Mobile applications and destination branding in Spain

The article sets out the findings of research carried out in 2013 on the Spanish tourism mobile applications. The research that covered 66 apps combined a quantitative description of this sector with qualitative categories based on a semiotic analysis. The article evaluates and compares the apps, identifies their main traits, and proposes a taxonomy: the content-based app, the participatory app and the leisure app.This research work has been funded by the project “Online Communication for Destination Brands. Development of an Integrated Assessment Tool: Websites, Mobile Applications and Social Media (CODETUR)” (CSO 2011-22691), of the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness of the Spanish Government