Tourists’ Recommendations: WOM Becomes Digital

Tourism is a sector in which consumers – tourists widely share their opinions, experiences and recommendations. Due to the fact that tourist services cannot be evaluated before the purchase, word-of-mouth has been recognized as an influential factor and a significant resource of information transmission in the tourism market. Word-of-mouth has an important role in tourists’ decision-making processes, in which consumers – tourists rely on the suggestions from those who have experienced the service. With the increasing use of the Internet, a large number of consumers – tourists have begun to share their recommendations online. Electronic word-of-mouth refers to any positive or negative statement made by a consumer - tourist about a tourist service, which is available on the Internet. The digitalization of word-of-mouth has created numerous possibilities and challenges for hospitality and tourism marketers. This paper aims to examine the influence of traditional word-of-mouth and electronic word-of-mouth on tourists’ decision-making processes. Specifically, the purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of virtual interactions among consumers – tourists as a part of tourism promotion. This paper has provided a theoretical framework of word-of-mouth (WOM) and electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) showing that electronic word-of-mouth plays an important role in the tourists’ decision-making process. This work is licensed under a&nbsp;Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.</p

Tourists’ Recommendations: WOM Becomes Digital

Tourism is a sector in which consumers – tourists widely share their opinions, experiences and recommendations. Due to the fact that tourist services cannot be evaluated before the purchase, word-of-mouth has been recognized as an influential factor and a significant resource of information transmission in the tourism market. Word-of-mouth has an important role in tourists’ decision-making processes, in which consumers – tourists rely on the suggestions from those who have experienced the service. With the increasing use of the Internet, a large number of consumers – tourists have begun to share their recommendations online. Electronic word-of-mouth refers to any positive or negative statement made by a consumer - tourist about a tourist service, which is available on the Internet. The digitalization of word-of-mouth has created numerous possibilities and challenges for hospitality and tourism marketers. This paper aims to examine the influence of traditional word-of-mouth and electronic word-of-mouth on tourists’ decision-making processes. Specifically, the purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of virtual interactions among consumers – tourists as a part of tourism promotion. This paper has provided a theoretical framework of word-of-mouth (WOM) and electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) showing that electronic word-of-mouth plays an important role in the tourists’ decision-making process. This work is licensed under a&nbsp;Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.</p

The Use of YouTube as a Tourism Marketing Tool

YouTube started as a social media tool, but is now evolving into a marketing communications tool. The aim of this paper is to investigate the use of YouTube as a tourism-marketing tool from the viewpoint of tourism organizations and tourists. Developing its theoretical base from the perspective on how tourists recognize images, a review of 320 European tourism videos on YouTube concluded that many organizations failed to understand that media produced for traditional marketing outlets (TV, cinema) cannot be transferred directly to YouTube. The study also highlighted the growing power of the individual consumer in tourism marketing, as reflected in the dominance of tourism videos produced by real tourists rather than by official tourism organizations. The study concluded that while YouTube was useful as a promotional/ communications tool, more research is required to understand how the YouTube generation filter, select and use tourism information in their trip planning

The Use of YouTube as a Tourism Marketing Tool

YouTube started as a social media tool, but is now evolving into a marketing communications tool. The aim of this paper is to investigate the use of YouTube as a tourism-marketing tool from the viewpoint of tourism organizations and tourists. Developing its theoretical base from the perspective on how tourists recognize images, a review of 320 European tourism videos on YouTube concluded that many organizations failed to understand that media produced for traditional marketing outlets (TV, cinema) cannot be transferred directly to YouTube. The study also highlighted the growing power of the individual consumer in tourism marketing, as reflected in the dominance of tourism videos produced by real tourists rather than by official tourism organizations. The study concluded that while YouTube was useful as a promotional/ communications tool, more research is required to understand how the YouTube generation filter, select and use tourism information in their trip planning. Thediv_BaM42pub2315pu

Media społecznościowe w procesie planowania rozwoju turystyki w skali regionalnej

The aim of the article is to present the concept of using social media (SM) as sources of information useful in the various phases of development, implementation and monitoring of plans for the development of tourism on a regional scale. The first part presents a review containing a synthetic overview of research topics related to the use of SM in tourism. This review gives a picture of the use of SM as a tool to collect and communicate information useful in planning process of tourism development. The basic stages of planning of tourism development on a regional scale have also been discussed, using the scheme proposed by Cooper et al. (2005). The second part of the article presents the concept of using SM as sources of information useful in the key stages of the planning of tourism development on a regional scale. This concept shows both the perspective of the practical use of databases generated in SM and the challenges related to the need of further development of research on the methods of tourism planning, adequate to the dynamically changing conditions of its development

Consumer-to-Consumer Online Sharing of Co-Creative Advertising Campaigns

This thesis aims to increase understanding of what motivates consumer-to-consumer (C2C) sharing of co-creative advertising campaigns on social media platforms. Consumer use of the Internet has increased immensely, and affects organisations due to the growth of consumer-to-consumer interactions, such as word-of-mouth. Word-of-mouth is a powerful form of advertising because of consumer trust in their social media networks, therefore, it is crucial for organisations to increase C2C sharing as a form of advertising, and in particular, co-creative advertising campaigns. To achieve this aim, this study used a grounded theory approach, to gather a comprehensive amount of data to discover theoretical propositions about the phenomenon. A total of ten unstructured depth interviews were conducted before theoretical saturation was reached. The results of the study found that consumer motivations to share co-creations online were pride, and to connect with others, conceptualised by social media self-presentation, and a consciousness of others. Whilst consumer motivations to participate in co-creative advertising campaigns were escapism and self-interest. The primary implication of these findings is understanding how organisations can influence consumer motivations to share co-creations online, hence, organisations advertising, by increasing personal connections that consumers can use to connect with others in consumer-to-consumer platforms online

O impacto dos social media na experiência turística: um estudo cross country

O sector do turismo é uma das atividades que mais contribui para a economia de vários países do mundo, dos quais Portugal e também a Alemanha não são exceção. No caso da Alemanha, este sector chega mesmo a proporcionar mais postos de trabalho do que a própria indústria automóvel alemã. Com a constante evolução das novas tecnologias e o facilitismo ao acesso de informação, o sector do turismo teve e terá que enfrentar grandes mudanças a nível da estratégia de comunicação de marketing para continuar a ser um dos sectores mais quentes da balança económica. Cada vez mais, o consumidor tem acesso a um maior número de produtos e serviços, assim como um maior número de ferramentas para aceder a informações acerca dos mesmos. Deste modo, facilmente consegue comparar produtos e serviços entre si e tomar a melhor decisão de compra sem grande esforço. Uma das ferramentas que tem ajudado o consumidor nesta tarefa é precisamente os social media. Estas aplicações tem vindo a mostrar se cada vez mais presente na vida do consumidor e como consequência inevitável, também no mundo das marcas. O desafio agora está na questão de como as marcas poderão tirar o melhor proveito a seu favor, destas ferramentas. Nesta dissertação procuro focar-me essencialmente no estudo de duas culturas distintas, nomeadamente a cultura portuguesa e a germânica. Para ser ainda mais específica, apenas darei especial atenção à população mais jovem pertencente a ambas as culturas (Geração Y), tendo em conta a sua familiaridade com as novas tecnologias. Trata-se assim dum estudo cross coutry que procura identificar as diferenças existentes entre culturas quando as mesmas recorrem aos social media para fins turísticos. Um dos objetivos que se pretende com esta dissertação é a identificação do papel dos social media em cada uma das fases de experiência turística: antes, durante e após a viagem. Interessa verificar se existem diferenças neste aspeto entre as duas culturas em estudo. Outro objetivo de grande importância prende-se com o nível de confiança que ambas as culturas depositam nos social media, e identificar se existem diferenças entre elas. Para conseguir dar resposta a estes objetivos, foi desenvolvido um estudo quantitativo, assumido a forma de inquérito online que foi divulgado em diversos social media sitesThe tourism industry is one of many which mainly contribute to the economy of several countries in the world, from which Portugal and Germany are no exception. In Germany’s case, the tourism sector is responsible for more working places than even the German car industry. Due to the fact that the new technologies are constantly changing and the ease of access for the consumer to reach information he/she needs, the tourism industry has and will have to face new challenges in its marketing strategy, in order to keep being one of the hottest industries in the market. The consumer has been empowered, by access to a new and wide range of products and services, as well as an increasing number of tools that makes his/her decision easier. This way, people can easily compare products and services in order to take the best purchasing decision. One of the already mentioned tools that help the consumer in its decision are the social media sites. These applications have been more and more present in the consumer’s life. Therefore they also have to be a present in the brand’s strategy. The challenge now is how the brands should use these tools on their behalf. During this master thesis, I will have special focus on two distinct cultures, namely the Portuguese culture and the German one. To be more specific I will only study the youngest generation of these two, so distinctive cultures (Generation Y), because of their familiarity with the new technologies. In this sequence, the thesis is about a cross country study where I want to identify the differences between both cultures when they use the social media sites for travel purposes. One of the main goals of this master thesis is the identification of the role of the social media in each of the travel phases: before, during and after the actual trip. I want to verify if there are differences in the way these two cultures access and use the social media sites during their travel routine. A quantitative study was developed in order to reach these goals. An online questionnaire was performed and shared through several social media sites I was familiar with

FACTORS THAT AFFECT CUSTOMER INTENTION TO REVISIT GREEN HOTELS: THE CASE OF ABU DHABI

Given the Abu Dhabi 2008 Estidama sustainability initiative and the Abu Dhabi Economic Vision 2030, hospitality is one of the sectors that can contribute most significantly to the long-term economic growth of Abu Dhabi and have the greatest impact on its environmental and natural resources. The results of this study will enable decision-makers to understand why consumers choose green hotels over conventional hotels. The purpose is to expand existing knowledge by investigating the factors that influence customer intention to revisit green hotels from four perspectives: the self-perspective, the prosocial perspective, the business-to-business marketing perspective, and the consumer-to-consumer marketing perspective. The purpose is achieved by developing and testing a framework that integrates the theory of planned behavior (TPB) in an extended form, value belief norm (VBN) theory, corporate identity mix theory (CIMT), and intention to spread word-of-mouth (WOM). This study adopts a positivist research philosophy and uses a quantitative approach to validate the 30 hypotheses empirically. The measurement instrument is a questionnaire distributed to individuals over the age of 18 who have visited an environmentally responsible hotel during the past three years. Data collected from 316 respondents are analyzed using the structural equation modeling package AMOS 28. The results indicate that the integrated framework has good predictive power for consumer intention to revisit green hotels. Environmental concerns, willingness to make a sacrifice for the environment, and willingness to pay more for green hotels are found to have an influence on the TPB constructs, with a willingness to pay more having the greatest impact. Attitude toward green hotels was the key driver behind consumer intention to revisit green hotels in Abu Dhabi, followed by intention to spread WOM about green hotels, perceived behavioral control toward green hotels, subjective norms toward green hotels, a sense of obligation toward green hotels, and hotel corporate image, in that order. These findings contribute to research in the context of the hospitality sector from a green marketing perspective