Social representations of the European capitals and destination e-branding via multi-channel web communication

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Research Paper

Social representations of the European capitals and destination e-branding via multi-channel web communication Annamaria Silvana de Rosa

⁎,1

, Elena Bocci2, Laura Dryjanska3

Sapienza University of Rome, Italy

A R T I C L E I N F O

A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Destination branding City brand identity City brand image Social representations Communication ICTs

This article focuses on destination branding using social representations as the main theoretical framework, with a specific focus on ICT-mediated social representations. It tackles the questions related to destination e-branding expressed through web marketing of city brand identity and city brand image of ten European capitals (Rome, Paris, Berlin, Brussels, Helsinki, Lisbon, London, Madrid, Warsaw, and Vienna). The data derives from asynchronous and interactive e-tourism communication channels. City brand identity is created by the marketers through institutional tourist websites as official visiting cards presented to tourists. This exploratory study examines their usability, interactivity, contents, and references to the social networks. City brand image is operationalized through data retrieved from forum discussions on the TripAdvisor portal, identifying the main places of the European capitals targeted by social representations charged with symbolic values and emotional attributions, and examining evaluations of these capitals expressed and negotiated by the members of the web communities during spontaneous conversations and free exchanges of their experiences. The main results include detecting a higher communicative capacity of the institutional tourist websites of the northern European capitals than the southern ones, verified for the majority of the cities considered. In particular, Berlin stands out as the capital city with the highest communicative capacity and convergence of city brand identity and city brand image, in relation to the tangible aspects of the city.

Destination websites’ contents constitute different tools of identity communication that place marketers can use (Klage, 1991). Their characteristics include: 1. Introduction Starting from Anderson's Theory (Anderson, 1983) and continuing with the definitions and key concepts of brand identity (Aaker, 1996) and brand image (Cai, 2002; Keller, 1998), this paper proposes a reinterpretation of destination branding (Morrison & Anderson, 2002) in terms of destination e-branding by considering the city destination through Internet not only as an object of perception but also, more comprehensively, as an object of representation (Vanolo, 2010), in light of the social representations theory.

Social representations (de Rosa, 2013a; Jodelet, 1989a, 1989b, 2008; Kalampalikis & Haas, 2008; Moscovici, 1961, 1976, 2000, among others) are a set of interrelated symbols, thoughts, beliefs, opinions, attitudes, images, ideas, collective memories, practices, etc. They play a significant role in relation to communication open to the new media scenario (de Rosa, 2011) and in intersection with the concept of place identity (Proshansky, 1978). The operationalization of destination e-branding is presented through empirical results selected from one of the research lines pursued by a wider investigation including field and media studies. This study, in fact, is a development of a broad research programme on Place-identity and Social Representations of European Capitals, begun by de Rosa in the 1990s, on first-time visitors to Rome with six different nationalities. The programme was later extended to ten capital cities

⁎ Correspondence to: European/International Joint PhD on Social Representations and Communication Research Centre and Multimedia Lab at Sapienza University of Rome, Piazza Cavalieri di Malta 2, 00153, Rome, RM Italy. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (A.S. de Rosa), [email protected] (E. Bocci), [email protected] (L. Dryjanska). 1 Annamaria Silvana de Rosa is Full Professor of Social Representations and Communication with a laboratory on New Media and Web-Marketing at the Faculty of Medicine and Psychology - Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. She is the creator and Director of the EU-approved European/International Joint PhD in Social Representations and Communication (http:// www.europhd.eu) and of the So.Re.Com. THEmatic Network (http://www.europhd.eu/SoReComTHEmaticNETwork). 2 Elena Bocci is Full Researcher in the Department of Social and Developmental Psychology–Faculty of Medicine and Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. She is a team member of the European/International Joint PhD in Social Representations and Communication Research Centre and Multimedia Lab. 3 Laura Dryjanska is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the European/International Joint PhD in Social Representations and Communication Research Centre and Multimedia Lab - Sapienza University of Rome, Italy.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jdmm.2017.05.004 Received 23 December 2016; Received in revised form 23 May 2017; Accepted 25 May 2017 2212-571X/ © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article as: de Rosa, A.S., Journal of Destination Marketing & Management (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jdmm.2017.05.004

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successful branding from two different perspectives:

(Berlin, Brussels, Helsinki, Lisbon, London, Madrid, Paris, Rome, Vienna, and Warsaw), by developing new research directions which – in addition to the field study – have investigated social representations also through multi-channel web communication (see Bocci, de Rosa, & Dryjanska, 2015; de Rosa, 1995, 1997, 2010, 2013b; de Rosa & Bocci, 2014a; de Rosa & d’Ambrosio, 2010, 2011; de Rosa & Dryjanska, 2014; de Rosa, Dryjanska, & Bocci, 2015). This paper helps to fill the gap in research on destination e-branding noted by Kladou and colleagues (Kladou, Kavaratzis, Rigopoulou, & Salonika, 2016) by comparing the traditional elements proposed by city management with the bottom-up approach of the social representations of the cities that circulate through an unofficial channel (TripAdvisor portal). A simultaneous assessment of the points of view of marketers and their targets, taking into account online channels of ten European capital cities, renders the rationale of this study innovative. While it has been proposed to envision the residents of a city as brand ambassadors (Rehmet & Dinnie, 2013), so far this role has not been considered in case of visitors who exchange opinions online, thus co-constructing destination brand-image. This empirical study is aimed at the analyses of:

• that of the marketers who want to create the brand identity; • that of the targets who perceive the brand image (Florek et al., 2006; Kapferer, 1997; Qu, Kim, & Im, 2011). In particular:

• Brand identity is defined by Aaker (1996, p. 68) as: ‘a unique set of

• institutional tourist websites (examining their usability, interactivity, •

contents and profiles on social networks) as coded and analysed by the users; forum discussion on the TripAdvisor portal (examining spontaneous conversations and experience exchanges)

•

as two e-tourism channels which contribute to building, transmitting and co-constructing social representations of the abovementioned European capitals among past and potential first-visitors. Although it is not possible to know if the web designers who developed the institutional tourist websites examined in this study involved their targets in the evaluation of the websites, such practice is desirable according to Inversini, Cantoni, and De Pietro (2014, p. 574) who state that ‘destination managers should improve their online communication starting from a user-driven, goal-oriented reasoning and not from a pure technological reasoning’. 2. Destination e-branding, city brand image, city brand identity and social representations: Main theoretical constructs

brand associations that the brand strategist aspires to create or maintain. These associations represent what the brand stands for and imply a promise to customers from organization members’. Aaker and Joachimsthaler (2000) state that before knowing how a place ‘is’ perceived by the tourists (also on the basis of their expectations), it is important to establish how a place should be perceived by its target audience, according to the intention of the web designer or the expert responsible for branding. Recent research in destination marketing has concentrated on the novel virtual scenario (Molina et al., 2017), including augmented reality (tom Dieck & Jung, 2017), gamification (Xu, Tian, Buhalis, Weber, & Zhang, 2016), social media (Huertas & Marine-Roig, 2016; Huertas, Míguez-González, & Lozano-Monterrubio, 2017), as well as such issues as developing a scale for measuring brand identity (Tsaur, Yen, & Yan, 2016). Brand image – according to Baloglu and McCleary (1999) and Pike (2009) – can be defined as ‘perceptions about a place as reflected by the brand associations held in tourist memory’ (Keller, 1998, p. 93) or as a ‘combination of cognitive and affective evaluations stored in the consumers’ minds’ (Cai, 2002, p. 723). In the new media scenario, scholars have tackled online communities (Hajli, Shanmugam, Papagiannidis, Zahay, & Richard, 2017) and social media (Kim, Lee, Shin, & Yang, 2017), but also the relationships between visitors’ emotional experiences, perceived overall image, satisfaction and intention to recommend (Prayag, Hosany, Muskat, & Del Chiappa, 2017). Applying web content mining to extract destination images and perceptions from different online sources had been defined as a novel approach (Költringer & Dickinger, 2015) to the analysis of destination branding and image.

The relationship between destination brand identity and brand image can be considered as circular and dialogic: in fact, on the one hand brand image is considered to be the reflection of brand identity (Qu et al., 2011) or ‘the reaction to this message in the minds of recipients’ (Florek et al., 2006, p. 279); on the other, the brand image plays a significant role in building brand identity (Cai, 2002). The distinctive and unique representation deriving from the brand image differentiates the destination from its competitors and can be used by the marketers for destination branding. As stated by Cai (2002, p. 722): ‘Image formation is not branding, albeit the former constitutes the core of the latter. Image building is one step closer, but there still remains a critical missing link: the brand identity’. The major investments made by destination marketing organisations (DMOs) around the world, have undertaken marketing communications that seek to achieve congruence between the desired destination brand identity and the actual destination image held by consumers (Pike, 2017). The model of destination branding proposed by Cai (2002) has focused around three central elements: brand element mix (name, logo, sign, design, symbol, slogan, etc), brand identity and brand image building. A more recent assessment of Cai's framework applied to tourism destinations (Ashworth & Kavaratzis, 2009) emphasizes branding as a recursive process that revolves around an axis formed by brand element mix, brand identity and brand image building, in an effort to go beyond the logo. The process starts with the choice of one or more brand elements – identifying the destination – and continues with the formation of brand associations (attributes, affective and attitudinal

Starting from the definition of destination branding as a way to communicate a destination's unique identity by differentiating it from its competitors (Morrison & Anderson, 2002), its core function is to build a positive image that identifies and differentiates the destination by selecting a consistent brand element mix (Cai, 2002). According to Oliveira and Panyik (2015), tourist destinations are constructed by two general subsystems. The first is the context of tourist industry that communicates through promotional, interpretative and market research strategies. The second is related to the destination consumption, which refers to the visitors’ own construction of place, using their actual knowledge, travel history, motivations, and preferences. Where these two constructions overlap, the negotiated reality of the consensus zone emerges. Although the core concepts of brand identity and brand image have been used by the destination marketing and management experts for many years, the recent research concentrates on the user-generated content, emphasising the role of Web 2.0 (Marine-Roig & Clavé, 2016). There is also a growing interest in the city branding evaluation in European capitals from the perspective of visitors, focusing on the differences in brand equity based on the manner in which visitors search for city information: online versus offline (Molina, Fernández, Gómez, & Aranda, 2017). As various authors agree (Bruwer, Pratt, Saliba, & Hirche, 2017; Cai, 2002; Florek, Insch, & Gnoth, 2006; Nandan, 2005; Pike, 2017), brand identity and brand image are crucial ingredients for a destination's 2

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components of an image: see also Gartner, 1993; Keller, 1998) driven by brand identity. According to Kaur, Chauhan and Medury (2016, p. 503), the ‘core of destination branding is to build a positive destination image that identifies and differentiates the destination by selecting a consistent brand element mix’. This paper integrates cognitive and evaluative factors in perception (which are focused solely on the processes of categorization, encoding, storage and retrieval of information in memory) in the more comprehensive multi-dimensionality of social representations. Moreover, in valorising the identity-related dimension of the cities, it refers to Proshansky's (1978) definition of place-identity as a sub-structure of self-identity characterized by clusters of cognitions, memories and affections concerning experienced places. It is conceived as a personal active construction rooted in the direct experience of the physical environment in the context of tourism. The importance of the intersection between the constructs of the place identity and the social representation of the European capitals has been discussed by de Rosa (1995, 1997, 2013b). Previous research has also concentrated on how residents’ place identity affects their attitudes toward tourism (Wang & Chen, 2015) and how the key social representations of the city influence the construction of the dimensions of urban identity defined as a kind of place identity (Belanche, Casaló, & Flavián, 2017).

Table 1 Penetration of Internet in the European Countries related to the ten Capital cities (as of 30 November 2015). Retrieved 20.03.16. from: < http://www.internetworldstats.com/ stats4.htm > . Europe

Population (2015 Est.)

Internet users, 30-nov-2015

Penetration (% population)

Finland United Kingdom Germany Belgium France Austria Spain Portugal Poland Italy

5,471,753 64,767,115

5,117,660 59,333,154

93.5% 91.6%

81,174,000 11,258,434 66,132,169 8,584,926 46,439,864 10,374,822 38,005,614 60,795,612

71,727,551 9,569,669 55,429,382 7,135,168 35,705,960 7,015,519 25,666,238 37,668,961

88.4% 85.0% 83.8% 83.1% 76.9% 67.6% 67.5% 62.0%

But it is the receiver who also influences their use because from all data available he or she chooses what is relevant and interesting’. According to Költringer and Dickinger (2015), the experts’ city representation communicated by the web-marketers through the institutional tourist websites – with the purpose of promoting brand identity – may contribute to building the user's brand image through creative reconstruction when it becomes the subject of everyday conversations in online communities. Niu, Wang, Yin, and Niu (2016) also note that DMOs can play an active role in leading facilitating word-of-mouth communications in online tourist communities by using appropriate postings on the social networks. If the web-marketers were, however, aware of the social representations detected also via everyday conversations in online communities (like the one analysed in this study: TripAdvisor), circulation and transformation between the brand identity and brand image might occur in a dialogical relationship between expert and common sense knowledge (Moscovici, 1988). In sum, according to H1, capital cities’ websites of countries where the penetration of Internet is higher should also have a higher communicative capacity.

3. Research focus, data sources and methodology In light of the Social Representations Theory, this contribution focuses on: – the virtual City brand identity proposed from the perspective of experts by the web-marketers through the institutional tourist websites. In particular, the examination of their usability, interactivity, contents and reference to the Social Networks appears relevant for the assessment of the official tourist destination websites that should include technical, communicative, relational and persuasive aspects (Fernández-Cavia, Rovira, Díaz-Luque, & Cavaller, 2014), in line with the common practices in destination website design (Luna-Nevarez & Hyman, 2012); – the virtual City brand image detected through the forum discussions on the TripAdvisor portal, examining users’ spontaneous conversations and experience exchanges from the perspective of commonsense knowledge. The TripAdvisor portal serves as a virtual means for generating and nurturing a dialogical flow of communication and transformation of social representations. H1. With regard to the virtual City brand identity, on the basis of:

H2. It is expected to verify heterogeneity of positions of different cities’ representations along a continuum from divergence to convergence of the virtual city brand identity and city brand image (Audebrand & Iacobus, 2008). In other words, each of the capitals under scrutiny shall have a distinct profile from the point of view of the overlap of its brand identity promoted by urban marketing experts and its brand image or how it is actually perceived by the visitors. For the researcher, the challenge lays in operationalizing such overlap. Although no one study can possibly capture the complexity of different dimensions of city brand identity and image, an attempt can be made to concentrate on one feature present in both. For example, given the importance of place identity, it is possible to concentrate on the presence of specific places in the city. As a first exploration of the different capitals, this paper features the comparison between the places mentioned on the websites (contents of the 'Top Ten' section) and the places mentioned in the free conversations retrieved from TripAdvisor. If the same places mentioned as Top Ten by marketing experts can be found in TripAdvisor, then the convergence of the city brand identity and image is high. Likewise, if Top Ten features completely different places than those included by the visitors on TripAdvisor, then the convergence of the city brand identity and image is low. Thus, according to H2, the capitals under scrutiny shall be characterized by diverse degrees of convergence of virtual city brand identity and city brand image.

– the already analysed institutional websites of the European capitals, not specifically concerned with tourism (de Rosa & Bocci, 2014); – the gap which also reflects the delay in the informatization of some countries (see Table 1), it is expected to verify a consistent ranking of the institutional tourist websites of the northern European capitals (with the exception of Warsaw); in other words, the visiting cards of those European capitals shall facilitate their cutting-edge position in place-marketing. Conversely, the southern European capitals analysed are expected to be less satisfactory in regard to the digital communication of their potential to attract tourism, while central European capitals shall be positioned midway between these two extremes. The statistics presented in Table 1 below refer to the period closer to the data collection; however, according to their more recent version as of 31 March 2017, there has been a change in positioning of Italy that now reaches 86.7% of population penetration, confirming the already mentioned dynamic nature of the virtual communication.,

H1 and H2 inform the study when it comes to the choice of tools that allow operationalization of communicative capacity of the official tourist websites, as well as virtual city brand identity and city brand image.

The close relationship between the virtual city brand identity and city brand image has been emphasized by Florek, Insch and Gnoth (2006, p. 281): ‘The website's content is usually created by the sender. 3

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perform these tasks. Therefore, the observers tracked:

3.1. Research focus on the institutional tourist websites

• time needed to execute each task, • error rate for each task, • percentage of tasks completed successfully, • number of backtracks while executing each task.

This section relates to the asynchronous communication channel, describing analyses conducted on the institutional tourist websites of ten historic capitals. First, the usability of the websites was examined by using Nielsen's Usability Test (Nielsen & Loranger, 2006; Nielsen, 1994) to yield information on their communicative capacities. According to FernándezCavia, Rovira, Díaz-Luque, and Cavaller (2014, p. 6), several studies emphasize the importance of the ease of use for destination websites: ‘Park and Gretzel (2007) established that 60% of papers referring to destination website effectiveness dealt with this attribute. Kim and Fesenmaier (2008) also found that destination Websites must be userfriendly so that information searchers can easily navigate sites with no (or a minimum level of) mental effort’. In tourism marketing research, Yeung and Law (2004) have used the Nielsen's Usability Test in their usability evaluation technique of hotel websites, Carstens and Patterson (2005) have employed it to assess travel websites, while Qi, Law, and Buhalis (2008) have specifically applied it to the Chinese DMOs’ websites. The application of the Usability Test is has to do with the strong relationship among practices, social representations and communicative channel, which relies on the practices undertaken to exploit the informational power of the media sources as both the prerequisite and vehicle of social representations. Before examining the content, one needs to make sure that such content can be accessed in a user-friendly way (Fernández-Cavia et al., 2014). Interacting with a website can be classified as practice, necessary for the transmission of social representations. According to de Rosa (2001), no communication is possible without social representations; and no social representations can be generated, transmitted and negotiated without communication. Therefore, application of the Usability Test instrument stems from a more general theoretical issue: whether social representations orient practices (Jodelet, 1989a, 1989b, 2013) or whether practices orient social representations (Abric, 1994). Whilst recognizing that the dynamic relationship between social representations and practices is of a dialogical-circular nature (de Rosa, Bocci et al., 2011; Moscovici, 2013), this paper emphasizes the role of practices as a prerequisite for communication. Adopting one of Nielsen's recommendations -that a test with five users makes it possible to map 85% of usability problems; it also takes into account the socio-demographic information about the participants, as well as their level of familiarity with the Internet and self-rated competence in its use. The tests were administered to Italian university students (as potential first-visitors) and to Erasmus exchange students (as residents in the capital cities investigated), using respectively the Italian and English versions of the websites. The purpose of evaluating the website's usability is to obtain information on users’ needs, their understanding of the system, and the aspects that they appreciate or dislike. In the Nielsen's Usability Test applied to the institutional tourist websites, users perform four simple tasks under observation. Specifically, they search for:

Whilst the usability test enabled monitoring the extent to which the websites were able to reach their targets, as a prerequisite for communication and thus of transmission and transformation of social representations via the Internet, application of the Grid of Analysis enabled the study of the graphical, technological, accessibility, interactivity, e-branding and contents of the same websites. In particular, the different elements of website pages considered in the Grid of Analysis included:

• graphical elements (e.g. maps, images): static or dynamic • utilities: archives, calendars, postcards, sms, etc • elements that influence accessibility and usability • interactive components: e.g. links with users/other sections of the website and other websites • e-branding: e.g. organizational charts, banners • contents: transportation, tourism (including places recommended to be visited), sport, economy, culture, healthcare, young people, education, international cooperation, publications.

Destination websites’ contents constitute different tools of identity communication that place marketers can use (Klage, 1991). Their characteristics include:

• the powerful role of websites in place branding communication • •

(passive or active communication by cities to transmit distinctive elements and uniqueness); the place design recognizable for example in the promotion of landmarks (elements related to the presentation and identification of the places) or logos and slogans; the place behaviour: numerous activities, events, actions publicised through the events/calendar of events or search engine (Florek et al., 2006).

In the content analysis of the websites, special attention was paid to identifying the ten main places that visitors should visit in each city (this list is usually highlighted in the websites under the sections: 'Top Ten' or 'Do not miss'). These landmarks (Lynch, 1960) can be defined as readily identifiable objects with distinctive spatial features that, by virtue of their colours, shapes or semantic values, have the potential to help people orientate themselves or find their way in the environment by serving as external reference points. For example, the city of Warsaw provides the list of places with descriptions, as well as the possibility to download a document with the map (http://warsawtour.pl/en/touristattractions/top-10-3930.html). Among different contents of the institutional tourist websites, another important aspect has been considered: the presence of official city profiles on social networks, in line with the social web parameter suggested by Fernández-Cavia Rovira, Díaz-Luque and Cavaller (2014) among the relational aspects. In the current scenario, to have profiles on various social networks and to maintain communicative exchanges with users constitutes an important aspect of the virtual city brand identity. At this point, it is not anymore the question of whether a city should have a profile on social networks but when it was established, as an indicator of the capability to forecast of the future developments of Internet and ability to create a bridge between different digital environments. The sooner the developers of institutional tourist websites realize this importance, the higher the communicative capacity of the city. Among various social networks, this paper examines the dates of opening a city profile on Instagram, YouTube and Twitter.

1. events or the calendar of events (events highlighted in a specific temporal window, also called event calendar); 2. the link to contacts (in other words, contact information or contact us); 3. a map showing the layout of the city (in other words, a city map that contains the main attractions, transport information, etc); 4. information about where to sleep (in other words, accommodation for visitors). In order to compare the results of the usability test among all ten websites, the abovementioned four tasks have been chosen after having verified their presence in all of the ten websites. The scope was to measure the extent to which it was difficult (or easy) for the users to 4

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institutional tourist websites that constitute a vehicle of expert knowledge of the web-marketers. On the other hand, the common sense knowledge of online communities’ members is expressed via TripAdvisor, in the users’ free conversations among past and potential first-time visitors, and it has been analysed using the Lexical Correspondence Analysis. The research design is depicted in Table 2.

3.2. Research focus on the interactive communicative exchanges on TripAdvisor among past and potential first-visitors This section features the most salient places and the evaluations of target cities by past and potential first-time visitors to the same ten historic capitals, reconstructed through multi-dimensional analysis of interactive communicative exchanges on TripAdvisor. The main tangible and intangible aspects evoking the perceived personalities of the cities are compared with the brand proposals (Hankinson, 2001) identified through the institutional tourist websites. Comparison of Sections 1 and 2 of this study may provide more or less stereotypical, shared or diversified social representations of the evoked places and of the evaluated capital cities. Therefore, the places listed on TripAdvisor by past and potential first visitors assume not only a physical-architectonic value but also emotional meanings. They become socially significant. Free conversations about the abovementioned ten historic European capitals – chosen as tourist target destinations – among members of TripAdvisor were explored in order to identify:

4. Investigating city destination e-branding through the institutional tourist web-sites This section presents results relative to the specific form of destination e-branding, which seeks to communicate virtual City brand identity through institutional tourist websites. 4.1. The communicative capacities of the institutional tourist websites evaluated by means of Nielsen's Usability Test The institutional tourist websites can be broadly classified using five different degrees of usability (de Rosa et al., 2013; Pribeanu, Marinescu, Iordache, & Moisii, 2010):

a. the main places (to be compared with the Top Ten places from the institutional tourist websites) of the historic European capitals, investigated as objects of social representations charged with symbolic value and emotional attributions; b. the evaluations expressed regarding these cities during free exchanges on TripAdvisor by the research participants (past and potential first-visitors) belonging to this web community.

• The best performance, corresponding to a high level of usability; in

this case the Lisbon website, in which no usability problems were registered because of the: ○ short time needed to execute the test (under 10’’); ○ no backtracks; ○ no errors; ○ 100% of the tasks completed successfully.

Summarizing, Fig. 1 below presents a graphical representation of the relationships among the main concepts and methodological tools adopted for the research presented in this paper. The following sections feature the main results related to the analyses conducted on the data collected from the institutional tourist websites (which reflect institutional requirements, available funds, political correctness and EU directives) and the TripAdvisor forum (which reflects community empowerment, preferences, experiences and motives). As already mentioned, this study uses the Nielsen's Usability Test to investigate usability as a prerequisite for the transmission of social representations, and the Grid of Analysis that serves as an indicator of the quality of the ICT-mediated communication. These instruments were applied to the communication via

• Good performance, corresponding

•

to a medium-high level of usability, related to the institutional tourist website of Rome, showing minor usability problems due only to a medium-low level of backtracks and errors (average value 0.1 against 1.4 -average value of the ten websites both for backtracks and errors); all tasks were completed successfully and rapidly. Medium performance, corresponding to a medium level of usability, registered for the websites of Vienna, Paris and Warsaw, which had moderate usability problems with major impacts on the performance of the tasks. In particular: a. the websites of Vienna and Paris were penalized with respect to the ones previously described by a higher average amount of time Fig. 1. The main concepts and research tools adopted for the various research focuses of the study.

5

1. How can the construct of destination branding be re-interpreted in terms of destination e-branding by using social representations as the main theoretical framework with a specific focus on ICTmediated social representations? 2. And in particular, how destination ebranding is expressed through City brand identity and city brand image in the light of the Social Representation Theory and web-marketing?

Research questions

•

•

a. To re-interpret the construct of destination branding in terms of destination e-branding, considering ten European capitals as objects not only of perception but also of social representation. b. To examine destination e-branding articulated into: the virtual city brand identity proposed from the perspective of experts in web-marketing through the institutional tourist websites, the virtual city brand image perceived through the forum discussions on the TripAdvisor portal, examining users’ spontaneous conversations and experience exchanges from the perspective of common sense knowledge.

Objectives The experts’ city representations communicated by the web-marketers through the institutional tourist websites - aimed at promoting brand identity – may contribute to building the user's brand image through creative reconstruction when it becomes the subject of everyday conversations by online communities. On the other hand - if the webmarketers were aware of the social representations detected also via everyday conversations of online communities (like the one analysed in this study: TripAdvisor), circulation and transformation between the brand identity and brand image might occur in a dialogical relationship between expert and common sense knowledge (Moscovici, 1988)

Assumption

Table 2 The main features of the research design: Research questions, objectives, assumption, hypotheses and methodological plan.

H1: With specific regard to the virtual City brand identity, on the basis of: – the already analysed institutional websites – (de Rosa & Bocci, 2014); – the gap which also reflects the delay in the informatization of some countries (see Table 1), it is expected to verify a constant ranking of the institutional tourist websites of the northern European capitals (with the exception of Warsaw). Conversely, the southern European capitals analysed should be less satisfactory in regard to the digital communication of their potential to attract tourism and midway between these two extremes should be the central European capitals. H2: It is expected to verify a heterogeneity of positions of different cities’ representations along a continuum from the divergence to the convergence of the virtual city brand identity and city brand image (Audebrand & Iacobus, 2008). As a first exploration of the different capitals this research features the comparison between the places mentioned on the websites (contents of the Top Ten section) and the places mentioned in the free conversations recorded on TripAdvisor.

Hypotheses

Destination e-branding investigated through the institutional tourist websites: – Nielsen's Usability Test (Nielsen & Lorangen, 2006); – Grid of Analysis of the Websites designed by de Rosa and Picone 2010 (de Rosa et al., 2012, 2013); – Verification of the presence of Social Networks on the tourist websites. Destination e-branding investigated through TripAdvisor: – texts (lists of places and adjectives) were subject to Lexical Correspondence Analysis (using Spad software) which made it possible to synthesise the information into factors.

Methodology

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•

•

required to perform the tasks – 28 sec.– (very close to the average of the ten websites –26 sec); b. the Warsaw website was mainly penalized by the higher average value of backtracks and errors (2 for both backtracks and errors). All of the tasks were completed successfully for the three websites. Medium-low performance, corresponding to a medium-low level of usability, recorded for the website of Madrid, which had usability problems related to the website's difficulties in communicating the information rapidly (Nielsen & Loranger, 2006); the time required to perform the tasks was 36 sec. (ten seconds more than the average of the ten websites), despite the absence of backtracks/errors and a 100% success rate in completion of the tasks. Low performance, corresponding to a low level of usability, related to the websites of Berlin, Helsinki, Brussels and London. This last category included institutional tourist websites with major usability problems and consequent difficulties in completing the tasks – a success rate in performance of the tasks comprised between 95% and 99%. In particular: a. in the case of Brussels the poor performance was related to all four criteria: higher average time – 58 sec. – versus less than one half of the average value for the ten websites of 26 sec.; higher average for the number of backtracks – 5.75 – versus an average value for the ten websites of 1.4; higher average for the number of errors – 4.75 – versus an average value for the ten websites of 1.4; lower average for the percentage of success (95% versus an average value for the ten websites of 98.5%). b. This percentage of success (95%) was shared with London, although this last website recorded better values in terms of time, backtracks and errors.

4.2.2. Reliability Stated on each website was the office, department, or company responsible for its implementation, as in the case of The Convention Bureau commissioned by the Madrid, Paris and Helsinki municipalities. The differences between the in-house or out-sourced entities commissioned to develop the institutional tourist websites and the lack of consistency in defining the guidelines for the various sites (such as the presence/absence of the keyword ‘visit’ for visitBerlin example), are elements crucial for reliability. In regard to reliability, the websites of Lisbon, Rome and Warsaw were at a disadvantage with respect to the other websites reviewed, all of which were rated at a high level thanks to their clarity of sources. 4.2.3. Contents of the institutional tourist websites This section presents the main outcomes of the content analysis of the websites aimed at promoting tourist destinations. The main topics discussed on the websites related to culture and tourism. In particular, culture was a topic common to all cities – not surprisingly, given the historic and cultural value of the European capitals considered – but it was developed in different ways. Also, the conversion of industrial sites into museums and cultural landmarks – which took place in the 1970s and 1980s – has enhanced the cultural offer even in these historic capitals. It has contributed to developing a new identity/image of some cities’ districts and places, in the light of the new industry of tourism and its economic implications (Jansson & Power, 2006; Vanolo, 2010). 4.2.3.1. References to culture. One of the ways to see culture has been through referring to history. The Berlin website described the city as the focal point of history; Lisbon's website recounted a brief history of the city, starting from its legendary founding by Ulysses; Warsaw's website presented legendary stories about the city's establishment, and even the Helsinki website told the story of the city since its inception. Culture also constitutes an opportunity for education and training. Many websites included educational suggestions for tourists in the capital cities, such as London, Helsinki, Brussels, Vienna and also Rome and Madrid. However, the websites of Warsaw and Lisbon seemed not to value educational aspects in the context of tourism. There were different opportunities for the dissemination of cultural offers on the websites, which often included calendars of events and internal search engines characterized by some common key terms such as exhibitions and music; as well as labels such as theatre, trade fairs and festivals. There were also frequent references to art, as on the websites of Paris and Brussels; design, as on the websites of Vienna and Brussels; cinema, on the website of Madrid; literature cited on the website of Berlin; and opera on the website of Vienna. A very interesting aspect, common to several cities, was the combination of the organization of temporary events with the creation of new landmarks, as in the case of the development of large public works in Lisbon, Paris and London. Not always, however, the monuments or newly constructed areas that later become landmarks of the city are immediately appreciated. This is the case, for example, of the Eiffel Tower (Jansson & Power, 2006), but even more so of the Guggenheim Museum; in these cases one may refer to the ‘Bilbao effect’ (Vanolo, 2010). Another interesting phenomenon concerns the need to convert the meanings of the symbols: as happened, for example during the postindustrial era for the Tate Modern in London – Britain's national museum of modern and contemporary art transformed from an industrial to a cultural landmark. All websites of the capitals featured psychological and physical wellbeing: for example by including various offers related to sports and leisure tourism, or proposals for health improvement (for example on the websites of London, Paris, Berlin, Helsinki, Brussels, Vienna and Warsaw) and recreational tourism (see for example nightlife on the websites of Brussels, Berlin, Rome, Warsaw and Helsinki, the label ‘nightlife’ in the Top Ten of the site of Madrid, the label ‘Paris by night’

In a better condition in terms of the percentage of successes were the websites of Berlin and Helsinki, each with 97.5%. Despite the shared value, the two websites were in different conditions on the basis of other criteria. In fact:

• the Berlin website shared with the Brussels website the poor per•

formance related to the high average time – 44 sec.; high average number of backtracks – 3.125; high average number of errors – 4.5. the Helsinki website shared with the London website better values in terms of time, backtracks and errors.

Upon considering the differences among the websites characterized by poor performance, the websites of Brussels and Berlin are those for which the usability test highlighted the main problems. 4.2. The virtual city brand identity evaluated by means of the Grid of Analysis applied to the institutional tourist websites The analyses were conducted using the Grid of Analysis of the websites during the time window comprised between November 2013 and January 2014, taking into account the volatility effect of the Internet, where contents continuously change. In order to summarize the communicative capacities of the institutional tourist websites, this research considers the following features for each of them:

• level of updating; • reliability, understood as the certainty and clarity of sources; • main contents of information sections. 4.2.1. Updating The websites examined had a fairly good level of information updating, with a calendar describing events in the next eight months (Helsinki and Vienna) or even a year (Brussels). All websites – except Warsaw's – were frequently and regularly updated; Warsaw's website was an exception in that it announced only cyclical events. 7

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4.3. The virtual city brand identity

on the website of Paris). This feature, common to all the websites examined, refers to the idea of a welcoming, cosmopolitan or global city. In some cases the references to religious tourism have been found – for example, on the websites of Berlin, Vienna, Rome and Warsaw – which reflects a close link between historical facts and religious beliefs. Moreover, all the websites alluded to the idea of a prestigious tourism, often in the context of shopping or by focusing on the elevated status of tourists or professionals who are city users, promoting the idea of a capital elite. Years ago the city of London occupied first place in the ranking of Familiarity with Cities as a Business Location (Cushman, Wakefield, & Baker, 2004), followed by Paris and Brussels in second and third place; all the capitals analysed were among the top thirty positions. Attractions like trade fairs and exhibitions are valuable means to strengthen this aspect of a city's identity. However, shopping did not necessarily appear only in the context of prestigious tourism. With the crisis of the Fordist cities and their transformation from industrial to post-industrial, shopping experiences are a part of the new identity of cities, which from places of production have become arenas of entertainment and consumption (business culture). Not surprisingly, the capitals analysed were generally very attentive to the budgets of their potential tourists, suggesting: cheap hotels, special offers, inexpensive tours, low budget travels, free entrances and more generally low costs. Another aspect to which various capitals were sensitive related to the potential target of persons with disabilities, for whom the websites suggested various precautions and proposed interesting itineraries. Not all of the capitals took green tourism and sustainable tourism into account: the Paris, Lisbon, Helsinki, Vienna, Brussels, Rome and Warsaw websites devoted a special section to environmental issues. Few websites devoted space to the issues of the city's economy and international cooperation in order to attract tourists in this period of economic and financial crisis. Many cities have been subject to the domino effect of economic and financial problems, and their websites avoided mentions of this topic. In other words, given the difficult situation throughout Europe, references to the cities’ economies were not very numerous. Such themes were present on the websites of Berlin and Madrid; other websites that touched on the topic were marginally London (economic aspects) and Lisbon (aspects of international cooperation). Vienna and Warsaw both promoted themselves as the City of Music; the former boasted of being the world's capital of music, with the Vienna Philharmonic, the Vienna Boys' Choir, the State Opera House and the Golden Hall; the latter featured Fryderyk Chopin as one of the famous people related to Warsaw. Overall, the contents of the websites show the propensity of many cities to highlight historical, artistic or cultural aspects. However, there are some limitations, especially for the websites of Lisbon, Vienna, Rome and Warsaw, which seemed to overlook the following aspects: healthcare, education and international cooperation.

In brief, the overall evaluation of the institutional tourist websites sums up the level of usability and the content's updatedness, reliability and completeness, also including the presence of the social networks on the institutional tourist websites (see Table 4).The hypothesis concerning a higher communicative capacity of the institutional tourist websites of the northern European capitals than the southern ones has been verified in the most part for the cities considered. The northern Capitals provide reference models for experts in digital communication and are concerned about improving the performances of analogous institutional websites, with some exceptions:

• As in previous research (de Rosa & Bocci, 2014), Warsaw can be •

•

grouped together with Southern European cities with a low communicative capacity, which may be due to a low percentage of Internet penetration in this country (67%); a distinct case of the only Eastern European nation. On the other hand, Helsinki, which was expected to have a cuttingedge position in place marketing, did not do that well in terms of overall communicative capacity. In spite of the fact that Finland has the highest Internet penetration among the capitals under scrutiny (93.5%), its overall communicative capacity has been lower than expected due to problems with usability. Except for this issue with usability and partially the completeness of contents judged as ‘medium’, Helsinki boasts a high mark on all the other categories, including the levels of updating and reliability, as well as timely participation in social networks. Madrid has provided a surprising finding in an opposite way compared with Helsinki: it was expected to have a low communicative capacity, yet it scored highly. The closer look at single categories demonstrated that only usability of Madrid's institutional tourist website resulted as medium-low, while all the others ranged from medium-high to high. This could be related to the Internet penetration in Spain, which – even though not among the top ones overall, still positions itself as the best one among the Southern capitals (76.9%).

5. The cities through the eyes of an online community: Investigating destination e-branding through TripAdvisor Word of mouth through social networks is one of the best sources of information for potential tourists (Sicilia, Pèrez, & Heffernan, 2008). It provides cognitive anticipation of the actual experience clearly connected to social representations. Therefore of interest is an exploratory comparison between the representations of cities through institutional tourist websites and the representations negotiated and jointly constructed by visitors and potential first-visitors to cities through spontaneous conversations and exchanges of experiences in the new online meeting places of high aggregative capacity. Tourists are also customers; today, thanks to social networks, customer empowerment is a promising positioning strategy that managers can pursue to achieve a competitive advantage in the marketplace (Fuchs & Schreier, 2011). In a similar way, visitors and potential visitors who belong to online communities are empowered to share their opinions and judgments on the branded product: the city that they have visited or intend to visit. The exploratory comparison, which will be useful for web professionals (webmasters, content developers, web designers, etc) and those responsible for institutional tourist communication of the cities, has been conducted by analysing the most salient contents of communicative exchanges among 'potential first-visitors' and 'past visitors' in TripAdvisor, because this is one of the main portals dedicated to tourism. It has been declared as the world's largest travel site by comScore Media Metrix for TripAdvisor Sites, worldwide, as of December 2014 (see: http://www.tripadvisor.com/PressCenter-c6-

4.2.3.2. References to social networks. The grid also monitored the presence of the social networks on the institutional tourist websites as an indicator of the capability to forecast the future developments of Internet and ability to create a bridge between different digital environments. Taking into account the date of opening a city profile (Instagram, YouTube or Twitter) linked with the institutional tourist websites, Berlin, Vienna and Brussels stand out as the top cities when it comes to timely involvement, respectively: Berlin and Brussels in YouTube and Twitter; Vienna in Instagram and YouTube. On the other hand, the latest date of opening a profile has been identified in case of Warsaw. Warsaw consistently positions itself as the city that realized very recently the importance of YouTube and Instagram for its communicative capacity (Table 3).

8

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Table 3 Date of opening a city profile (Instagram, YouTube and Twitter) on the institutional tourist websites. Social Network

Madrid

London

Paris

Berlin

Lisbon

Helsinki

Brussels

Vienna

Rome

Warsaw

Instagram YouTube Twitter

22.05.2012 26.09.2008 13.10.2013

09.08.2013 01.09.2010 28.04.2009

06.08.2012 12.07.2011 03.05.2011

12.09.2013 31.10.2007 20.01.2009

23.09.2012 25.10.2011 24.10.2012

11.04.2013 02.01.2009 24.11.2009

02.05.2013 22.06.2007 09.02.2009

03.09.2012 28.11.2007 13.09.2010

09.01.2014 21.10.2008 20.09.2012

16.04.2014 22.12.2011 31.05.2012

way, e.g. Notre Dame, Museo Nacional de Azulejo; or in a generic way, e.g. church, museum) was subjected to lexical correspondence analysis with the assistance of the Spad software, which made it possible to synthesise the information into five factors. Fig. 2 shows the graphic representation of the intersection between Factor 1 in horizontal position and Factor 2 in vertical position with reference to the places evoked on TripAdvisor. It enabled interpretation of the structure of associations among the lexemes, highlighting aspects not directly identifiable based solely on reading the individual factor tables. The geometric-structural approach, with particular regard to the interaction between the first horizontal factor and the second vertical one, made it possible to plot the positions of the labels for the places in the various European capitals on the Cartesian plane. The first factor was mainly dedicated to the capitals privileging artistic-architectural aspects. The first factor was mainly dedicated to the capitals privileging artistic-architectural aspects. The positive semiaxes of the first two factors were largely dedicated to Lisbon, with a special reference to the architectural monuments constructed for Expo '98 (1998 Lisbon World Exposition – the official specialised World's Fair held in Portugal from Friday 22 May to Wednesday 30 September) dedicated to The Oceans, a Heritage for the Future, chosen in part to commemorate 500 years of Portuguese discoveries. One of the main buildings in the district is the Oceanàrio de Lisboa (freq. 25) the largest indoor aquarium in Europe (first factor a.c. 3.1; r.c. 0,08 - second factor a.c. 7.1 r.c. 0.16); the related icon is visible on the graphic showing the intersection between the first factor in horizontal and the second factor in vertical. Connected to the monumental architecture built for the Expo ’98 is Parque das Nações (freq. 24); the newest district in Lisbon, born from the urban renewal programme leading to the World Exhibition of Lisbon 1998. Parque das Nações (first factor a.c. 2.0; r.c. 0.11; second factor a.c. 6.8; r.c. 0.33) is characterized by a futuristic appearance very rich from the architectonical point of view. The related icon is visible on the graphic showing the intersection between the first factor in horizontal and the second factor in vertical. Other specific places in Lisbon are mentioned on the first two factors: Torre de Belém (freq. 31), the UNESCO World Heritage (first factor positive semi-axis a.c. 1.7; r.c. 0.15; second factor positive semi-axis a.c. 2.9; r.c. 0.23); the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum (freq. 35; first factor positive semiaxis a.c. 1.9; r.c. 0.15; second factor positive semi-axis a.c. 3.2; r.c. 0.23); the Miradouro Sao Pedro (freq. 18; second factor positive semiaxis a.c. 5.1; r.c. 0.33), Igreja de São Roque (freq. 21; second factor positive semi-axis a.c. 1.9; r.c. 0.23) and Museu Nacional do Azulejo (freq. 19; second factor positive semi-axis a.c. 1.8; r.c. 0.23), the last one being also visible on the graphic. While Lisbon is the capital with the higher percentages of mentioned artistic-architectural monuments, three other capitals follow with high percentages for this category: Berlin with the Mitte quarter (freq. 47); Brussels with the Grand Place (freq. 22) and Rome with Piazza Navona (freq. 59); it is possible to recognize the three European capitals on the graphic inter-connected by a triangle.

About_Us.html). 5.1. Representing the European capitals through evoked landmarks and places The results show that the cities’ symbolic places refer to Lynch (1960) notion of landmarks, not only because of their aesthetic and artistic-architectural features but also, and especially, because of their identitarian dimensions. A total of 1555 places (for an amount of 295 distinct places) were collected from conversational exchanges in the forum discussion on the TripAdvisor portal during the period between November 2011 and December 2013 in regard to the ten European capitals. The textual data corpus consisted of spontaneous texts produced by a population of 1325 users of TripAdvisor divided as follows for the declared variables gender and age: – gender: 45.21% male, 46.64% female, 8.15% not determinable; – age: 3.70% under 25 y.o., 13.96% 25–34 y.o., 27.55% 35–49 y.o., 11.40% 50–64 y.o., 0.38% over 65 y.o., 43.01% not determinable. – nationality: not determinable. Because nationality was not determinable, the linguistic criterion has been used to select the text in order to reach more likely tourists rather than residents. Therefore the textual data corpus selected from TripAdvisor included all spontaneous conversations available in Italian for all cities (with the exception of Rome, in which case the texts in English and Spanish have been selected). 5.1.1. Categorisation of places The places were categorized following de Rosa's typology (1997, 2013b): 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

institutional places (e.g. parliament, institutional buildings) geographical locations (e.g. name of cities, countries, continents) places related to nature (e.g. parks, rivers) socio-recreational places (e.g. pubs, theatres, shopping centres) urban places (e.g. roads, streets, districts) artistic and architectural places (e.g. churches, museums, monuments) 7. other places (not in any of the previous categories) The capitals most frequently evoked were Vienna and London, with respectively 26.78% and 20.34% of the distinct places cited. The historic capitals considered were cited in the conversations of the subjects mainly in terms of their artistic and architectural places: for Lisbon the percentage exceeded 50% (57.14%); followed by Brussels (49.99%), Berlin (45.45%) and Rome (44.07%) – this last also had high scores for the urban category, 35.59%. For the cities of Madrid and Helsinki the artistic-architectural category scores were respectively 40% and 34%; these are the cities with the most references to the sociorecreational category (Madrid 20%; Helsinki 22%). Warsaw (25.93%), Paris (18.75%), Vienna (25.97%) and London (29.41%) recorded the highest percentages for urban places (more than 30%).

• The Berlin city centre is present on the graphic with the distinct

places of Television Tower (freq. 11) and the Holocaust Memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust (freq. 8). The Berlin centre is present with the higher score both on the first factor positive semiaxis (absolute contribution 3.3; relative contribution 0.8 – where it is followed by the already mentioned references to Lisbon) and on

5.1.2. Lexical correspondence analysis of places The list of the places evoked for the various capitals (in a specific 9

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LOWER COMMUNICATIVE CAPACITY

HIGH HIGH HIGH

HIGH HIGH HIGH HIGH MEDIUM MEDIUM MEDIUM

HIGH HIGH HIGH

• In regard to Paris, Montmartre is visible on the graphic and mentioned on the first factor negative semi-axis (a. c. 4.7 and r. c. 0.22); • In regard to London, to be seen on the graphic is Westminster; the

HIGH HIGH HIGH HIGH HIGH HIGH MEDIUM

district of central London seat of the royal, and later parliamentary, government and power for 900 years; available since 2000 to tourists is London's most popular attraction: the London Eye. In regard to Vienna, one of the districts mentioned is Leopoldstadt; among the specific places visible on the graphic are Staphanplatz (freq. 7), Schwedenplatz (freq. 3) and the famous food market: Naschmarkt (freq. 3).

The presentation of the capitals appearing on the graphic also shows Helsinki and Madrid, marked by a circle. Although they include artisticarchitectural monuments, these capitals are the most cited for sociorecreational aspects (respectively 22% and 20%) because of the presence of places like the Linnanmäki Amusement Park (freq. 6) or the Olympiastadion (freq. 6) mentioned for Helsinki, and the Parque del Buen Retiro (freq. 24) and the Bernabeu Stadium (freq. 26) for Madrid:

• In •

Vienna (www.wien.info.en) Brussels (www.visitbrussels.be) Paris (www.en.parisinfo.com) Helsinki (www.visithelsinki.fi/en) Lisbon (www.visitlisboa.com) Rome (www.turismoroma.it/?lang=en) Warsaw (www.warsawtour.pl/en)

LOW LOW MEDIUMLOW MEDIUM LOW MEDIUM LOW HIGH MEDIUM-HIGH MEDIUM Berlin (www.visitberlin.de/en) London (www.visitlondon.com) Madrid (www.esmadrid.com/en)

Level of reliability Level of updating Usability

the second factor negative semi-axis (a.c. 5.4; r.c. 0,11 – where it is followed by references to Brussels and Rome). In regard to Brussels, the graphic shows Grand Place (factor two, negative semi-axis a. c. 1.9; r. c. 0.14) the central square of Brussels, UNESCO World Heritage, together with the European Parliament (a.c. 4.2; r.c. 0.09), mentioned on the same semi-axis in order to emphasize both the institutional and artistic-architectural value of the building (the keyword ‘parliament building’ is present on the same semi-axis with a. c. 2.7 and r. c. 0.15). Important icons for Rome are Piazza Navona (a. c. 2.9; r. c. 0.15) and Piazza del Popolo (freq. 46; a. c. 2.4; r. c. 0.15) present on the second factor negative semi-axis, while the graphic visualizes Vittoriano (freq. 51). Visible on the negative semi-axis of the first factor are other general places of Rome, such as the historic centre (freq. 42; a.c. 12,6; r.c. 0,55), Vatican (freq. 18; a. c. 15.9; r.c. 0.74) and Trastevere (freq. 7; a.c. 5.2; r.c. 0.67).

Beneath the Berlin-Brussels-Rome triangle on the graphic, it is possible to distinguish also a second triangle including Paris, London and Vienna. These three cities are characterized by the presence of the highest percentages of evocations of urban places, mainly for London and Vienna. The places most mentioned are: the Hill of Montmartre (freq. 5) and the natural island Ile de la Cité (freq. 9) for Paris; the districts of Camden Town (freq. 5), Soho (freq. 3), Covent Garden (freq. 4), Westminster (freq. 3) for London, and Leopoldstadt (freq. 3) for Vienna. The spaces mentioned are rich in streets and squares where tourists can taste and enjoy the cities.

HIGH HIGH MEDIUM MEDIUM HIGH MEDIUM MEDIUM LOW LOW

MEDIUM COMMUNICATIVE CAPACITY

•

LOW MEDIUM MEDIUM MEDIUM LOW LOW LOW

HIGHER COMMUNICATIVE CAPACITY HIGH MEDIUM HIGH MEDIUM HIGH HIGH HIGH

•

•

Websites

Table 4 Evaluation of the institutional tourist websites according to the four criteria.

Completeness of contents

Capability to forecast importance of SN

Degree of communicative capacity

A.S. de Rosa et al.

regard to Helsinki, appearing on the graphic are Unspenski Cathedral (freq. 16), Sea Life Helsinki Aquarium (freq. 7) and Korkeasaari (freq. 14) the island of Helsinki on which the country's biggest zoo is situated (second factor positive semi-axis a. c. 3.8; r. c. 0.18); Mentioned for Madrid are the Sorolla Museum (freq. 25; visible on the graphic) and the Parque del Buen Retiro, where the visitors have opportunities to relax and enjoy a variety of socializing and cultural events hosted by the Spanish European Capital.

Here, therefore, as in previous field studies (de Rosa & D’Ambrosio, 2011; de Rosa & Dryjanska, 2014; de Rosa, 1997, 2013), distinct representational patterns for visiting places (anchored in the artistic-architectonic dimension) and places for socialising and living life (anchored in the socio-recreational category) have been found. 5.2. Evaluating the European capitals through elicited adjectives Besides the 1555 places evoked, the evaluations of the cities, were 10

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Fig. 2. Classification of places with reference to the capitals considered.

References to Rome are largely present on the first factor's positive semi-axis: the city in general is labelled as historical (freq. 12) and there are many references to numerous monuments: Vittoriano, (also known as the Wedding Cake or the Giant Typewriter). The Victory Monument to Vittorio Emanuele II, located at the very centre of Rome, is labelled majestic (freq. 8; a.c. 1.6; r.c. 0.52), massive (freq. 16; a.c. 3.5; r.c. 0.24), impressive (freq. 22; a.c. 4.3; r.c. 0.47), spectacular (freq. 7; a.c. 1.5; r.c. 0.43). All these adjectives appear on the graphic, while others are not visualized for reasons of space, e.g.: enormous (freq. 7; a.c. 1.4; r.c. 0.22), panoramic (freq. 8; a.c. 1.9; r.c. 0.51), do-not-miss (freq. 7; a.c. 1.3; r.c. 0.43). Also appearing on the graphic is another specific place: the largest public park in Rome Villa Borghese labelled as green (freq. 4; a.c. 2.3 r.c. 0.04) but also rich with temples, fountains, statues and museums. Other references to Rome, not appearing on the graphic for reasons of space, refer to: Piazza del Popolo labelled as beautiful (freq. 14; a.c. 2.6; r.c. 0.58) and Fontana di Trevi, the famous setting of Federico Fellini's film La Dolce Vita (1960); the main references to the fountain are: do-not-miss (freq. 14; c.a. 2.6; r.c. 0.43), impressive (freq. 9; a.c. 1.6; r.c. 0.49), incredible (freq. 7; a.c. 1.5; r.c. 0.43), beautiful (freq. 8; a.c. 1.4; r.c. 0.6), wonderful (freq. 6; a.c. 1.4; r.c. 0.51). The second factor's positive semi-axis is dedicated to Berlin. The city in general is perceived as efficient (freq. 10) and particular (freq. 6), but other evaluations characterize the landmarks: entrance to the TV Tower is considered expensive (freq. 12; a.c. 19,6; r.c. 0,6) and symbolic (freq. 6; a.c. 2.1; r.c. 0.6), while the Reichstag is evoked for the free entrance (freq. 6; a.c. 9.8; r.c. 0.6), to-be-visited (freq. 8; a.c. 3.3; r.c. 0.7), interesting (freq. 10; a.c. 1.8; r.c. 0.3); organized (freq. 8; a.c. 1.4; r.c. 0,1). Not available on the graphic are also: don't miss (freq. 6; a.c. 2.0; r.c. 0.5) referred to the Reichstag; modern referred to Potsdamer Platz (freq. 14; a.c. 5.8; r.c. 0,4); to-be-visited reserved for the Berlin Wall (freq. 8; a.c. 2.5; r.c. 0,5); another symbol of the city is the Brandenburg Gate (freq. 10; a.c. 3.0; r.c. 0.5); while Linden Street is evaluated as important (freq. 6; a.c. 2.0; r.c. 0.5) and Pergamon Museum as do-notmiss (freq. 5; a.c. 1.7; r.c. 0.5). References to Brussels are present on the first factor's negative semiaxis. The keywords with the highest absolute contribution are dedicated to the European Parliament, perceived as interactive (freq. 12; a.c. 10.5; 0.56 r.c.) and free (freq. 8; a.c. 7.2; r.c. 0.34). These two characteristics

also retrieved from the forum discussion at the TripAdvisor portal, recording of a total of 2476 adjectives (1087 distinct adjectives). 5.2.1. Categorisation of adjectives The adjectives elicited were categorised according to dimensions proposed by de Rosa (1997, 2013b): 1. the aesthetic and artistic-architectural dimension (e.g. beautiful, historic, impressive); 2. the visual-perceptual dimension related to the physical-spatial environment (e.g. large, spacious, elegant); 3. the colour dimension associated with the city (e.g. grey, green); 4. the functional dimension regarding the efficiency and functionality of the city (e.g. efficient, organized, clean); 5. the economic dimension (e.g. rich, commercial, expensive); 6. the social and interpersonal dimension referring to relational aspects of the city (e.g. cozy, friendly); 7. the emotional dimension (e.g. exciting, relaxing); 8. the natural dimension relating to natural or meteorological elements (e.g. cold, dark, sunny). The 1087 distinct adjectives largely referring to specific places express a significant number of references to the aesthetic and artisticarchitectural and emotional dimensions. Almost one-quarter of the total evocations referred to Berlin (22%), followed by Rome with 18%. 5.2.2. Lexical correspondence analysis of adjectives Also in this case, as for the places, the adjectival evocations were subject to lexical correspondence analysis with the aid of the Spad software. Fig. 3 derived from the intersection between the first horizontal factor and the vertical second one plots on the Cartesian plane the adjectives evoked with respect to the European capitals. The first two factors present a large amount of references to three European capitals: Berlin, Rome and Brussels; these capitals are connected on the graphic through a triangle. Berlin and Rome share the higher percentages for the aesthetic and artistic-architectural dimension, respectively 51% and 44%, followed by the emotional dimension (respectively 19% and 32%). 11

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Fig. 3. Adjectives evoked with reference to the historic capitals considered and categorized in dimensions.

With this in mind, the study of e-branding of the European historical capitals brings into light not only the aforementioned volatility of the Internet, but also the dynamic nature of social representations anchored to the recent of events and their rhythms related to conditions at times marked by stability, easily subject to a sudden change.

are also represented on the graphic, while interesting, with lower absolute contribution, does not appear (freq. 8; a.c. 2.2; r.c. 0.29). The M.I.M.- Musical Instrument Museum is evaluated as both interesting (freq. 8; a.c. 2.2; r.c. 0.29) and boring (freq. 6; a.c. 4.2; r.c. 0.17), although the latter, together with interesting for Magritte Museum (freq. 6; a.c. 1.6; r.c. 0.29) and for Museum of Science (freq. 8; a.c. 1.6; r.c. 0.29), do not appear on the graphic. The names of many other European capitals - Vienna, Lisbon, Warsaw, Madrid, Helsinki and Paris - appear in the middle of the triangle. These cities (just like Rome, Brussels and Berlin) share evaluations such as majestic, historical, unique, not referred to any specific places. Brussels and Berlin share numerous characteristics with the other capitals, although the frequencies are very low:

6. Best destination e-branding through the top places of the ten European capitals This section, capital by capital, provides a first exploration of heterogeneity of positions of different cities’ representations along a continuum from the divergence to the convergence of the virtual City brand identity and City brand image (Audebrand & Iacobus, 2008), by presenting the comparison between the places mentioned on the websites (contents of the Top Ten section, maximum 10) and the places mentioned in the free conversations recorded on TripAdvisor. The converging places for each city are marked in bold: While considering Table 5, Berlin boasts the highest convergence between the Top Places (7 out of 10) identified by the institutional tourist websites (assumed as vehicles of the city brand identity) and by the TripAdvisor online community members (assumed as vehicles of the city brand image). For Helsinki and Rome three places out of ten coincide; for Madrid, Brussels, Lisbon and Paris - two places out of ten; for Vienna and London - only one out of ten. Each city under scrutiny in this study can be positioned according to the similarities/differences between the social representations of the top places communicated via institutional tourist websites (assumed as vehicles of brand identity) and the free spontaneous conversations of online communities (assumed as vehicles of brand image). In particular, three cities (Berlin, Helsinki and Rome) stand out among the others; they are profoundly different from each other, but their differences converge in terms of destination e-branding:

• Rome shares stateliness and uniqueness with Madrid, • Brussels is represented as organized together with • •

Madrid and Vienna in line with the fact that Brussels, Madrid and Vienna have consistently with the higher percentages for of the adjectives evoked for the functional category, respectively 19% for Brussels and 16% for Madrid and Vienna, Berlin and Brussels are perceived as active, together with Vienna, Brussels is cold, together with Helsinki and Vienna.

Finally, Lisbon is the only capital labelled as big, demonstrating that, for this capital, the visual-perceptive dimension shows one of the higher percentages (15%). Re-reading these results in the light of the subsequent terrorist attacks, one may observe a surprising amount of positive attributes and the complete absence of risk dimension (Bauman, 2008) that today binds many cities in Europe. In particular, this is the case of the following historic capitals: Paris (suffering from the attack by Al-Qaeda on the headquarters of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, as well as multiple attacks of November 13, 2015 claimed by ISIS), Brussels (after the attacks of March 22, 2016 also claimed by ISIS terrorists linked with foreign fighters, but residents in Belgium) and then in Berlin on December 20, 2016. As a result, implementing various security measures took place for at least a short time in many European capitals, affecting the quality of life of residents as well as visitors. These attacks have introduced the condition of brutal change indicated by Flament (1994) due to the irreversibility of the situation. According to this concept, a return to the practices of the past is impossible; thus, new practices – often contradictory – brutally affect the transformation of social representations (Abric, 1993; Flament, 1987, 1994; Guimelli, 1994).

• The data show the best position of Berlin, the capital city, which, • •

despite the still open wounds of the wars that have characterized it, has had the insight not to deny history but to make it a protagonist accessible to its visitors; For Rome the artistic-architectonic dimension plays an important role in terms of convergence of brand image and brand identity; Helsinki stands out as the capital that, from the point of view of communication via Internet, is least focused on cultural history but instead emphasizes other aspects, such as socio-recreational dimensions. For the three cities above, this research has highlighted distinct

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Table 5 (continued)

Table 5 Comparison between the Top Tens of the institutional tourist websites (City brand identity) and content analyses of TripAdvisor (City brand image). European capital

Vienna

Top ten places detected via content analysis of the institutional tourist websites, assumed as vehicles of brand identity

Schönbrunn Palace Schönbrunn Zoo St. Stephen’s Cathedral Imperial Palace - Hofburg

European capital

Top places elicited in the content analysis (supported by spad) of free conversations among the TripAdvisor online community members, assumed as vehicles of brand image

Art and history museum – Mrah

Leopoldstadt Schwedenplatz Staphanplatz Naschmarkt

Madrid

Royal Palace Plaza Mayor

Kunsthistorisches Museum

Fuente de Cibeles

Meeting Place Museums Quartier

Las Ventas Bullring Madrid Rio

Danube Tower Rome

Westminster Covent Garden Camden Town Soho The London Eye

Victoria and Albert Museum Tower of London

The Forums

Royal Museum Greenwich

Campo dè Fiori Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel

Madame Tussauds Eiffel Tower Montmartre Helsinki

La Villette Père Lachaise Bastille Panthèon Montparnasse Notre-Dame de Paris

Ile de la Cité

Baixa/Chiado Alfama/Castelo/Mouraria Belèm

The Trevi Fountain Trastevere

Vatican

Basilica of St. Peter in the Vatican The Borghese Gallery

Villa Borghese

Ateneum Art Museum Esplanade Park Helsinki Cathedral Helsinki Zoo

Olympiastadion Sea Life Helsinki Aquarium Helsinki Cathedral Helsinki Zoo

Kamppi Chapel of Silence Linnanmäki Amusement Park

Linnanmäki Amusement Park

Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma

Oceanàrio de Lisboa Calouste Gulbenkian Museum Miradouro Sao Pedro Igreja de São Roque Museu Nacional do Azulejo Belèm

National Museum of Finland Old Market Hall Reichstag Berlin Television Tower

Reichstag Berlin Television Tower

Santos

Gendarmenmarkt Unter den Linden

Unter den Linden

Avenida da Liberdade Parque das Naçoes

Kurfürstendamm

Berlin

Bairro Alto

Parque das Naçoes

Water Front Brussels

Vittoriano Historic Centre

Market Square

Louvre Museum Lisboa Golf Coast Historical Quarters

Piazza Navona Piazza del Popolo

Science Museum

Lisbon

Papal Basilica of St. Paul’s outside the walls Mouth of Truth Campidoglio (the Capitoline hill) The Trevi Fountain The Colosseum

Arc The Triomphe Sacre-Coeur

Retiro Park Santiago Bernabéu Stadium

The Rastro

Albertina

Paris

Paseo del Arte Puerta del Sol Retiro Park Santiago Bernabéu Stadium

The Giant Ferris Wheel and its square

British Museum National Gallery Natural History Museum Tate Modern The London Eye

Top places elicited in the content analysis (supported by spad) of free conversations among the TripAdvisor online community members, assumed as vehicles of brand image

military history

Belvedere Garden Palace

London

Top ten places detected via content analysis of the institutional tourist websites, assumed as vehicles of brand identity

Bozar Atomium Magritte Museum Natural Sciences Museum Mini-Europe

MIM historic center Magritte Museum Museum of Science Grand Place

Comic Strip Museum European Parliament

European Parliament

Warsaw

Ocèade Royal Museum of army and

Charlottenburg Palace Museum Island

Pergamon Museum

The Berlin Wall Memorial and Documentation Centre Potsdamer Platz Brandenburg Gate

The Berlin Wall Holocaust Memorial Potsdamer Platz Brandenburg Gate

OldTown Łazienki Królewskie ParkPalace Complex Wilanów Park-Palace Complex Palace of Culture and Science

Note: None of the places in Warsaw was relevant for the first two factors of SPAD analysis.

(continued on next page)

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• virtual City brand identity (Aaker & Joachimsthaler, 2000) created

Table 5 (continued) European capital

Top ten places detected via content analysis of the institutional tourist websites, assumed as vehicles of brand identity

Top places elicited in the content analysis (supported by spad) of free conversations among the TripAdvisor online community members, assumed as vehicles of brand image

•

Warsaw Rising Museum National Museum Copernicus Science Centre National Stadium Multimedia Fountain Park Places related to Fryderyk Chopin

by marketers through institutional websites (de Rosa et al., 2012, 2013) and institutional tourist websites (de Rosa & Bocci, 2014) of the ten European historical capitals; virtual City brand image (Cai, 2002; Keller, 1998) shared via commercial sites like Tripwolf and Booking.com, spontaneous conversations and exchanges of experience among the members of Social Networks like Facebook and Yahoo Answers, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube, portals like TripAdvisor, which are employed as a vehicle for dissemination of common sense knowledge (de Rosa & Bocci, 2014).

These results may provide a more complete picture of how the ebranding of different European capitals can be placed along the continuum between divergence / convergence of the virtual City brand identity and City brand image, introduced in this paper. Despite the incompleteness in the light of the more general comparison that one may intend to perform, this article offers some interesting results. In particular, a northern capital of Europe (Berlin) stands out among the most virtuous in terms of communication skills, also highlighting the key role of the iconic component of social representations (de Rosa & Farr, 2001). Another limitation of this type of study is related to the dynamic nature of social representations, which change very quickly in relation to current events, as for example the abovementioned terrorist attacks in European cities.

landmarks like the Reichstag, as well as other places of memory in Berlin; the Trevi Fountain, Vatican and Villa Borghese in Rome; and Helsinki Zoo and Linnanmäki Amusement Park as socio-recreational places in Helsinki. Despite their diversities, these three capitals converge in the importance assigned to specific Top Places, demonstrating that destination e-branding is emphasised via the iconic component of social representations of cities and their landmarks. The adoption of the social representations perspective conveyed through free conversation by online communities might furnish webmarketers with better understanding of the everyday knowledge/experience about cities and their places of interest to visit or to live in.

7.2. Practical implication The main implication of the current study is to encourage city officials responsible for destination e-branding to explore, quantify and apply the information spontaneously shared by visitors on such platforms as TripAdvisor. For example, when deciding on the Top Ten places to feature on the official tourist websites, it would be worthwhile to consider the choices of past and potential visitors. An evaluative feedback related to certain places, both positive and negative (describing certain museums as boring), can be a source to inform the marketing efforts. An interaction between the two groups could also enrich the destination e-branding, for example by considering city visitors (and not only its residents) when implementing certain bottomup approaches, such as votes on logo proposals.

7. Conclusions and future perspectives The analysis of the results presented in this article highlights aspects relative to contents, structure and various technical elements important from the user's point of view, emphasising strengths and weaknesses of destination e-branding using official tourist websites. In particular, this paper considered various factors that affect the communicative capacity of institutional tourist websites, which have to do with the perceived standards of quality in the contents of the communication transmitted by the marketers. The hypothesis of detecting a higher communicative capacity of the institutional tourist websites of the northern European capitals than the southern ones has been verified in the most part of the considered cities. The northern Capitals provide reference models for experts in digital communication concerned to improve the performances of analogous institutional websites. In particular, Berlin stands out among other capitals, with the higher communicative capacity and the greater convergence of city brand identity and city brand image, in relation to the tangible aspects of the city.

7.3. Area for further study The symbolic power of images is relevant both in the theory of social representations and in the model of destination branding proposed by Cai (2002) and consisting of three components: brand identity, brand image and brand element mix (name, logo, signs, designs, symbols, slogans, etc). An interesting future direction thus consists of comparing these research results with institutional stems of the ten historic European capitals and their commercial logos, conceived as symbolic tools and cultural artefacts created in different historical periods to contribute to the distinctiveness of different cities (Bocci, de Rosa, & Dryjanska, forthcoming). Moreover, by considering the brand image as an antecedent of brand equity (Gómez, Fernández, Molina, & Aranda, 2016) it could be possible to enrich the framework of this research by contextualizing the brand image in the more general multi-dimensional construct that includes brand awareness, brand loyalty, perceived value, brand image and perceived quality (Bianchi, Pike, & Lings, 2014; Fatemed & Badaruddin, 2015; Kladou, Giannopoulos, & Mavragani, 2015). As a concluding remark – considering that in the context of the social representations of ten European capitals, the construct of destination branding has been re-interpreted in terms of destination ebranding – it is possible to stress the interest of considering diversified

7.1. Study limitations This paper has focused on some results of a broader research project based on the field study initiated in the 90 s (see de Rosa, 1995, 1997, 2010, 2013b). As a result of the exponential role played by the Internetmediated communication also in the tourism sector, it has been included in the study of social representations of ten European historic capitals, in the communicative perspective of dual identity (personal and virtual). However, the operationalization of the constructs was a choice that certainly did not include all possible options. Especially in case of featuring the point of view of the targets, the TripAdvisor Forum offers much more information, also in the form of images, links, etc, not considered in this paper. The results presented in this article are yet to be appropriately integrated with those of the broader research project that provides a comparative analysis of: 14

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