Purpose: Drawing on the service-dominant logic and the institutional theory, this paper aims to explore the value-creating mechanisms of branding in the destination context and the brand co-creation process at and between different levels of a service ecosystem.Design/methodology/approach: An exploratory research design was used to generate qualitative data from 18 in-depth interviews with important stakeholders and investigate how and why brand co-creation is fostered in the service ecosystem.Findings: The study proposes a stepwise process of strategic imperatives for brand co-creation in the destination context. It presents the multi-directional flows of the brand meaning across levels of the tourism ecosystem and thereby interprets stakeholders’ efforts to co-create sustainable brands that gain prominence in the global tourism arena.Research limitations/implications: Future research might validate the framework in a quantitative research setting. The extended analysis of the value-creating ecosystem could investigate the role of institutions and brand value propositions across levels.Practical implications: Acknowledging their limited control over the brand co-creation process, tourism practitioners are offered step-by-step guidance to help shape a destination brand that may retain relevance in the tourists’ minds. Critical insights are provided into resource sharing between actors and subsequent responsibilities for a sustainable destination branding strategy.Originality/value: The paper considers the significance of the various levels in the ecosystem and the underlying mechanisms of brand co-creation in a somewhat neglected branding domain.

This study examines how social media platforms influence tourism marketing strategies, consumer perceptions, and travel behaviors, addressing their sustainability implications. It aims to evaluate the current state of research on social media in tourism marketing, identify dominant trends, assess empirical evidence of impact, and critically highlight research gaps. The analysis focuses on three core marketing outcomes: destination image, travel intention, and user engagement—and includes a section examining sustainability considerations across environmental, sociocultural, and economic dimensions. The study uses a systematic critical review of 147 peer-reviewed academic articles published between 2015 and 2025, combined with a meta-analysis of 38 quantitative studies that report statistical effect sizes. The meta-analysis uses a random-effects model to compare the influence of different platforms and study contexts. Moderator variables include geographic region, platform type, and methodological design. Findings show that social media marketing has a statistically significant positive effect on destination image (Cohen’s d = 0.61), travel intention (d = 0.54), and user engagement (d = 0.43). The analysis also reveals geographic bias, limited research on emerging platforms, and a lack of longitudinal and ethical inquiry. Findings suggest that tourism researchers and marketers may have to adopt more context-sensitive, interdisciplinary, and ethical approaches. Critical sustainability concerns emerge, including “overtourism”, cultural commodification, digital inequities, and algorithmic biases. Further studies may focus on specific platform-related behaviors, long-term impacts, and integrated online strategies appropriate for global tourism diversity. Lastly, this paper advocates for context-sensitive, interdisciplinary, and ethically grounded approaches to ensure sustainable digital tourism marketing strategies.

The study examines the relationship between virtual reality (VR)‐facilitated mental imagery and travellers' intention to visit a destination. A serial mediation process through travel inspiration (inspired‐by and inspired‐to) is proposed as a psychological mechanism able to explain the positive relationship of elaboration and quality of mental imagery with visit intentions. VR users were recruited through Prolific Academic. The findings demonstrate that VR‐facilitated elaboration of mental imagery increases travel inspiration and consequently visit intention. However, the importance of mental imagery quality is much lower. The paper contributes to the literature of pre‐travel VR experience by exploring the role of travel inspiration.

This study explores the relationship between value co-creation (VCC), guests’ perceived justice and guests’ enjoyment. Cognitive appraisal theory and justice theory are used to explain these relationships. Different dimensions of VCC such as knowledge sharing, equity, interaction, personalization, experience and relationship are investigated in this study. Partial least square Structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to test the hypotheses using data from 365 hotel guests recruited through Prolific. VCC has a positive relationship with guests’ enjoyment through two mediators, the perceived distributive and the interactional justice. This study contributes to the literature of VCC by proposing justice theory as a cognitive process that can partially explain guests’ enjoyment when they adopt an active ‘working' role to undertake value-creating activities.

This study compares the push and pull motivations of East Asian (Japanese, Chinese and Korean) tourists who visit Greece and also proposes market segmentation based on travel motivations that transcend the national boundaries of those countries. Four main push factors were identified: “Knowledge”, “Ego-enhancement”, “Escape & Relaxation” and “Novelty”. Similarly, four pull factors were also identified: “Leisure, shopping and safety”, “Variety and cost”, “Culture & heritage” and “Travel arrangements and facilities”. Cross-cultural differences were found regarding the importance of travel motivations. Chinese tourists scored higher than other nationalities for almost all motivation categories. Although the cross-cultural differences are important, this study proposes another way to tackle the market segmentation by conducting an international segmentation based on inherent similarities across different nationalities of travelers. Three segments emerged from that analysis with the “Novelty Seekers” to be the largest followed by the “Want-it-All” and the “Lowly Motivated”.