ABSTRACT
The ‘contactless' culture established after COVID-19 and the development of metaverse technologies, such as virtual reality, augmented reality, blockchain and artificial intelligence, serve as vectors of change in museum tourism. Contactless behaviours have forced European museums to reconfigure and strengthen their digital communication and marketing strategies, mainly through social media and audiovisual content, to connect with their audience by virtual means only. This experience has laid the foundations for hybrid communication (physical and virtual) by museums and acted as a pilot experience for their activities in the metaverse of the future. The aim of this research is to analyse the online tourism communication strategies implemented by 20 European museums through Facebook (Meta) in times of COVID-19. The results show the effect of lockdown on patterns of consumption and interaction, and the impact of message content and format on user engagement and participation. © 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
ABSTRACT
This communication has a two fold purpose, on the one hand, to partially present the results of a project covering the current situation of the periodical publications industry across Spain and, on the other, to serve as a starting point for a subsequent analysis of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic onto this sector. This report concentrates on analysing the importance of distribution within the printed periodical publications sector and herein addresses the study of the evolution of the points of sale in Spain, drastically affected by the impacts of Digital Society. The approach focuses on a territorial perspective, with the analysis divided by autonomous regions. Points of sale data and associated trends are compared against population and area data in order to determine the evolution in terms of geographical coverage, given the particular nature of the type of product that is commercialized - to some extent it acts as a guarantor of a fundamental right, in terms of democratic quality, such as the access to information. The results, based on the available data comprising the time preceding the COVID pandemic, are not encouraging at all, reporting a marked decline in the number of points of sale across the nation and, subsequently, a drop in the number of stores per square kilometer and by population. This indicates a fall in the ease of access to these products by the general population: in some cases, these being the only ones that specific groups of society have when accessing information provided by printed publications, as well as for certain entertainment purposes, in particular in regions of the country identified with the 'Espana Vaciada' (the hollowed-out Spain) slogan.
ABSTRACT
This communication has a two fold purpose, on the one hand, to partially present the results of a project covering the current situation of the periodical publications industry across Spain and, on the other, to serve as a starting point for a subsequent analysis of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic onto this sector. This report concentrates on analysing the importance of distribution within the printed periodical publications sector and herein addresses the study of the evolution of the points of sale in Spain, drastically affected by the impacts of Digital Society. The approach focuses on a territorial perspective, with the analysis divided by autonomous regions. Points of sale data and associated trends are compared against population and area data in order to determine the evolution in terms of geographical coverage, given the particular nature of the type of product that is commercialized - to some extent it acts as a guarantor of a fundamental right, in terms of democratic quality, such as the access to information. The results, based on the available data comprising the time preceding the COVID pandemic, are not encouraging at all, reporting a marked decline in the number of points of sale across the nation and, subsequently, a drop in the number of stores per square kilometer and by population. This indicates a fall in the ease of access to these products by the general population: in some cases, these being the only ones that specific groups of society have when accessing information provided by printed publications, as well as for certain entertainment purposes, in particular in regions of the country identified with the ‘España Vaciada’ (the hollowed-out Spain) slogan. © 2022 IEEE Computer Society. All rights reserved.