Blog Analyses of International Visitors' Interpretations of Sights and Own Experiences in Visiting three South American Cities

Using netnography, this report analyzes travel blogs to show the take-away impressions of first-time visitors to three South American cities: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Santiago, Chile. Visitors recount their travel experiences according to the kernel myths of the respective city (Holt, 2003). The report includes concept maps using Heider's (1958) balance theory for each positive and negative blog to decode the visitor's relationship to a particular iconic myth. Furthermore, the study describes the role of storytelling (McKee, 2003) in marketing for destination brand experiences.