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Battle of Destinations: Digital Presence & Online Reputation

1. Type of activity

• Mandatory assessment: Critical analysis activity in class (small groups).
• Optional assessment: Portfolio (individual).

2. Active methodology

• Task-based learning.
• Analysis of real cases.
• Portfolio.

3. Teaching unit

Digital tourism & social media

4. Learning objectives

• To identify and compare digital promotion strategies.
• To develop critical analysis skills for digital messages and user reviews.
• To summarise information and represent it visually.
• To work collaboratively on research and idea presentation.
• To improve written expression.

5. Activity description

In groups of 2 or 3 students, you will analyse the digital communication of two real tourist destinations, comparing their presence on social media and online reputation through reviews and brand image. In class, choose two tourist destinations (cities, regions, or countries) that have an active presence on social media and a significant number of user reviews (Tripadvisor, Google Reviews, etc.). With your group:

1) Analyse the type of content published on Instagram, TikTok, or other platforms: what formats do they use? What tone or style? What target audience do they seem to have?

2)     Collect real user opinions and assess the overall tone (positive, neutral, negative).

3)     Make a critical comparison of the strengths and weaknesses of each destination’s digital communication and online reputation.

4)     Create a comparative visual infographic summarising the key points (using Canva, Genial.ly, or similar).

5)     Print your work as a poster for an exhibition of all infographics in the classroom during the next session, and discuss them orally in a class debate.

Afterwards, you may write or record a final reflection for your individual portfolio, evaluating the activity and explaining how you used AI tools (what was used, how, and why).

6. Tasks to complete

• Research on social media and review websites.
• Debate and selection of the most relevant points.
• Visual design of the infographic with clear sections (images, data, real quotes, icons…).
• Print the infographic as a poster for display and discussion in the next class.
• Final evaluation and reflection.

7. Use of AI

• ChatGPT or Copilot: Help with formulating comparison questions or identifying patterns in reviews.
• Grammarly or Quillbot: Review short texts for the infographic.
• Canva or Napkin: Collaborative creation of the infographic.
• Google Gemini or Claude: Classify reviews according to user sentiment.

8. Learning resources

• Official social media accounts of tourist destinations.
• User review platforms: Google Reviews, Tripadvisor, Booking.
• Canva, Genially, Figma, Piktochart (visual creation).
• ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grammarly.
• Extracts from the book English for International Tourism. Upper Intermediate.

9. Assessment tasks

• Group poster with comparative infographic.
• Optionally, oral evidence (3 minutes) and/or written evidence (150-200 words) for the individual portfolio.

10. Assessment criteria

• Infographic poster: Non-graded indicative evaluation of the following aspects: language use, task achievement, active participation and collaboration within the group, responsible and reflective use of AI tools.
• Portfolio (optional): Oral evidence (3% of final grade) and/or written evidence (3% of final grade) based on these criteria: task achievement, creativity, argumentative ability, and critical thinking. For oral evidence, fluency and pronunciation will also be assessed.

11. Remarks

• It is advisable to limit destination selection to a predefined list to avoid repetitions.
• Infographics can also be shared in the collaborative space of the virtual campus instead of printing them.