The tourism industry has been characterised by digitalisation for quite a few years. At the same time, the challenge has been that development has primarily been technology-driven. Geomedia researchers at Karlstad University want to focus on the places and their history and highlight them.
Lotta Braunerhielm, Laila Gibson and Linda Ryan Bengtsson, all of them from the Centre for Geomedia Studies at Karlstad University, have written the paper “Geomedia Perspectives for Multiple Futures in Tourism Development” where they explore the relationship between people and places.
– Geomedia offers a perspective that sheds light on the relationship between people, places and technology, illustrating how they interact and influence one another, says Lotta Braunerhielm, docent in Human Geography. By understanding the relationship between people/places and technology, the tourism industry also gains insight into how it needs to work with digital layers to take command of its own development. We argue that digital development should take place in harmony with people and places.
In the article you describe how participants in the study explored a destination and identified suitable experiences for digitalisation. How did you conduct the study?
– To find these stories, we looked at archival material, the representation of the place on social media, literature about the place, and conducted interviews with a variety of local stakeholders, says Linda Ryan Bengtsson, docent in Media and Communication Studies. We interviewed local residents, representatives from associations, companies, public actors and visitors. In our work, we applied a critical geomedia perspective, which led to a kind of rediscovery of the place and provided new insights into the local resources for the participants in our project.
Are there any “basic ingredients” that need to be included for a place to become a tourist destination?
– All places carry history, nature, architecture and culture that appeal to visitors, says Laila Gibson, senior lecturer in Sociology. What makes a place a tourist destination is about the way it is presented and contextualised, how it is made interesting. That process is necessary. However, the process can vary, developing over the long or short term, and can occur either as a deliberate effort or spontaneously.
What are your plans for continuing your research in this field?
– We have been conducting research on the digital development in the tourism industry in several different projects over the past nine years, says Linda Ryan Bengtsson. In recent years, the industry has begun focusing on place development, which means that the focus of research has also shifted. In our latest project, focus has been on the role of the tourism industry in place development in rural areas. We want to add more perspectives and actors where the tourism industry works in symbiosis with other industries and sectors. At the moment, we are in a phase where we are collaborating both in projects and seeking funding together with other researchers internally at Karlstad University as well as externally through regional clusters where our method around place-based digital development and innovation contributes in new contexts.
– We have published several research papers in the field, but what we want to focus on in this paper is that the method we have developed opens up for local stakeholders to discover more possibilities and shift their gaze from the expected and previous notions of a place, says Lotta Braunerhielm. Our in-depth studies can sometimes initially be seen as provocative, as they challenge how local actors understand and market a place. But in the work going forward, the change in perspective forms the basis for furthering the attractiveness of a place, in harmony between people, place and technology.
The article is part of a theme issue of the publication Media and Communication, where Cornelia Brantner, Karin Fast, both professors in media and communication at Karlstad University, and Pablo Abend, professor of design theory at Burg Giebichenstein Kunsthochschule Halle, were editors.
More about the theme issue
