Netnography evolved: New contexts, scope, procedures and sensibilities

Netnography is an ever-evolving qualitative digital research method that has been used and advanced by tourism researchers to understand a broad spectrum of topics. Developments such as artificial intelligence and emerging cultural phenomena offer new opportunities for tourism netnographers but require procedural adjustments. This paper updates, applies, and explains how contemporary netnographers collect digital traces and diverse user experiences while following and adapting the method's foundational steps, movements, and operations. Expanding the field of touristic inquiry using netnography to new sites, data, and experience types, balancing rigor and adaptability, emphasizing engagement, ethics, empathy, and immersion, and elaborating the interpretation of different data collection modalities, this paper provides a novel and cutting-edge guide for applying netnography in contemporary tourism research.