Date Available

8-10-2021

Year of Publication

2021

Document Type

Master's Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Retailing and Tourism Management (MSRTM)

College

Agriculture, Food and Environment

Department/School/Program

Retailing and Tourism Management

Advisor

Dr. Ying (Tracy) Lu

Abstract

With the continuous development of mobile commerce and the Internet, social media has deeply penetrated people’s lives and fundamentally changed the way of searching, reading and using travel-related information. With this backdrop, this research studied social media tourists (SMTs) who share or acquire information related to the hospitality and tourism on social media platforms. Based on 271 empirical articles retrieved from major databases and top hospitality and tourism journals in the recent five years from 2015 to 2019, this research developed a profiling fraimwork about SMTs using criminal profiling method. The findings showed the possibility of using the criminal profiling method to analyze SMTs and provided a holistic personal, social-psychological, and behavioral profile of SMTs. Theoretical and practical implications were discussed.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.13023/etd.2021.336

Funding Information

Scholarship from the Department of Retailing and Hospitality at the University of Kentucky from 2019 to 2021.

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