Filipa Perdigão Ribeiro and Kate Torkington
This study aims to explore the ways in which Portuguese online news reports and opinion studies have framed the discussion about overtourism in Lisbon and its impacts on the city…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore the ways in which Portuguese online news reports and opinion studies have framed the discussion about overtourism in Lisbon and its impacts on the city and its inhabitants.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing on critical discourse analysis applied to media texts, this paper discusses the discursive representations of overtourism by focusing on how an emerging new discourse which constructs tourism as problematic began to challenge the established discourse – in which tourism is perceived as beneficial.
Findings
As a consequence, and to maintain the status quo, many media texts deploy strong legitimating strategies focusing on the benefits of tourism growth. These are juxtaposed with de-legitimating strategies which serve to deny problems of overtourism. Findings highlight the role the media play in shaping tourism discursively and uncover the complexities of discourses on the effects of (over)tourism and the ways in which they are constructed, disseminated and discussed.
Social implications
This research is particularly relevant when newspaper opinion articles from 2021 voice the Portuguese Government’s concern in bringing back to Portugal the pre-pandemic tourist numbers as soon as possible.
Originality/value
This study attempts to reveal the conflicting interests and imbalances of power among different tourism stakeholders by taking a qualitative, critical approach to the analysis of media discourse as a social practice within the broader socio-political context. This study argues that from an analytical-methodological perspective, media discourse is an optimum research site to critically explore how conflicting interests are positioned in the mass media and how this shapes public opinion.
Details
Keywords
Joana Afonso Dias, Filipa Perdigão Ribeiro and Antónia Correia
This paper aims to explore the phenomenon of online vacation rentals (OVRs) (a new source of e-business travel growth) and how the concept of sense of place is presented by…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the phenomenon of online vacation rentals (OVRs) (a new source of e-business travel growth) and how the concept of sense of place is presented by tourists' online reviews.
Design/methodology/approach
The initial assumption for this exploratory study is that OVRs bring both material and intangible advantages to the individual consumer and to the community of homeowners. Using a qualitative approach, within the conceptual framework of a sense of place, multidimensional meanings presented by tourists' online reviews of their travel experience and home rentals were explored.
Findings
The findings point to a sense of place constructed through affordances of place, home and a functional sense of place. They seem to indicate that these testimonials come from a close-knit virtual community; although the site is open to all, it is primarily used by British-to-British. The data reveal neither any salient expression of social interaction between these tourists and the local community nor any references to the cultural context, thus pointing to the dimensions of security and familiarity and to the absence of any travelling-to-learn motivation.
Research limitations/implications
It remains unclear whether sense of place, as defined here, is the outcome of the limitations induced by the channel and textual genre. Future research on this virtual community, via interviews and questionnaires, could clarify this question.
Originality/value
The analysis of this new form of tourism and the innovative design of this research, based on textual analysis of free elicited data, are the main contributions of this paper.