New frontiers in travel motivation and social media : the case of Longyearbyen, the High Arctic

Aldao, Carolina (author), Mihalič, Tanja (author)

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.

• Language: English
• Keywords: management, tourism, social media, travel motivation, travel behavior, social media, the High Arctic, responsible tourism
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: EF - School of Economics and Business
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2020
• Number of pages: 19 str.
• Numbering: Vol. 12, iss. 15, art. 5905
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-118017
• UDC: 338.48
• ISSN on article: 2071-1050
• DOI: 10.3390/su12155905
• COBISS.SI-ID: 24228355
• Publication date in RUL: 12.08.2020

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Sustainability
• Shortened title: Sustainability
• Publisher: MDPI
• ISSN: 2071-1050
• COBISS.SI-ID: 5324897

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.
• Licensing start date: 12.08.2020

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: management, turizem, družbeni mediji

Projects

• Funder: ARRS - Slovenian Research Agency
• Project number: P5-0117
• Name: Trajnostna konkurenčnost slovenskega gospodarstva v evropskem in globalnem okviru