Annotated Bibliography

Source 1: The article called “Social Media and Tourism Destinations” is a case study on the website TripAdvisor, which is used in order to rate and review different places, hotels, restaurants etc. throughout the world. This article reviews the growth of consumer generated content online and how it is affecting businesses and tourism worldwide. I chose this article as a source to help answer the question of how collaborative and participatory media have affected the nature of publishing on the web as I believe that TripAdvisor has become one of the largest tools for collaboration and participation on the web especially when it comes to travel. The article also explains the impacts that Web 2.0 and the building of new online communities have impacted the travel industry.

I have deemed this to be a reliable source due to the fact that it was from a well-known academic source and have multiple references linked to it.

You can read more about it here; http://www.iby.it/turismo/papers/baggio-aveiro2.pdf

Source 2: The source called “User generated content; the use of blogs for tourism organisations and tourism consumers” presents very similar arguments that are posed in the first article yetis focused more on the use of personal blogs. This article explains how with the development and popularity of the web we can see the power transferred from the supplier to the consumer. This shift is due to the fact that with the advancements of the web information that is presented can be very widely and very quickly distributed. The article states that surveys found that consumers trusted websites or blogs with reviews over those who are more professional or are from travel agencies, showing just how powerful communication and participation in regards to travel can be.

I chose this particular source as it gave a very interesting insight into the ways in which user generated content can affect tourism and looks at different aspects of the web and how they contribute to this ‘shift’ in power. I also chose this article as I found that the information presented was reliable as it was found through a trustworthy site and included many different references which helped to support their claims.

Read more here; http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11628-008-0054-2#page-1