Tjaša Alegro, Maja Turnšek, Tomi Špindler and Vita Petek
Amazon Explore is a new online experience product from Amazon, which offers live stream sightseeing of destinations around the world. This paper aims to provide a first insight…
Abstract
Purpose
Amazon Explore is a new online experience product from Amazon, which offers live stream sightseeing of destinations around the world. This paper aims to provide a first insight into how exactly Amazon Explore enters the virtual experience (VE) industry, and discuss the possible implications of its business model for the future of virtual and offline travel experiences.
Design/methodology/approach
Qualitative and quantitative methods of content analysis methods were employed in this study. The sample of this research consisted of 175 Amazon Explore products. Firstly, the authors analysed the content of each product, and then quantitative method were used to present the data. With this analysis, the authors presented how Amazon Explore is testing the foundations for new business models, and discuss the possible implications for the future of tourism. One year later, those same Amazon Explore products were reviewed again to check development progress. The following were the main questions regarding VE: How interactive are Amazon Explore products? How does Amazon Explore aim to ensure the monetisation of these products in an economically sustainable way in order to go beyond the “freemium” business model, often associated with VE as just another destination marketing tool?
Findings
This article presents the discussions of VE and virtual reality (VR). The authors determined the level of interactivity of the diverse VE offered themes with a model of four levels of interactivity. The results show that the analysed products achieve mostly only low levels of interaction. Regarding monetisation, Amazon Explore shows three possible future directions in the development of VE: as a marketing tool, as an extension of the offline experience and as potentially someday replacing real travel as part of the future monetisation scenario.
Originality/value
The article offers the first insights into Amazon's extension into the realm of VE in two time periods in 2020 and 2021, and, based on these preliminary results, discusses four possible scenarios for the future development of VE monetisation.
Details
Keywords
Alfredo David Varea-Calero, Francisco Rejón-Guardia, José M. Ramírez-Hurtado and Juan M. Berbel-Pineda
This study aims to provide a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of sports sponsorship research over the last 3 decades (1993–2024). By mapping the intellectual landscape of this…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to provide a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of sports sponsorship research over the last 3 decades (1993–2024). By mapping the intellectual landscape of this field, the study seeks to identify key trends, prominent themes and the most influential authors and journals. Furthermore, the research addresses the ongoing challenge of evaluating the effectiveness of sponsorship investments, particularly in the digital age. The goal is to highlight emerging research areas.
Design/methodology/approach
This study employs a bibliometric analysis using the SPAR-4-SLR protocol to systematically review the literature on sports sponsorship from 1993 to 2024. Data were sourced from the Web of Science (WoS) database, filtering results for articles written in English and excluding non-academic publications. A combination of bibliometric techniques – co-citation, co-word and co-authorship network analysis – was applied to examine intellectual structures and trends in the field. The Bibliometrix software was used for data analysis, providing a comprehensive evaluation of research productivity, collaboration patterns and emerging themes.
Findings
The bibliometric analysis reveals a significant increase in global sports sponsorship research, with a 12.69% annual growth rate from 1993 to 2024. Key themes such as corporate social responsibility (CSR), consumer behaviour and government regulation emerged as central topics. The study also highlights growing research interest in digital sponsorships, particularly within the eSports industry. Additionally, co-authorship analysis demonstrates increasing international collaboration, with 30.2% of publications involving multiple countries. The findings provide a clearer understanding of the intellectual landscape of sports sponsorship and suggest emerging research opportunities, particularly in digital marketing and advanced data analytics.
Research limitations/implications
The analysis relies solely on the WoS database, which may have excluded relevant publications indexed in other databases such as Scopus or Google Scholar. Although WoS provides high-quality data, future research should integrate multiple databases to achieve a more comprehensive coverage of the field. Additionally, this study focuses primarily on articles published in English, potentially overlooking significant contributions from non-English sources.
Originality/value
This study provides a unique contribution by conducting the first comprehensive bibliometric analysis of sports sponsorship research over a 30-year period (1993–2024). By applying the SPAR-4-SLR protocol, it identifies emerging research areas such as the integration of big data and the role of psychophysiological methods in measuring sponsorship effectiveness. The research also highlights the increasing importance of digital sponsorship in industries like eSports. This work offers new insights into global collaboration patterns and reveals underexplored topics like the balance between global and local sponsorship strategies, thus providing valuable directions for future research and practical applications.