gon.marika@spes.uniud.it

tel. +39 0432 24 9583

(Supervisor Francesco Marangon)

An exploratory study on the meaning of localhood in tourism.
The role of social media in shared experiences between tourists and residents.

It is unquestionable that tourism has undergone disruptive changes in the past ten years.
The espression “visiting a destination” has become as vintage as “sending a postcard back home” to family and friends. Travelling has become a complete different experience related to what it was only twenty years ago. It is no longer a philosopical difference between tourists and travellers, and it goes much further backpackers’ times.
Quoting the organization Wonderful Copenhagen in its strategy plan for the period 2017 - 2020:
“It’s the end of tourism as we know it ... The main attraction of our destination is the locals. The human connection to a destination goes through the local people and the experience of being part - even if only temporarily of a shared sense of localhood.” Local is the new buzz word in tourism. Eat local food, drink local beer or wine in pubs and restaurants attendeed by residents, stay with locals, live with residents, share their houses and flats, live the city like a resident and even use local transport means are all new mantras for a large part of tourists. Interpreted at different levels of engagement and willingness to learn directly from the direct contact with local communities, this opportunity to share and temporarirly inhabit the role of local resident is appealing to many from ecotourism in indigenous communities to wester capitals visited in a weekend break.
DMOs and tourism players need to respond focusing on local community involvement and residents engagement in the attempt to provide visitors the required experience of localhood, increase their satisfaction and motivate them to share the positive experiences on SM among peers and spread in travel communities.
Nevertheless, only few academic studies have focused on local communities contribution to online travel communities (e.g., Couchsurfing), in terms of information providers and trustable source of information (Arsal et al., 2008; Arsal et al., 2010; Liu and Norman, 2015). At the present, little is known about residents’ attitude toward tourists’ request of localhood and willingness to share everyday community life, mediated by the role of social media.

Aiming to fill the gap in both academic and practical discussion, the research projet will attempt to answer the following research questions:

1. What is localhood?
2. How does localhood extend the definition of residents? local residents versus temporary residents?
3. What’s the role of social media in shared experiences of localhood between residents and tourists?