Before web-marketing: digital tour landscapes from relational users

Abstract

Online visibility of a cultural site can be considered a strong indicator of the institutional ability to activate the cultural heritage. With the spread of the Internet into social practices of millions of people, the search for contents relating to a travel destination or a specific monument, has gradually shifted in terms of strategic influence from traditional channels to online information resources. The public opinion on the quality of cultural heritages or events depends less and less from the assessment of traditional agencies and it is instead increasingly dependent on user reviews and rankings based on social network sharing activities.