Means of information have drastically changed during the last decades due to the evolution of technology and the development of social media, which have gained crucial relevance in the tourism industry. As a consequence, efficacy of traditional information sources is being challenged. The aim of this research is to determine, analysing photographs, what destination images of a particular country are projected by both traditional and digital information sources, in order to compare them identifying main similarities and differences in the projected images. For the purpose of this study, the selected destination is Italy and the analysed images will beretrieved from Swedish, Danish and Norwegian tour operators’ tourism catalogues and their respective social media accounts. Therefore, main similarities and differences between the three countries will also be identified and analysed. The images will be analysed using a thematic analysis method, following an inductive approach, meaning that themes and codes will be generated from the data itself. In order to generate conclusions, five Swedish, five Danish and five Norwegian tour operators were selected, and their catalogues and social media accounts were analysed, for a total of 1,306 images illustrating Italy as a destination. Findings suggest how images retrieved from catalogues mainly illustrate Italy by the generated themes of hidden mass tourism, notorious Italy, and culture. On the other hand, images retrieved fromsocial media accounts mainly represent Italy with the generated themes of mass tourism, unfamiliar Italy, and culture. As the names of the themes suggest, the first two themes generated from the two information sources represent opposite ways of illustrating the destination, while the theme of culture represents the main similarity between the traditional and digital information sources. Regarding the three countries, it was noticed that each Scandinavian country focused on specific features of Italy, with Swedish tour operators focusing on the history and culture of the destination, Danish ones focusing on sea, beaches and urban areas, while Norwegian tour operators concentrated on natural landscapes and countryside areas of Italy.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:sh-45758 |
| Date | January 2021 |
| Creators | Pesaresi, Andrea |
| Publisher | Södertörns högskola, Turismvetenskap |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
Page generated in 0.0114 seconds