Redesigning Tourist-Destination Interactions: the Role of Emerging Technologies, Social Media Communication and Virtual Reality

In an increasingly globalised and competitive tourism market, destinations are required to rethink their marketing and branding strategies to sustain long-term sustainability. In this context, Destination Management Organisations (DMOs) play a pivotal role in coordinating fragmented local stakeholders and in enhancing tangible and intangible resources, particularly through the strategic adoption of information and communication technologies. Technological developments have profoundly transformed both destination management and marketing practices and tourists’ decision-making processes and journeys. The aim of this dissertation is to investigate the role of frontier and established technologies in the competitiveness of tourism destinations, adopting an integrated perspective that considers both the supply side, focusing on DMOs’ marketing and branding, and the demand side, by examining tourists’ experiences and behavioural responses. The dissertation is organised in three main chapters, each of which presenting a paper tackling different aspects of the theme in question. The first study provides a bibliometric review of the literature on new technologies in the destination management field, highlighting thematic evolution, key research streams and future research directions. The second study examines the impact of tone of voice in tourism destination brands’ social media communication on consumers’ perceived hedonic value and sharing behaviour, also analysing the moderating role of different cultural heritage dimensions. The third study explores the potential of interactive non-immersive virtual reality in shaping tourists’ satisfaction and behavioural intentions, while also taking into account the impact of destination familiarity. Overall, this dissertation contributes to tourism destination literature by offering an integrated understanding of how technological innovations can enhance destination competitiveness, while providing actionable managerial implications for DMOs seeking to design more effective, engaging and technology-enabled marketing strategies.