On November 8, 2013 Bournemouth University School of Tourism and the BU eTourism Lab hosted the event  ‘Social Media- Make or break reputation’ as part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science.

The event started with a warm welcome from the Director of eTourism Lab
and Deputy Director International Centre for Tourism and Hospitality Research (ICTHR) Professor Dimitrios Buhalis together with Dean of the School of Tourism at Bournemouth University Keith Wilkes.

After that a range of presentations were given by representatives of well-known travel and tourism companies as well as academics with expertise in tourism. The first presenter was Dr Scott McCabe from Nottingham University who spoke about ‘Social media and new marketing’.

Scott’s presentation was followed by another great presentation from Dr Philip Alford who introduced ‘Coaching 60 Bournemouth business on social media – the Digital Destinations project’.

After that Rowena Revill from Dorset Creative presented a few case studies in her presentation:’ Social media best practice in Dorset’.

The event continued with Dr Brigitte Stangl  from the University of Surrey who gave insights into the topic of ‘Innovation, User-based Design and Social Media’.

Brigitte’s topic was complemented by the presentation by PhD candidate at Bournemouth University Vicky Loi  about ‘Social media and brand personality’.

A slightly different, but also social-media-related aspect was presented by Dr Eleni Michopoulou from Derby University. Eleni spoke about  ‘Disability, Accessibility markets and social media’.

Following Eleni’s presentation, Dr Alessandro Inversini from Bournemouth University spoke about ‘Online Reputation and competitiveness’.

Towards the end of the presentation session Nicolas Gregori from the Digital Tourism Think Tank shared with us his findings about ‘ Social Media in real time’.

After the presentations it was time for the participants to have some drinks and refreshments and to socialise and network with the other participants of the event.

After lunch the event ended with an interactive panel discussion. Panelists included Jon Weaver (Bournemouth Tourism), Richard Teideman (London Creative), Ben Dames (National Trust) , Andy Martin (Bournemouthecho), Rosie Akenhead  (Yelp UK),  Olivia O’Sullivan (The Green House Hotel), Emily Goodyer (Marriott Hotel Bournemouth), Sam Sutton (New Forest Activities), Hannah Caines (West Beach) and Nina Basset (Hotel Terravina).