Mediatized tourism

This article aims to apply convergence, a new media concept, to tourism studies in order to enhance the understanding of tourists’ agency in destination marketing. Tourists create media products/images which circulate online through various channels like social media. These products are then available for consumption by other tourists, which in turn influences new media products. They all become part of destination marketing processes. Further, by applying convergence to social media networks (Facebook, Twitter, blogs, YouTube and Flickr) related to Rosslyn Chapel and ‘The Da Vinci Code’, this article shows how tourists are active, alone or in collaboration, in an ongoing consumption and production process relating to tourist spaces.

► Convergence is a helpful analytical tool to study tourism in combination with media.
► Convergence captures the intertwining of tourism and media consumption.
► Tourists are active as both consumers and producers of media and tourist spaces.
► Converged media products have an impact on tourists’ own media representations.
► Media’s impact will keep growing which stress the importance of further research.