The Importance of the Social Web : Implications for the Tourism Industry and for Society

Kurzfassung/Abstract

The social web is more than a technological innovation: it is a social innovation – it changes the way people and companies interact and communicate. New business models, new structures and new hierarchies in tourism enterprises and tourism organisations are the consequences of this transformation. The environment of tourism will be changed permanently by the influence of the social web on media landscapes, on media consumption and on construction of tourism imaginations. The central starting points of the debate are seized on in this article trying to visualise the challenges in tourism associated with the developments of the social web out of a scientific and practical point of the view.