Marketing Places Through First‐Person Stories—an Analysis of Pennsylvania Roadtripper Blog

Abstract

Narrative as digital word‐of‐mouth has the potential to be an effective way to market tourist destinations. Using narrative structure analysis, this study identifies key marketing elements from tourists' blogs that include characterization, space categorization, and overall product and experience evaluation. The introduction of a blog writer as a personal character allows blog readers to access the picture of lived identities created through actions, attitudes, and values. Space categorization allows blog readers to have a cognitive construction of hypothetical travel scenarios including "rehearsals" of likely future travels. The results of this study demonstrate substantial potential for destination marketing organizations to facilitate and manage the interactive nature of storytelling as part of their marketing efforts.