This document analyzes the Twitter activity and co-branding strategies between the Spanish national tourism organization and regional DMOs from January to June 2014. It finds the national DMO @Spain had high activity, posting 3,124 tweets, but mentions of regional accounts were uneven. Some regions like Castilla-La Mancha and Galicia were frequently mentioned by @Spain but seldom mentioned it. The level of co-branding and information sharing between levels was also not balanced. The study aims to understand collaboration strategies between levels of tourism organizations on Twitter.

1. ENTER 2015 Research Track Slide Number 1
@Spain is different.Co-branding strategies between Spanish national and regional DMOs on Twitter
Frederic Guerrero-Solé
José Fernández-Cavia
Department of Communication
Communication, Advertising & Society Research Group
UNICA Research Group
Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain

2. ENTER 2015 Research Track Slide Number 2
Agenda
• Introduction
• Data Collection and Method
• Analysis and Evaluation results
• Conclusions

3. ENTER 2015 Research Track Slide Number 3
Introduction
Levels of territory as Russian dolls
L1. The national brand Spain
L2. 17 regional brands (autonomous communities)
L3. The provinces and islands (territories) and the cities
Twitter into DMOs’ Communication Strategy

4. ENTER 2015 Research Track Slide Number 4
Objective and RQs
RQ1a: What is the activity of the Spanish State-level DMO
account?
RQ1b: To what extent Spain’s activity is related to the diffusion of
information published by the Autonomous Communities?
RQ2: To what extent the Autonomous Community-level DMOs are
related to the diffusion of information published by Spain?
RQ3: To what extent Autonomous Communities mention Spain or
diffuse the information where Spain has been mentioned?

5. ENTER 2015 Research Track Slide Number 5
Sample
Analysis of the official Twitter profiles of 17 Spanish destination
brands:
@viveandalucia
@asturiasturismo
@turismebalears
@aragonturismo
@canarias_es
@cant_infinita
@catexperience
@Turgalicia
@Extremadura_tur
@CyLesVida
@turismoclm
@TurismoMadrid
@c_valenciana
@murciaturistica
@lariojaturismo
@TurismoNavarra
@i_Euskadi

6. ENTER 2015 Research Track Slide Number 6
Method and Data
Collected
(1)the original tweets posted by Spain;
(2)the retweets of messages posted by Spain;
(3)the original tweets where Spain was mentioned; and
(4)the retweets where Spain was mentioned.
Data Collection Period: from 1st January to 30th June 2014

7. ENTER 2015 Research Track Slide Number 7
Method and Data
Dataset: N= 127,337 posts
NT= 22,728 (3,124 posted by @Spain)
NR= 104,609 (77,593 to @Spain)
Exported the dataset to a customized database that calculates:
activity, retweets and mentions of all those users

8. ENTER 2015 Research Track Slide Number 8
Distribution of tweets and retweets collected by date

9. ENTER 2015 Research Track Slide Number 9
Results
Table 2. Number of times Spain mentions the Communities.
Autonomous Community MC
Andalusia 41
Aragon 29
Asturias 0
Balearic Islands 8
Canary Islands 27
Cantabria 17
Castilia-La Mancha 20
Castilia León 54
Catalonia 13
Extremadura 25
Galicia 41
La Rioja 5
Madrid 58
Navarra 22
Basque Country 18
Murcia 15
Valencia 18
Of the 3,124 messages posted by Spain, in 411 the user Spain mentioned any of the
Community users, the 13.16% of the total.

10. ENTER 2015 Research Track Slide Number 10

11. ENTER 2015 Research Track Slide Number 11
Co-branding strategies

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14. ENTER 2015 Research Track Slide Number 14
Discussion and conclusions
• The Spanish NTO official tourism account on Twitter has a good
level of activity, with 3,124 messages posted in the six months
analysed. But regarding to the times the NTO account mentions
the regional accounts, results are uneven.
• Spain diffuses information about the Communities, and the
Communities diffuse information about Spain. However, this
mutual contribution is not balanced.

15. ENTER 2015 Research Track Slide Number 15
Discussion and conclusions
• Some regional accounts (especially Castilia-La Mancha, Castilia
León, Basque Country and Galicia) are frequently mentioned by
Spain but, in their turn, they seldom –or never- mention Spain.
• We also found that the Communities that appeared together
with Spain were Andalusia, Madrid, Canary Islands, Castilia
León and Aragon. We may note that there were certain
communities that practically do not contribute to the
conversation around Spain. In particular, Asturias, La Rioja and
the Balearic Islands.

16. ENTER 2015 Research Track Slide Number 16
Discussion and conclusions
• Obviously, a future work should consider to what extent these
strategies respond to mutual collaboration and agreement, to
political alliances or discrepancies or have a spontaneous
nature.
• Apart from the Communities, we also found that there are
many other users related or not to Tourism activities (media,
celebrities, museums) that participated in the conversation
around Spain. Some of them were more influential than the
State-level account itself. Thus, we have to consider that
tourism national brands in Twitter are also influenced by those
users that consciously or not mention it in their tweets.

17. ENTER 2015 Research Track Slide Number 17
Thanks
Frederic Guerrero-Solé
@guerrerosolef
José Fernández-Cavia
Universitat Pompeu Fabra de Barcelona