Heritage, Consumption And Digital Content

Roberto Peretta. Università degli studi di Bergamo Scenari 2015 .:. Venice, November 27, 2015 .:.
Heritage,
Consumption
And Content.
Case Histories?
1

What We Are Talking About Today
1. Heritage And Consumption
2. The Role Of Local Communities
3. Digital Communication in Tourism
4. Content Curation Vs. User Generated Content (UGC)
5. Bergamo, Catania, Matera, Siena & Trieste
2

Heritage And Consumption
Heritage is more easily communicated, reached and talked about in the
digital age. Has this led to a more open dialogue? Or has it simply boosted
consumption?
Indeed, a crucial question. If the visitors’ identities do not interact with the
destinations’ identities, heritage is neglected – literally – and won’t last.
Is there a threshold between dialogue and consumption? Can digital
communication help identify it?
3

Cultural Tourism
The main current human activity involved in the question above is tourism.
Thanks to the development of transport opportunities – and a long period of
peace in Europe – cultural tourism and cultural heritage tourism have
specifically and significantly grown in the last decades.
4

Heritage Interpretation
Cultural tourism and cultural heritage tourism are supposed to ensure the
conservation and the interpretation of cultural resources, as well as the
authenticity of visitors’ experiences.
They may, however, produce bad feelings and tensions among the
stakeholders involved, inasmuch as they impact on communities.
5

Tourism & Destinations
Image credit to id-vacation.blogspot.com
Visitors
Locals
Managers
6

Masses of Tourists
Particularly relevant to our question, the abovementioned development of
transport opportunities has meant that masses of tourists move abruptly,
quickly and somehow randomly across Europe.
Those tourists do not necessarily have any distinct idea of the heritage they
come across in the destinations they are reaching.
7

Mass Tourism
Image credit to oneindia.com
Cell
phone
Bag
Shoes
8

Mass Consumption
Those tourists don’t even interact with locals on the spot, engage in a dialogue
with them, accept their connection proposals, if any.
What those tourists may think they are practicing – i.e. cultural tourism and
cultural heritage tourism – frequently results in mass consumption.
Basically, tourists may be less attracted by heritage than by cheap flights and
destination branding.
9

Heritage Misinterpretation
A mix of cheap flights and destination branding can lead to severe
misinterpretation of cultural landmarks – which may become a problem
for both visitors and locals.
Some cases have been identified in what is considered the leading tourism
community worldwide, TripAdvisor.
11

Heritage Interpretation Problems – 1
12
TripAdvisor. Accessed Oct 1, 2015

13

14

The Role Of Local Communities
Recent academic contributions, as well as an ongoing discussion among
leading heritage managers in Italy, underline the role played by local
communities – either actually or potentially – in maintaining, developing and
interpreting the heritage.
15

What Locals Do
What locals do, or don’t do, in order to keep
their heritage available to themselves and the
visitors, and ensure its sustainability, is
increasingly reckoned to be crucial.
In short, local communities are now considered
more responsible than tourists for the survival
of their territorial identity and the
conservation of their heritage.
16

Digital Communication In Tourism
To understand whether a threshold between potential dialogue and actual
consumption can be set, and help identify what local communities may be
doing in this respect, the research has adopted the point of view of digital
communication in tourism.
Although certainly not conclusive, this approach has the advantages of
accepting the Web as the most used and most measurable communication
environment globally available, and gathering User Generated Content
(UGC) on a relatively mass scale – which is scalable in future research.
17

Content Curation Vs. UGC
Methodologically speaking, results have been extracted in Global English,
and will continue to be extracted until the resulting paper goes to press, from
• three reputed content curation platforms (ExpressCurate, Scoop.It, and
StumbleUpon) and
• the leading tourism community (TripAdvisor)
about five Italian destinations (Bergamo, Catania, Matera, Siena, and
Trieste).
18

StumbleUpon – Trieste. 1
19
TripAdvisor. Accessed Nov 20, 2015

StumbleUpon – Trieste. 2
20

Scoop.It– Bergamo on YouTube
21

Bergamo on TripAdvisor
22

Catania on TripAdvisor
23

Matera on TripAdvisor
24

Siena on TripAdvisor
25

Trieste on TripAdvisor
26

Bergamo, Catania, Matera, Siena & Trieste
27
Bergamo Catania Matera Siena Trieste
Hotels 34 49 29 39 48
Vacation Rentals 162 591 135 481 104
Flights
Things To Do 145 179 81 142 201
Restaurants 509 707 221 465 715
Forum 1,299 1,673 198 2,952 552

BG, CT, MT, SI & TS: Posts
28
Bergamo Catania Matera Siena Trieste
Hotels 10,420 23,679 14,920 30,935 13,760
Vacation Rentals 225 536 213 641 71
Flights
Things To Do 9,003 11,052 9,640 20,836 11,409
Restaurants 43,176 62,904 25,603 60,131 43,272
Forum 1,299 1,673 198 2,952 552

Which Are The Things To Do? – 1
29
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EibOQ_bMe2Y

Methodology
The results are quantified. Comments, reviews and suggestions are being
read and categorized under two main criteria: whether they
• concern the heritage
• are posted by locals.
Admittedly, the first of these criteria is questionable and quantitatively
debatable – also because the concept of intangible heritage can be
paradoxically stretched to include nearly everything touristic as heritage.
30

Threshold? Not Really, After All
The threshold between dialogue and consumption, however, can by no means
be set under this methodology...
Actually, the initial question for this research was ill-posted.
As such, digital communication in tourism cannot help identify this threshold.
It can only tell – somehow – the “amount of heritage” the web presence of a
destination includes, and if the destination managers, either public or private,
care enough about the sustainability of their destination’s heritage.
31

Provisional Results
This ongoing research is also categorizing comments, reviews and
suggestions
• in terms of sentiment and, when possible,
• in terms of market segments.
Although conclusions cannot be drawn now, provisional results show that the
considered sample of local communities do not necessarily put the Web to
good use to ensure the sustainability of the destinations and their heritage.
32

http://www.unibg.it/turismo/
Centro Studi per il Turismo e l’Interpretazione del Territorio
International Federation for Information Technologies in Travel and Tourism
33
roberto.peretta@unibg.it
Thanks For Your Attention

Heritage, Consumption And Digital Content

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