Resources

RESOURCES


RESOURCES: PAPERS & PRESENTATIONS

Author : Alan A. Lew
School/Work Place : Northern Arizona University, USA
Contact : alan.lew@nau.edu
Year : 2007

"Web 2.0" is a term used to refer to the emerging new wave of innovation on the Internet. Some see it as a second high-tech wave, marking the recovery from the technology and Internet "bust" at the end of the 1990s (O'Reilly 2005). Characteristics of Web 2.0 are:

  1. data, information and technology are open source, rather than hidden under proprietary ownership;
  2. new applications and web sites are making the global marketplace of ideas and products open to everyone, which is allowing new businesses can be established without the huge start up funds from venture capitalists that were common in the 1990s; and
  3. these new applications and web sites are democratizing the tools of production, enabling greater diversity, allowing more customized streams of information and sales, and fostering the emergence of “a billion niche markets.”

These concepts resonate in trends that have taken place in travel and tourism, and the related term “Travel 2.0” is coming into increasing use.

Social software (sometime referred to as Social Media and New Media) are computer mediated forms of communication that can provide opportunities for collaboration, social networking, social learning, and community building. There are many different types of social software, and more are emerging all the time. Some social software is closely integrated with face-to-face socializing and professional networking, such as in a social club. The following are examples of the major types of social software currently in use:

  • Blogs and Podcasts
  • Collaborative software - Cooperative work environments / systems
  • Instant Messaging
  • Internet Relay Chat (chat rooms)
  • Internet forums (bulletin boards)
  • Folskonomy / Tagging
  • Social network services (centralized)
  • Social network search engines (decentralized)
  • Social guides (recommend real world places/services)
  • Social bookmarking (posting lists of favorites for others to see – furl, del.icio.us)
  • Social Citations (sharing article references - for academics)
  • Peer-to-peer social networks (file sharing – photos, blogs, instant messages,)
  • Virtual presence (meeting in virtual/online worlds)
  • Virtual worlds and Massively-Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs)
  • Wikis / Collaborative real-time editing

It is unclear as yet what the best business models may be for using the new open source Web 2.0 technology. However, from the many examples cited above, that is not stopping people from trying. Some areas in which social software may be used to leverage long tail markets for business purposes include:

  • Listening to markets and consumers. By providing a public sounding board or forum for consumers of a company's products, a company can demonstrate its transparency and trustworthiness. Businesses need to be open to being trashed by consumers, in order to both learn from them and to build their trust.
  • Creating user communities. Social networks can be created through open source Web sites. Such a Web site would include reasons for people to feel a part of the community of other users. Users would need to feel that they are benefiting from belonging to the website.
  • Creating business alliances. This is similar to creating a user community, but involves a community of businesses who are working together either formally or informally. This approach is also known as the “distributed business model.” Most social software is not only conducive to internet-base marketing, but can also be readilyapplied to teaching tourism concepts. Social software continuously evolving in exciting ways thatoffer considerable opportunity to enhance online and hybrid classes.

The first part of this presentation will review how social software are being used in higher education teaching today. The second part of the presentation will describe my experience in using social software tools (with some focus on blogs, podcasts and wikis) for the last three semesters, culminating in a Spring 2007 course on “Sustainable Tourism Planning.” That course immersed the students in social media and sustainable tourism in a fully online class environment. Student challenges, successes and overall opinions of this experience will be discussed.


List of Articles
No. Subject Views Date
94 Think Tank VIII Shared Playgrounds: Contrasting Visitor Perspectives o... file 7186 Oct 13, 2013

Tourism is forming an increasingly significant component of the social and economic fabric of many major cities around the world. The quality of life for the residents of a city can be both degraded and enhanced by tourism and its associated...

Author: Tony Griffin, Deborah Edwards, Katie Schlenker & Bruce Hayllar 

Year: 2008 

93 Think Tank VIII A Tool for Improving the Sustainability of Tourism Ind... file 3084 Oct 13, 2013

The tourism industry’s interest in sustainable management has increased in exponential proportions over the past year. Substantial amounts of space in industry journals are devoted to issues such as sustainability, energy management, green b...

Author: Claudia Jurowski 

Year: 2008 

92 Think Tank VIII Enhancing the Quality of Life through Cultural Events:... file 104344 Oct 13, 2013

The Wadden Sea Festival in Denmark is based on the idea of integrating the coastal environment in the presentation of contemporary art. Specifically, unique tidal differences are utilized to stage a range of performances. The Wadden Sea Fest...

Author: Janne J. Liburd & Anja Hergesell 

Year: 2008 

91 Think Tank VIII Tourism Acting as a Factor of Integration: The Case of... file 2333 Oct 13, 2013

Over the past years, reports over brutal, racist attacks in the former eastern states of Germany have filled the headlines of German and international media again and again. Tourism authorities in these states have complained that these att...

Author: Dagmar Lund-Durlacher 

Year: 2008 

90 Think Tank VIII Tourism Professionals’ Attitudes towards Climate Chang... file 3604 Oct 13, 2013

This paper discusses three aspects of the interrelationship between tourism and climate change: the perception of the problems related to global warming by tourism professionals, their suggestions concerning possible actions that can be tak...

Author: Xavier Matteucci & Dagmar Lund-Durlacher 

Year: 2008 

89 Think Tank VIII Assessing Whose Quality of Life: A Critical Examinatio... file 3424 Oct 13, 2013

Almost all the academic literature on tourism impacts has focussed on the consequences of tourism for the destination and its residents. Very little attention has been paid to the impacts of tourism on tourists. Virtually all cost-benefit an...

Author: Gianna Moscardo 

Year: 2008 

88 Think Tank VIII Managing Work/Life Balance Issues: An Examination of H... file 3142 Oct 13, 2013

The purpose of this study was to identify international human resource management best practice with regard to work/life balance policies and practices within an international hotel in Auckland, New Zealand. The methodology included an anal...

Author: Elizabeth Roberts, David Williamson & Carmen Cox 

Year: 2008 

87 Think Tank VIII A Conceptual Ex Ante Framework for the Strategic Study... file 10257 Oct 13, 2013

The area of sport event tourism has been growing over the last years, which led to an increasing amount of research that has analysed both the economic and social impacts of sport events. Whereas a substantial amount of ex post assessment fr...

Author: Nico Schulenkorf 

Year: 2008 

OPA: 2008 Runner Up 

86 Think Tank VIII Resident Support for Sustainable Tourism Policies in T... file 5754 Oct 13, 2013

During the last two decades, there has been increased focus on topics related to various aspects of sustainable tourism. Believing that sustainable tourism can be a serious alternative that can remedy some of the negative impacts associated ...

Author: Ercan Sirakaya-Turk, Muzzo S. Uysal & Turgut Var 

Year: 2008 

85 Think Tank VIII Integrating Sustainability into Tourism Education and ... file 5053 Oct 13, 2013

The focus of this paper is to provide an overview of the current sustainability content in Irish tourism programmes and the identification of key trends in this regard. It is based on extensive research of secondary and tertiary education s...

Author: Jane Stacey, Sheila Flanagan, Kevin Griffin & Anna Tottle 

Year: 2008 

84 Think Tank VIII Tourism for Marginal Groups: Tourism as a Livelihood S... file 2386 Oct 13, 2013

Since the report of the Brundtland Commission was published 1987 (WCED 1987), sustainable development has been incorporated into the policies of many international organizations and the legislation of jurisdictions throughout the world. Nev...

Author: Teresa C.H. Tao & Geoffrey Wall 

Year: 2008 

83 Think Tank VIII Will the Advent of a More Responsible Type of Tourism ... file 3111 Oct 13, 2013

‘Responsible’ tourism is all the rage nowadays. Parallel to the offer commercialized by specialized tour operators on the sustainable niche, traditional tour-operators have also begun to claim the sustainability of their offer. One can henc...

Author: Maud Tixier 

Year: 2008 

82 Think Tank VIII An Assessment of Efforts to Enhance the Quality of Lif... file 4018 Oct 13, 2013

Quality of life studies are usually either objective or subjective in nature. Objective quality of life studies concentrate on social indicators whereas subjective quality of life studies attempt to assess the perceived satisfaction that in...

Author: Turgut Var, Erhan Ada, Gökce Ozdemir & Deniz Hasirci 

Year: 2008 

81 Think Tank VII Web 2.0, Tourist Activated Networks and Sustainability... file 5225 Oct 13, 2013

With the emergence of Web 2.0, the Internet has begun to realize its potential in supporting the tourism experience. This presentation will first identify a number of applications within Web 2.0 that are visitor oriented - from Expedia and T...

Author: Daniel Fesenmaier 

Year: 2007 

» Think Tank VII The New World of Travel 2.0: Application of Social Sof... file 8633 Oct 13, 2013

"Web 2.0" is a term used to refer to the emerging new wave of innovation on the Internet. Some see it as a second high-tech wave, marking the recovery from the technology and Internet "bust" at the end of the 1990s (O'Reilly 2005). Character...

Author: Alan A. Lew 

Year: 2007 

79 Think Tank VII Innovative Technologies in Travel and Tourism - Toward... file 3350 Oct 13, 2013

While it seems to be gradually dawning on humankind that the quality of our lives and (in extremis)survival of our and subsequent generations will depend to a significant extent on our ability and willingness to make urgent and significant ...

Author: Ivo Martinac 

Year: 2007 

78 Think Tank VII Tourist Perceptions of Environmentally Friendly Innova... file 24932 Oct 13, 2013

As the environmental movement got underway and environmental awareness came into focus in the late 20th century, the tourism industry began incorporating 'environmentally friendly' efforts into their business practices. Requests for towel r...

Author: Kathleen L. Andereck 

Year: 2007 

77 Think Tank VII Environmentally Sustainable Practices of Victorian Tou... file 8390 Oct 13, 2013

Environmental sustainability has been a growing concern in our society for the past twenty years, and is a primary issue of many leaders of the tourism industry. In spite of the many efforts to encourage and/or enforce environmentally sound ...

Author: Sue Beeton, Sue Bergin-Seers & Christine Lee 

Year: 2007 

76 OPA award Envisioning Sustainable Tourism Futures: An Evaluation... file 41494 Oct 13, 2013

Methods for researching the future have grown both in variety and rigour, offering new opportunities for understanding sustainable tourism. This paper discusses the value of futures research as a tool for envisioning and planning sustainable...

Author: Pierre Benckendorff 

Year: 2007 

OPA: 2007 Outstanding Paper Award Winner 

75 Think Tank VII The Practical Application of Sustainable Tourism Devel... file 7259 Oct 13, 2013

The internationally acclaimed Blackstone Valley Tourism Council continues to create a sustainable visitor destination using whole place-making techniques. Under its auspices, the Sustainable Tourism Planning and Development Laboratory share...

Author: Robert Billington, Natalie Carter & Lilly Kayamba 

Year: 2007 

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