Uncovering Crowdsourcing in Tourism Apps: A Grounded Theory Study
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
7-10-2021
Publication Title
Tourism Management
Volume
87
First page number:
1
Last page number:
8
Abstract
Even though crowdsourcing emerges as a new business principle of many successful tourism apps, its underlying mechanism in tourism remains unexplored. This research note explores this topic with a qualitative design through interviews with stakeholders involved in a crowdsourcing tourism app, Gold Medal Tour Guide. Applying the grounded theory, researchers propose a framework of crowdsourcing in tourism apps consisting of six themes and 15 subthemes. The framework identifies the drive of crowdsourcing and discusses the complexities and contradictions in multi-stakeholder collaboration. The contextual impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the crowdsourcing phenomenon are also examined. The findings provide practical implications for tourism destinations to take advantage of the crowdsourcing mechanism for sustainable operation and development.
Keywords
COVID-19; Crowdsourcing; Grounded theory; Multi-stakeholder; Sustainable development; Tourism app
Disciplines
Communication | Social and Behavioral Sciences | Social Media | Sociology | Tourism
Language
English
Repository Citation
Zhang, H.,
Leung, X.,
Bai, B.,
Li, Y.
(2021).
Uncovering Crowdsourcing in Tourism Apps: A Grounded Theory Study.
Tourism Management, 87
1-8.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2021.104389
