Social representations of the European capitals and destination e-branding via multi-channel web communication

Abstract

This article focuses on destination branding using social representations as the main theoretical framework, with a specific focus on ICT-mediated social representations. It tackles the questions related to destination e-branding expressed through web marketing of city brand identity and city brand image of ten European capitals (Rome, Paris, Berlin, Brussels, Helsinki, Lisbon, London, Madrid, Warsaw, and Vienna). The data derives from asynchronous and interactive e-tourism communication channels. City brand identity is created by the marketers through institutional tourist websites as official visiting cards presented to tourists. This exploratory study examines their usability, interactivity, contents, and references to the social networks. City brand image is operationalized through data retrieved from forum discussions on the TripAdvisor portal, identifying the main places of the European capitals targeted by social representations charged with symbolic values and emotional attributions, and examining evaluations of these capitals expressed and negotiated by the members of the web communities during spontaneous conversations and free exchanges of their experiences. The main results include detecting a higher communicative capacity of the institutional tourist websites of the northern European capitals than the southern ones, verified for the majority of the cities considered. In particular, Berlin stands out as the capital city with the highest communicative capacity and convergence of city brand identity and city brand image, in relation to the tangible aspects of the city.