The hidden risk in user-generated content: An investigation of ski tourers' revealed risk-taking behavior on an online outdoor sports platform
Tourism ManagementPublished 14 March 2016
Andreas Plank
Citations25
SJR quartileQ1
SJR score4.15
SNIP3.74
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TL;DR
Novel insights into risks that come with user-generated content in the adventure tourism and adventure recreation domain are provided and important implications for online platform users, online platform providers, public institutions, and tourism destinations are derived.
Abstract
This paper investigates risk-taking behavior in the context of an online outdoor sports platform. Analyzing a unique behavioral dataset of 6242 ski tours completed over a time period of eight winter seasons, this paper shows that the accuracy of user-generated content on ski tours is limited and that more than one third of ski tours accessible on the respective online platform was relatively dangerous on the particular days according to a common avalanche risk assessment method. The quantitative analysis furthermore reveals that at avalanche danger level "considerable" more than sixty percent of ski tours were relatively dangerous. Overall, this paper provides novel insights into risks that come with user-generated content in the adventure tourism and adventure recreation domain and derives important implications for online platform users, online platform providers, public institutions, and tourism destinations.
Keywords
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