Chercheur·e du réseau


École des sciences de la gestion
François Bédard
Professeur.e
Université du Québec à Montréal (UQÀM)
École des sciences de la gestion
Département d'études urbaines et touristiques
Intérêts de recherche
  • Tourisme-technologie-distribution et transport
Informations générales
Numéro de téléphone : 
(514) 987-3000 x4121
Numéro de local : 
R-4950
Principales réalisations
Prototypes and Case Studies: Innovation in City Tourism and New Tourism Products

Khomsi, Mohamed Reda, Benoit Duguay et François  Bédard, (2018), Smart City Montreal: The Concept of «Expects», étude de cas présentée dans le livre The Future of Tourism: Innovation and Sustainability  (Dir. Publ. Chris Cooper et Eduardo Fayos-Sola), Éditions Springer.

This chapter provides a series of case studies to enhance the chapters in this section of the book, particularly focusing upon cultural and social innovation in city tourism and product development. These case studies extend the material and concepts in the chapters by examining the issues in detail. Whilst the case study approach has sparked debate in the research literature, particularly focussing around the ability of researchers to generalise more widely from single cases, it is the aim of this chapter to build upon the chapters using real life examples. The case studies work especially well at the local scale by drawing together the many different elements of tourism, their linkages and the relevant stakeholders as they focus on one particular place.

Authenticity and tourism: What TripAdvisor reviews reveal about authentic travel

Safaa, Larbi & El Housni, Khalid & Bedard, Francois. (2017). Authenticity and Tourism: What TripAdvisor Reviews Reveal About Authentic Travel to Marrakech. 595-606. 

Ubiquitous in commercials and tourism brochures, the term authenticity is used in a wide array of meanings ranging from objective to subjective. In an attempt to overcome this deficiency, this article aims to identify how tourists define the authenticity of a travel experience. For this, it engages in a semantic analysis of reviews posted in TripAdvisor by travelers to Marrakech and its surroundings. The platform was chosen among others due to its currently predominant role in assisting tourists and helping them share their experiences. A total of 361 reviews were collected from 160 tourism establishments—40 each of four types of establishments, being the riad guest house, hotel, restaurant, and rural guest house—selected from the ranking of the best tourism establishments proposed by TripAdvisor. The three dimensions of authenticity found in the literature—originality, singularity and identity — were then associated with the four types of tourist accommodations. The “originality” dimension proved to be strongly associated with riad guest houses, the “singularity” dimension with hotels and restaurants, and the “identity” dimension with rural guest houses. 

Keywords: authenticity, Marrakech, TripAdvisor, originality, singularity, identity

From smart city to smart destination. The case of three Canadian cities

Khomsi, M.R ; Bédard, F. (2016). From smart city to smart destination. The case of three Canadien cities.  Proceeding Smart Tourism Congress Barcelona.

Several cities around the world are self-proclaimed “smart” by integrating, in varying degrees, new technologies in the different spheres of the city. Nevertheless, despite this effervescence around the smart city, the concept requires more conceptualization from the researchers. This is even more important when it comes time to distinguishing between smart city and smart destination. The relationship between these two concepts is blurred and the transition from the smart city to the smart destination is not automatic. This situation is explained by the fact that the intrinsic characteristics of their respective target populations, being the citizens and the tourists, are different. This article compares three Canadian cities in the province of Quebec with the aim of demonstrating that the realization of a smart destination project requires the adaptation of governance structure and the involvement of all the stakeholders and more particularly in tourism.

Key Words: Smart City, Smart Destination, Governance, Stakeholders.

 

Affiliations