PhD Studentship: Can Residents Cope? Exploring Residents’ Attitudes towards Commodification of Place through Social Media-Induced Tourism

This research aims to create new knowledge about social media-induced tourism and to explore salient strategies for more nuanced management and policy solutions that are needed to avoid exploitation in impacted destinations.

Certain global destinations, like Chefchaouen, Morocco and Hallstatt, Austria, have experienced increased tourism due to virality on social media. Photos and videos of these sites, which are in both natural and developed areas, have been posted and shared across social media platforms, and this exposure is attracting hordes of tourists who visit to record and share their own experiences. This social media virality and subsequent surges in tourist visitation can negatively impact local residents’ quality of life as they struggle to find ways to cope with this, often unwelcome, tourist presence. This new phenomenon is similar to other media-induced tourism, such as film tourism and TV-induced tourism, but the spontaneity of social-media tourism and its unbidden and unplanned nature requires local residents to improvise their own coping strategies in the absence of support traditionally provided by Destination Management Organisations and local authorities.

Local communities have begun developing coping strategies to deal with influxes of tourists which are affecting their everyday lives and livelihoods. Taking a qualitative approach, this research will explore this new type of tourism at viral social media hotspots. There is potential for the student to choose the destination they focus on, especially if there is a personal connection or vested interest in a particular nation, community, or site, however the focus must remain on a place that is facing challenges due to social media-induced tourism

Duration: 3 years, Full-Time Study or 6 years, Part-Time Study commencing on 23 September 2024.

Bursary available (subject to satisfactory performance): Year 1: £18,622 (FT) or pro-rata (PT) Year 2: In line with UKRI rate Year 3: In line with UKRI rate In addition, the successful candidate will receive a contribution to tuition fees equivalent to the university’s Home rate, currently £4,712 (FT) or pro-rata (PT), for the duration of their scholarship. International applicants will need to pay the remainder tuition fee for the duration of their scholarship.

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