This paper describes recent changes in social media platforms and camera technologies that are ringing in a new era of social media practices. It specifically portrays the premises and promises of visual content sharing platforms such as Instagram, livecasting platforms like Periscope and the multi-media messaging app Snapchat. It argues that, as a result of shifts in the social media landscape, new social media marketing approaches are needed. It outlines opportunities and challenges for tourism marketers in taking advantage of new visual trends and calls for a better understanding of tourists' visual content creation and visual social media use behaviours to inform tourism marketing practice.
In the current context of social arrhythmia promoted by the culture of excess, consumerism and individualism the purpose of this article is to discuss the need to promote changes in tourism and society towards a more human development, based on the pillars of the solidarity economy. The article extends discussions on the solidarity economy into the context of classical economics, with new offers and demands that are focused not on capital accumulation only, but on the rights and development of human beings. To achieve this goal, we analyse four key foundations of the solidarity economy - solidarity, social equality, cooperation and sharing. The original contribution of the paper is to present cutting-edge ideas that show a counterpoint to capitalism and consumerism; one that is excluded from global tourism's contradictory path by a form of production that values social relations, and quality of life in community experiences and community tourism.
The purpose of this paper is to identify the main demand and supply determinants of international tourism flows to Greece, given the significant impact of tourism on the country’s economy. For the empirical analysis the authors estimated an original gravity equation in which tourism flows depend on classic as well as experimental factors. The used dataset includes tourist arrivals from 19 countries over the period 2005-2015. The resulting coefficient of determination of this model is relatively high and the considered variables are statistically significant. Tourism flows to Greece are negatively affected by the bilateral distance and climate similarity between Greece and the origin countries; furthermore, the response variable is positively affected by the investments in transport infrastructure, the country’s stability and the incomes and EU membership of the origin countries. The proposed recommendations to the Greek stakeholders include: creation of quality infrastructure; synergies with other sectors; boost of competitiveness; establishment of Greece as a safe destination; and, promotional campaigns.
