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

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