Tourism, indigenous entrepreneurship and representation

Tourism has often been identified as a powerful force when it comes to creating, shaping and disseminating different images of destinations, both concrete and imagined. Social media platforms and new online marketing tools are important utensils that both destinations and travellers use to convey different images of destinations and of the local people residing in the destination area.

Local stakeholders are also often present on social media platforms. The above-mentioned factors make the problematisation of different images depicting indigenous and other local populations even more relevant in tourism research.

The analysis of said representations should not only concentrate on brochures and guidebooks but also on both user- and marketing-made content, which can now spread faster than ever before, potentially resulting in unwanted consequences and potentially influencing the marketing strategies chosen by destinations and/or local stakeholders.

This session invites papers exploring the implications of different representations of local and indigenous companies, populations and stakeholders in the different interconnected tourism realities.

• How are indigenous and other local populations depicted in promotional material, user-generated content and/or social media?
• What kind of material is produced and spread by local and indigenous stakeholders?
• What is the role of user-generated material in tourism promotion of local and indigenous populations?
• What is the role of new media in tourism marketing involving local and indigenous populations? How does it affect the representations positively or negatively?

These are just a few questions that can help us understand the role of connectedness in relation to the representation of local and indigenous populations.