UNESCO urban world heritage sites: Tourists' awareness in the era of social media

This paper examines the tourists' awareness regarding UNESCO World Heritage Site (WHS) status of city des-tinations. A novel theoretical model defining macro and micro levels of analysis is constructed and used as research basis. A global sample of 105 WHS cities is examined together with corresponding user generated content from 2.5 million TripAdvisor reviews. Data collected is verified from various official sources, enriched, and thoroughly analyzed.It is shown that macro level attributes do not play a substantial role, while micro level factors significantly affect how much tourists and locals are aware of or interested in the UNESCO designation. Tourist demographics and representation of a city's attractions in social media are also shown to be important factors influencing the awareness.