Destination Image on Social Media: The case of the Douro Wine Region

The image of a tourist destination must be worked by the various players in the tourist industry, as a way of attracting the destination, and promoted in several communication channels, namely in social media. Social networks are a source of information, content sharing and experiences by various users, and can condition the image created of a destination favorably or not. The Douro Wine Region, a World Heritage since 2001, presents itself as a tourist destination by excellence, due to its many attractions. Thus, this exploratory study aims to analyze the presence on the social networks of the destination Douro Vinhateiro and identify the dimensions of the image of the destination. To this end, a search was made for “Douro Turismo” on the social network Facebook, and the pages of four companies were analyzed. The search for the various contents resulted in three main dimensions: the Douro River, the Vineyards and the City of Porto.