Sustainability Communication in Rural Tourism: Website Content Analysis, in Viseu Dão Lafões Region (Portugal)
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear authors
Let me congratulate you on putting together such an exciting piece of research. While the content and structure are well articulated, some issues will need your attention to strengthen the overall paper.
Abstract
Well written and clearly introduces the problem under investigation and preliminary results
Intro
Clear and concise providing a succinct overview of the problem that underpin the investigation. I’s suggest the authors rephrasing the last paragraph as it doesn’t flow that well. Also, there is no need to add section xx in brackets.
Lit review
It’s well structured and covers important work along with specific sub-headings. I’d suggest the authors connect with the importance of culture and social values as those play an essential role in rural tourism. Please have a look at the following work:
- Nomm, A. H., Albrecht, J. N., & Lovelock, B. (2020). Advocacy and community leadership as functions in national and regional level destination management. Tourism Management Perspectives, 35, 100682.
- Daugstad, K. (2008). Negotiating landscape in rural tourism. Annals of Tourism Research, 35(2), 402-426.
- Marques, B., & Baker, A. B. A. (2019). Rural Landscape Signatures. Acta Architecturae Naturalis, 5, 37-51.
- Fatimah, T. (2015). The impacts of rural tourism initiatives on cultural landscape sustainability in Borobudur area. Procedia Environmental Sciences, 28, 567-577.
Method and Case Study
This section is good but will need some improvement. The methodology is not clearly explained upfront and there is no information regarding the tangible and intangible values of the region. We’ll need a better overview of the region. I’d suggest renaming this section as Methodology and Case Study for greater clarity.
Results
The results are well articulated and reported. However, we will need a short introduction upfront explaining how and why the authors decided to report the results in such categories (information and process, value added, etc.). It is unclear why such decisions were made.
Conclusion
It’s clear and ties the argument to the original aims and objectives of the paper.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you for your suggestion. In relation to the introduction we rephrasing the last paragraph and eliminate xx in brackets. Concerning literature review we connected the text with the importance of culture and social values and added all the works you suggested. In relation to the study case and method, more information has been added on the methodology used, on the tangible and intangible values of the region and a paragraph on the main tourist products of the region was added (after Figure 1). Also the name of section 3 was changed. In relation to results we also add a short introduction upfront explaining how and why the authors decided to report the results in such categories (information and process, value added, etc.).
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear authors, thank you for submitting the paper entitled: ''Sustainability communication in rural tourism: website content analysis, in Viseu Dão Lafões Region (Portugal)''.
The paper is well structured and it includes a unique methodological approach for examining the nexus of sustainability and rural tourism. However, there are certain improvements that need to be implemented before the paper can be considered for publication.
- The methodology is not very clear. In the section: 3.2 Data gathering procedures, you wrote the following:
''In a second stage of the process, we exported all the information concerning these 39 rural tourism units to an Excel spreadsheet and based on literature review created a new database with the following relevant fields: information and process, value added, relationship, design and usability, trust and sustainability communication (see Table 1)''.
Please clarify which literature you used for creating the new database. Moreover, please provide argumentation as to why you chose those relevant fields.
- Results and Discussion section should provide detailed proposals for improving the rural tourism lodgings. Minor improvement proposals are provided in the Conclusion section, but these proposals should be much more emphasized in the paper. This should not be a major revision, considering the data you have collected.
- As for the Website content analysis, you might also consider the attributes from the model used in the following reference:
Li, J., Whitlow, M., Bitsura-Meszaros, K., Leung, Y. F., & Barbieri, C. (2016). A preliminary evaluation of World Heritage tourism promotion: comparing websites from Australia, China, and Mexico. Tourism Planning & Development, 13(3), 370-376.
I would like to congratulate the authors for writing such an interesting article.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you for your suggestions. Concerning methodology all the information that you asked was introduced:
“The main matrix, used in the evaluation of websites, arises from the adaptation of the work of Hashim, Murphy & Law (2007). The five main categories were maintained: Information and Process, Value Added, Relationships, Design and Usability, Trust – that un-fold into several variables. We used those that are relevant and are directly related to the purpose of the present work. Since the present study focuses on sustainability communication, made through the websites of tourism accommodations in rural areas, there was a need to complement the initial grid, with elements directly related to sustainability issues. The work of Hsieh (2012), Olya, Altinay, Farmaki, Kenebayeva & Gursoy (2020) and Tiago, Gil, Stemberger, & Borges-Tiago (2021) were an important contribution”.
In relation to results and discussion we made some interesting proposals in order to improve the success of the rural tourism unit. Finally, in relation to content analysis we saw the paper that you have suggested and introduced it in the paper.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors have improved the manuscript according to reviewer's comments and the paper is ready for publishing.
