Social media have become key tools for promoting and spreading the image of a tourist destination. In particular, these communication channels are critical for heritage destinations looking to boost awareness and attract a greater number of visitors. However, the tourism marketing literature has devoted limited attention to how these destinations project their image on social media. In order to cover this gap, this chapter focuses on analyzing the image projected by a specific heritage destination—Cuenca, a World Heritage City—on Facebook and Instagram. To this end, the chapter analyzes the posts, comments, and hashtags that have been published on the different tourism pages about Cuenca. The results of the analysis underscore the growing importance of the image projected by destinations on social networks. That said, there is a need to deepen our knowledge about the communication potential of these channels.
TopIntroduction
Today, Spain has one of the most competitive tourism sectors in the world, becoming the second-most visited country since 2017, according to the World Tourism Organization. Without a doubt, tourism is the engine of Spanish economic growth and the sector that contributes the most wealth to the country, accounting for 14.6% of the country’s Gross Domestic Product and 2.8 million jobs (UNWTO, 2020).
However, the geographical distribution of tourism in Spain presents important differences between autonomous communities and provinces: the most visited being the so-called “sun and beach” tourism, with the exception of the Community of Madrid, the capital of Spain (Jorrín, 2017). The fact that most travelers choose these destinations means that inland cities face a clear comparative disadvantage with respect to coastal cities. Mainly, Castilla-La Mancha, Extremadura and Castilla y León were the autonomous communities least visited by tourists in 2019 (Jorrín, 2017).
In this regard, the central cities of Spain represent tourist destinations with rich cultural and heritage attractions that have yet to be discovered. In fact, Spain is the third country in the world, behind Italy (53) and China (52), with the highest number of World Heritage sites. Specifically, UNESCO’s list includes 46 places, among which are the fifteen World Heritage Cities. Cultural and heritage tourism is an important source of wealth and employment for the Autonomous Community of Castilla-La Mancha, which reached a new record for tourists and overnight stays in 2019 (ElDigitaldeAlbacete, 2019). In terms of natural and cultural heritage, Cuenca is one of the most beautiful and richest provinces in Spain, with its important historical tradition holding particular value. Since its inscription to the World Heritage List in 1996, Cuenca has become one of the main monumental complexes in Spain, according to the official website of the Cuenca Tourist Office. However, the Castilian-La Mancha province has seen both its number of inhabitants and tourists decrease. Since 2011, the province of Cuenca has lost around 20,000 inhabitants and its population density is 12.10 inhabitants per square kilometer, which is below the European Union’s 12.5 threshold for a desert zone (CuencaNews, 2018).
Cities in the interior of Spain – and particularly the province of Cuenca – are challenged to stop depopulation and reinforce their competitive position as tourist destinations (CastillaLaManchaMedia, 2018). In order to aid these efforts, scholars need to study and analyze new tourism promotion techniques that will attract more visitors to World Heritage Cities. As Munar and Ooi (2012) indicated, tourist destinations often rely on historical and cultural resources to achieve a competitive advantage in an increasingly complex environment. These new techniques will allow tourism companies to not only innovate, but also contribute to more sustainable tourist destinations, given the close relationship between sustainable development and innovation in tourism (Elmo et al., 2020). As Fayos-Solà and Cooper (2019) indicate, sustainability is crucial for destinations’ competitiveness, as it encompasses the protection and conservation of natural resources, socio-cultural heritage and life. Consequently, tourism needs new innovative approaches to ensure its economic, social and environmental sustainability and growth.
In this regard, the health and economic crisis caused by COVID-19 has drastically transformed the paradigm of all economic sectors, and especially tourism. In the last semester, the sector registered its worst data in history, with a 97% drop in visitors and 750,000 jobs at risk (Aranda and Salvatierra, 2020). The coronavirus crisis has changed tourists’ travel habits by encouraging them to make more proximal and last-minute trips, as well as follow other clients’ opinions when making decisions (Alonso, 2010). In particular, rural tourism shows a certain optimism in the face of the crisis, since the average hotel occupancy this summer has been 54%, 14 points more than the previous year. With their natural environments and lack of crowds, rural destinations have an opportunity to expand their touristic footprint and stem the tide of depopulation (Alonso, 2020). In this sense, social networks can be an important means for tourism companies to inform, advise and entertain consumers as part of the so-called “new normal” (Montes, 2020).