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 Datesort
22 Think Tank IX Sustainable Tourism Principles Reflected in Award-Winn... file 4292 Oct 13, 2013

There has been increased attention given to sustainable tourism monitoring and evaluation efforts, including corporate policies, guidelines and codes of conduct as well as certification programs (e.g., Dodds and Joppe 2005; Font and Harris ...

Author: Stuart Levy & Donald Hawkins 

Year: 2009 

21 Think Tank IX The Role of Values in Sustainable Tourism Education file 4135 Oct 13, 2013

This presentation discusses the role of values in the context of sustainable tourism education. However, it does not seek to engage in the debate about the definition of Sustainable Tourism nor the differences between this concept and Sustai...

Author: Christian Schott 

Year: 2009 

20 Think Tank IX Tourism Relationship Model and Intermediary for Sustai... file 5856 Oct 13, 2013

This paper proposes a simple model that depicts the relationship between community and extra-community stakeholders that will enable the effective development of sustainable tourism. “Sustainable tourism” in this paper is defined as tourism ...

Author: Asami Shikida, Mami Yoda, Akiko Kino & Masayuki Morishige 

Year: 2009 

19 Think Tank VIII Emerging Green Tourists: Their Behaviours and Attitudes file 5029 Oct 13, 2013

The concerns are varied and are not necessarily important to all tourists and the influence they have on sustaining the industry is unknown. For years the tourism industry has used a number of mechanisms in an attempt to green operators. The...

Author: Sue Bergin-Seers & Judith Mair 

Year: 2008 

18 Think Tank VIII Resident Support for Sustainable Tourism Policies in T... file 5447 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 

» Think Tank VII The New World of Travel 2.0: Application of Social Sof... file 7749 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 

16 Think Tank VII The Practical Application of Sustainable Tourism Devel... file 6810 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 

15 Think Tank VII Destination and Enterprise Management for a Tourism Fu... file 7743 Oct 13, 2013

A key element of a successful tourism industry is the ability to recognize and deal with change across a wide range of key factors and the way they interact. Key drivers of global change can be classified as Economic, Social, Political, Tec...

Author: Larry Dwyer, Deborah Edwards, Nina Mistilis, & Carolina Roman 

Year: 2007 

14 Think Tank VII Thematic Analysis of Sustainable Tourism and the Tripl... file 3890 Oct 13, 2013

The relationship between the themes in sustainable tourism publications and the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) was explored in this article. A categorised list of 3719 sustainable tourism articles was thematically analysed to determine the conten...

Author: Michael Hughes & Jack Carlsen 

Year: 2007 

13 Think Tank VII Learning as Prerequisite for Innovations in Tourism - ... file 10304 Oct 13, 2013

This article reports on an ongoing project that focuses on learning and innovation as prerequisites for sustainable tourism in a transnational environment defined by the European North Sea Region. According to Buhalis (2000: 113) providing i...

Author: Janne Liburd & Anja Hergesell 

Year: 2007 

12 Think Tank VII Tourism Resource Teams: Innovation with and for touris... file 12110 Oct 13, 2013

Communities have a variety of interest levels in tourism overall, including sustainable tourism (WTO, 2002). While we have witnessed increased awareness and discussions about sustainability and sustainable tourism, there is often a lack of s...

Author: Cynthia Messer, Ingrid Schneider & Okechukwu Ukaga 

Year: 2007 

11 Think Tank VII Getting Fit to Innovate: TUI's InnOlympics file 4622 Oct 13, 2013

Tether (2003) describes innovation within service industries as having a Cinderella status - marginal and neglected. The traditional approach to thinking about innovation has been to concentrate on manufacturing and within that, the role of...

Author: Graham Miller & Caroline Scarles 

Year: 2007 

10 Think Tank VII There's No Such Thing as Sustainable Tourism: Innovati... file 11782 Oct 13, 2013

Innovation can come in many forms but all of these share three common elements - creativity, a problem solving approach and a new way of thinking. This paper proposes that current approaches to tourism and sustainable regional development h...

Author: Gianna Moscardo 

Year: 2007 

9 Think Tank VII Practical Interpretations of a Dynamic Model of Sustai... file 5647 Oct 13, 2013

"Operational definitions of tourism sustainability require details regarding what is to be sustained, for whom it is to be sustained, and the level at which it is to be sustained." This is the introductory sentence to "A Dynamic Model of Sus...

Author: Timothy Tyrrell & Robert Johnston 

Year: 2007 

8 Think Tank VI Stakeholder involvement, culture and accountability in... file 7215 Oct 13, 2013

Following its historical rise and fall, America’s first industrialized polluted landscape garnered federal and local support to remedy its near destruction. Today, the Blackstone Valley is a pragmatic example of translating theory into pract...

Author: Robert Billington, Veronica Cadoppi & Natalie Carter 

Year: 2006 

OPA: 2006 Outstanding Paper Award Winner 

7 OPA award Stakeholder involvement, culture and accountability in... file 7653 Oct 13, 2013

Following its historical rise and fall, America’s first industrialized polluted landscape garnered federal and local support to remedy its near destruction. Today, the Blackstone Valley is a pragmatic example of translating theory into pract...

Author: Robert Billington, Veronica Cadoppi & Natalie Carter 

Year: 2006 

OPA: 2006 Outstanding Paper Award Winner 

6 Think Tank VI Ecotourism and Environmental Education: Opportunities ... file 152157 Oct 13, 2013

Ecotourism, which typically involves nature-based tourism, plays an increasing role in today's environmental management. As environmental conservation has, in many cases, suffered from a limited budget, funding ecotourism is perceived as a w...

Author: Aphirom Promchanya 

Year: 2006 

5 Think Tank V Resident Segments Using SUS-TAS file 5040 Oct 13, 2013

Recognizing that tools developed solely to measure perceptions of positive/negative impacts of tourism within the traditional conceptual works are insufficient, recently Choi and Sirakaya (2005) developed and tested both an innovative framew...

Author: Ercan Sirakayae, Linda J. Ingram & Hwan Suk Chris Choi 

Year: 2005 

4 Think Tank IV Tourism focused NGO's - An Online Content Analysis file 3242 Oct 13, 2013

The number of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) increased from 31,246 to 37,281 (19.3%) between 1990 and 2000, (Human Development Report, 2002). The importance of NGOs is documented in United Nations Local Agenda 21 Chapter 27, 'Strength...

Author: Meng-Mei Chen & James Holleran 

Year: 2004 

3 Think Tank IV Integration of Theory and Practice in Hospitality Sust... file 8594 Oct 13, 2013

This brief paper describes a new educational model developed at Ecole hoteliere de Lausanne (EHL) to link theory and practice, or more specifically, coordinate learning opportunities between the classroom (Sustainable Tourism) and current pr...

Author: James Holleran 

Year: 2004 

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