Using social media to assess nature-based tourism in Nepal

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Pickering, Catherine M

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Castley, James G

Burns, Georgette L

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2023-03-23
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Abstract

Nature-based tourism is important accounting for roughly 20% of all tourism with billions of people visiting protected areas annually. Such tourism can provide economic, social, environmental and health benefits but also challenges for the conservation of natural and cultural resources including in popular destinations. To ensure high quality and meaningful experiences for tourists while protecting the natural and cultural resources underpinning the experiences requires effective monitoring including information about patterns in visitation as well as public perceptions about tourism destinations. This often comprises data about who visits when and where, what they value and prefer, how they feel and their perceptions about the destination. It also involves understanding public discourse about destinations including what people are talking about, what they value and their responses to management policies and actions. The advent and evolution of the internet, smart phones, and social media platforms have enabled billions of people to easily share their experiences and opinions about tourism destinations in the form of photographs, texts, and videos. These different types of user-generated content, some of which can easily and freely be obtained from social media platforms, are increasingly used to assess tourism patterns and public discourse for a wide range of destinations complimenting more traditional methods. Most previous research has focused on destinations in high-income developed countries with few studies from low-income developing countries despite them accounting for nearly half of global tourist arrivals. The overarching aim of this thesis is to explore how free social media data can be used to assess tourism patterns and public discourse for low-income developing countries using Nepal as a case study.

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Thesis (PhD Doctorate)

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Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

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School of Environment and Sc

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The author owns the copyright in this thesis, unless stated otherwise.

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Subject

nature-based tourism

Nepal

social media

tourism management

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