Digital Marketing for Sustainable Traditional Music Festivals: The Case of Crete
摘要
Authenticity, participation, and creativity are seen as key drivers for sustainable and holistic destination development, both on site and online. This study examines the marketing strategy of three traditional music workshops in Crete, organized in three villages, Houdetsi, Meronas, and Hamezi, as case studies of creative tourism practices. The authors use digital ethnography tools to study and analyze the digital presence of the villages, in order to examine the ways such interactive, co-creative events use digital space as a sign and a promise of the actual events and/or whether they manage to use Chung’s three digital media characteristics: their ability to offer information, foster understanding, and encourage interaction with the users. The findings are useful to both the research community and stakeholders that wish to comprehend the ways music tourism can be used as a destination promotion mechanism.