Social Media and Tourism: An Integrated Perspective - Tzung-Cheng (TC) Huan

This book explores how digital platforms are transforming the tourism landscape, influencing how destinations are perceived, experienced, promoted, and discussed. The chapters examine the powerful role of social media—from Instagram images and user-generated content to hashtags, online advocacy campaigns, and AI-driven image analysis—in shaping contemporary travel behaviour and destination management.

Part I, Social Media Content, Perception, and Branding, examines how online content influences destination image, tourist perceptions, visitor behaviour, and branding strategies across cultural, natural, and culinary tourism contexts. Part II, Social Media Activism and Advocacy, investigates the growing role of digital platforms in encouraging ethical consumption, tourism boycotts, disaster communication, event advocacy, and social engagement, demonstrating how online communities can transform values into collective action. Part III, Social Media Influence on Tourist Behaviour and Destination Choice, explores how social media communications, online networks, personality traits, and emerging technologies shape destination choice, brand switching, travel intentions, and content-sharing behaviours.

Bringing together cutting-edge research from diverse tourism settings around the world, this volume offers an integrated and accessible overview of the dynamic relationship between social media and tourism. It provides valuable insights for students, researchers, policymakers, and industry practitioners seeking to understand how digital technologies continue to redefine tourism experiences, destination competitiveness, and traveler decision-making in the twenty-first century.

The chapters in this book were originally published in Tourism Recreation Research.