Shaping Environmental Awareness in Digital Tourism Communication: Discursive and Algorithmic Strategies in South Korea

This study critically investigates the strategies for fostering environmental awareness within digital tourism communication, drawing upon the advanced experience of South Korea as a benchmark for smart and sustainable tourism practices. The research aims to explore how environmental values, sustainable practices, and eco-responsible behaviors are discursively and algorithmically normalized across multiple digital touchpoints, including official tourism portals, online booking systems, social media networks, and AI-driven recommendation engines. Employing a qualitative, multi-method research design, the study analyzes both institutional discourse and user-generated content, examining how linguistic expressions, evaluative terminology, and normative frameworks coalesce to construct and reinforce an eco-conscious tourism narrative. The findings indicate that environmental awareness is not merely transmitted as factual information, but is systematically embedded and operationalized through a combination of discursive strategies and algorithmically mediated prioritization mechanisms. Specifically, AI-based recommendation systems actively shape tourist decision-making by foregrounding eco-friendly options, thereby operationalizing sustainability as a normative rather than optional practice within the digital tourism environment. The study further highlights the dynamic interplay between top-down institutional messaging and bottom-up participatory content creation, demonstrating that environmentally responsible behavior is socially constructed within digital ecosystems. Rather than being a purely individual ethical choice, environmental consciousness emerges as a digitally embedded social norm, reinforced through interactive platforms and mediated by both linguistic and algorithmic mechanisms. Building on these insights, the article proposes a model for digital tourism communication that could be adapted to the context of Uzbekistan, emphasizing the integration of eco-centric discourse into emerging digital tourism infrastructures, systematic use of eco-lexicon on official portals, national branding of “green tourism,” and AI-driven prioritization of sustainable options. Additionally, it underscores the importance of discursive strategies for framing environmental responsibility as socially desirable and culturally relevant, suggesting that digital content creators, influencers, and social media campaigns can play a pivotal role in cultivating a sustainable tourism culture. Overall, the study contributes theoretically by conceptualizing digital tourism communication as a mechanism for shaping environmental consciousness through both discursive and algorithmic processes. Practically, it provides a scientifically grounded framework for aligning Uzbekistan’s sustainable tourism policies with digital development strategies, offering a replicable model for embedding eco-consciousness in digitally mediated tourism ecosystems.