Bryan Miller '23 CCPS, a senior in the CCPS Fast Track Pathway Program for B.S. Hospitality Management/M.S. International Hospitality Management, was awarded “Best Undergraduate Completed Research Award – 2nd Place” at the 2023 THEREPS (Tourism, Hospitality, and Event Conference for Researchers, Educators, Practitioners, and Students) Conference held on April 14–15 in the New York New York Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The research project titled User Engagement Analysis of YouTube Travel Destination Videos: Comparison between Urban City and National Park Videos paid attention to the necessity of developing insights for social media engagement marketing on YouTube. For the project, six travel destination promotion videos (New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Yosemite National Park, Lake Tahoe, and Yellowstone National Park) were investigated and 12,688 user comments were analyzed to identify major themes and topics in the online community conversations. The research found that the type of travel destination can lead to different engagement reaction behaviors (clicking likes or commenting). The conclusion provided travel destination marketers with practical implications to improve engagement levels on social media.
The Undergraduate Research Forum is a program at the THEREPS conference and eleven student teams (SJU, Niagara U, Michigan State, Cal State, Iowa State, Kansas State, North Dakota State, etc.) were invited for presentations this year.