania," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(5), pages 1-24, April.
    11. Devesa, María & Laguna, Marta & Palacios, Andrés, 2010. "The role of motivation in visitor satisfaction: Empirical evidence in rural tourism," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 547-552.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Karol Król & Dariusz Zdonek, 2021. "Most Often Motivated by Social Media: The Who, the What, and the How Much—Experience from Poland," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(20), pages 1-20, October.
    2. Luciana Chavez & Carla Ruiz & Rafael Curras & Blanca Hernandez, 2020. "The Role of Travel Motivations and Social Media Use in Consumer Interactive Behaviour: A Uses and Gratifications Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(21), pages 1-23, October.
    3. Chris Roberts & Joel Reynolds & Mary Jo Dolasinski, 2022. "Meta-Analysis of Tourism Sustainability Research: 2019–2021," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(6), pages 1-18, March.
    4. Mohsin Javed & Zuzana Tučková & Abdul Bashiru Jibril, 2020. "The Role of Social Media on Tourists’ Behavior: An Empirical Analysis of Millennials from the Czech Republic," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(18), pages 1-19, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Christina Katsikari & Leonidas Hatzithomas & Thomas Fotiadis & Dimitrios Folinas, 2020. "Push and Pull Travel Motivation: Segmentation of the Greek Market for Social Media Marketing in Tourism," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-18, June.
    2. María Redondo-Carretero & Carmen Camarero-Izquierdo & Ana Gutiérrez-Arranz & Javier Rodríguez-Pinto, 2017. "Language tourism destinations: a case study of motivations, perceived value and tourists’ expenditure," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 41(2), pages 155-172, May.
    3. Bauer Alfred & Gardini Marco A. & Skock André, 2020. "Overtourism im Spannungsverhältnis zwischen Akzeptanz und Aversion," Zeitschrift für Tourismuswissenschaft, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 88-114, July.
    4. Hannes Thees & Harald Pechlaner & Natalie Olbrich & Arne Schuhbert, 2020. "The Living Lab as a Tool to Promote Residents’ Participation in Destination Governance," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-27, February.
    5. Miroslav D. Vujičić & James Kennell & Alastair Morrison & Viachaslau Filimonau & Ivana Štajner Papuga & Uglješa Stankov & Djordjije A. Vasiljević, 2020. "Fuzzy Modelling of Tourist Motivation: An Age-Related Model for Sustainable, Multi-Attraction, Urban Destinations," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(20), pages 1-19, October.
    6. Kuo-Yan Wang, 2022. "Sustainable Tourism Development Based upon Visitors’ Brand Trust: A Case of “100 Religious Attractions”," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(4), pages 1-30, February.
    7. Flora Cortese & Ida D’Ambrosio & Miriam Petracca, 2019. "A Possible Synergy between Culture and Religion for the Sustainability of Tourism of Pompeii," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(8), pages 1-16, April.
    8. Adam R. Szromek & Zygmunt Kruczek & Bartłomiej Walas, 2019. "The Attitude of Tourist Destination Residents towards the Effects of Overtourism—Kraków Case Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-17, December.
    9. Zajadacz Alina & Minkwitz Aleksandra, 2020. "Using Social Media Data to Plan for Tourism," Quaestiones Geographicae, Sciendo, vol. 39(3), pages 125-138, September.
    10. Heather Skinner, 2021. "Place Branding—The Challenges of Getting It Right: Coping with Success and Rebuilding from Crises," Tourism and Hospitality, MDPI, vol. 2(1), pages 1-17, March.
    11. Xinxin Guo & Juho Pesonen & Raija Komppula, 2021. "Comparing online travel review platforms as destination image information agents," Information Technology & Tourism, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 159-187, June.
    12. María-del-Mar Alonso-Almeida & Fernando Borrajo-Millán & Liu Yi, 2019. "Are Social Media Data Pushing Overtourism? The Case of Barcelona and Chinese Tourists," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(12), pages 1-17, June.
    13. Piotr Zmyślony & Joanna Kowalczyk-Anioł & Monika Dembińska, 2020. "Deconstructing the Overtourism-Related Social Conflicts," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-26, February.
    14. Papadopoulou, Georgia & Xesfingi, Sofia, 2018. "Understanding cruise passengers’ motivations: The case of Greece," MPRA Paper 89840, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Caber, Meltem & Albayrak, Tahir, 2016. "Push or pull? Identifying rock climbing tourists' motivations," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 74-84.
    16. Eva M. Buitrago & Rocío Yñiguez, 2021. "Measuring Overtourism: A Necessary Tool for Landscape Planning," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-17, August.
    17. Mileti, Florindo Antonio & Miranda, Pasquale & Langella, Giuliano & Pacciarelli, Marco & De Michele, Carlo & Manna, Piero & Bancheri, Marialaura & Terribile, Fabio, 2022. "A geospatial decision support system for ecotourism: a case study in the Campania region of Italy," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).
    18. Bruno S Frey & Andre Briviba, 2021. "Revived Originals – A proposal to deal with cultural overtourism," Tourism Economics, , vol. 27(6), pages 1221-1236, September.
    19. Cecilia Pasquinelli & Mariapina Trunfio & Nicola Bellini & Simona Rossi, 2021. "Sustainability in Overtouristified Cities? A Social Media Insight into Italian Branding Responses to Covid-19 Crisis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-14, February.
    20. Mohammad Tipu Sultan & Farzana Sharmin & Alina Badulescu & Elena Stiubea & Ke Xue, 2020. "Travelers’ Responsible Environmental Behavior towards Sustainable Coastal Tourism: An Empirical Investigation on Social Media User-Generated Content," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-19, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:15:p:5905-:d:388147. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.