The Market for Online Tourism Communities

Online Communities have been researched for a long time from social, informational as well as economic perspectives. Most approaches up-to-now focussed on the interaction of a number of users with specific communities, are studies about the characteristics of communities in different domains or are general guidelines for the development of these communities. These approaches, however, neglect the aspect that one entire online community is embedded in a landscape of other communities and interrelates with them. In this article we describe this landscape as a market in which a community competes with other communities for online members. We discuss characteristics and forces of this market and present results from a study that monitored 36 online travel communities over a period of several months. Our data indicate that with regards to registered members, there are few very large communities, in contrast to a large number of very small communities. An analysis of the average number of members that are actually online, however, shows that smaller communities (e.g., with a regional scope) are, in principle, able to mobilize a higher degree of their members. We conclude that niche strategies can be successful in this market, and discuss implications for this community landscape

Volunteer tourism, greenwashing and understanding responsible marketing using market signalling theory

Volunteer tourism has been heavily criticised for its negative consequences on destinations and volunteers, often the direct result of unrealistic demand-led marketing and lack of consideration for the environmental and social costs of host communities. While some industry participants have responded through adherence to best practice, little information or support is available about how to responsibly market volunteer tourism. This research uses an online content analysis based on the International Voluntourism Guidelines for Commercial Operators to understand the use of responsibility as a market signalling tool. Five influential web pages of eight organisations are scored across 19 responsibility criteria and compared against the organisation’s legal status, product type and price. We find that responsibility is not used for market signalling; preference is given to communicating what is easy, and not what is important. The status of the organisation is no guarantee of responsible practice, and price and responsibility communications display an inverse relationship. We conclude volunteer tourism operators are overpositioning and communicating responsibility inconsistently, which highlights greenwashing, requiring at least industry-wide codes of practice, and at best, regulation. This paper reflects on its methodological limitations, and on its practical achievements in encouraging change within some of the organisations examined

A study on the influence of electronic word of mouth and the image of gastronomy tourism on the intentions of tourists visiting Macau

The purpose of this study focuses on the extent to which electronic word-of- mouth (eWOM) and the image of Macanese gastronomy tourism influences tourists\u27 intentions, based on samples of those who use the Internet, to search for information about Macanese gastronomy. This study was conducted from April to June 2013. A quantitative research method was adopted and online questionnaires were distributed to those participants who were members of online communities or travel groups. An incentive strategy was also used to increase response rates. Following data collection, the analysis was carried out. The findings revealed that the image of gastronomy tourism and eWOM had significantly positive effects on tourists\u27 intentions, and electronic word of mouth had a significantly positive relationship with the image of Macanese gastronomy tourism. This suggests that both are leading factors in attracting tourists; therefore boosting the travel industry in Macau. Additionally, the image of cuisine held a stronger perception than image of restaurants and food related activities. The dimension of sociability held more credibility in comparison to other aspects of eWOM. This perhaps suggested that the image of gastronomy tourism had not been delivered sufficiently to tourists. The findings attempted to provide evidence for the Macau Government Tourism Office and website operators to effectively promote the image of gastronomy tourism in Macau. Internet use was explored in terms of motivating tourists to travel for reasons of gastronomy in order to create a reasonably valid construct for use in market segmentation purposes

“Rafiki Kahawa Shamba”: Developing “coffee tourism” in organic coffee farm to support local economic development in Tanzania

Final paper submitted to: AD650 Economic Development via Tourism in Developing World: Tanzania, Spring, 2017, Professor Samuel Mendlinger. Assignment #3: New Tourism Service for Tanzania

Social Media and Hotel E-Marketing in Iran: The Case of Parsian International Hotels

With a quantitative study, this research has aimed to investigate the role of social media in Iranian hotels’ electronic marketing. A questionnaire technique was used on a sample of 140 marketers who work in the Parsian International Hotels’ marketing department. For data evaluation an SPSS program was used. Kolmogorov-Smirnov, Cochran, Regression, Non-standardized coefficients and Standard coefficient tests were carried out. Based on the findings, we can state that social media are still not an important marketing tool for Iranian hotels. Facebook and YouTube are the media which are most used for marketing purposes as videos and photos can be used on these sites more than others. The results show that the marketing abilities of Parsian Hotels improve with the increasing use of social media, but the hotel marketing sector has failed to fully utilize internet opportunity as a marketing tool

Toward Auto-netnography in Consumer Studies

The purpose of this paper is to offer an argument for a wider acceptance and adoption of online auto-ethnography - or auto-netnography as an alternative social media research method to online ethnography - or netnography - when undertaking consumer research. As an online research method, netnographies have attracted increasing attention from researchers in various inter-disciplinary studies during recent years but the method is still not considered mainstream. Whilst the proliferation of online communities using various social media platforms is increasingly supporting consumers when making product/service choices, the adoption of netnographies appears to leave room for an extension towards the consideration by consumer researchers of how auto-netnography could highlight these researchers' own personal experiences in online communities. Auto-netnography allows the researcher to capture their own online experiences as a consumer would through social observation, reflexive note taking, and other forms of data. Contemporary technology can also provide a more innovative approach with artificial intelligence offering an alternative dimension. We contend there is a need for consumer researchers - both academic and practitioner - to further reflect on and discuss the deployment of auto-netnography in order to contribute to further exploration of online communities through the qualitative lens

Progress in information technology and tourism management: 20 years on and 10 years after the Internet—The state of eTourism research

This paper reviews the published articles on eTourism in the past 20 years. Using a wide variety of sources, mainly in the tourism literature, this paper comprehensively reviews and analyzes prior studies in the context of Internet applications to Tourism. The paper also projects future developments in eTourism and demonstrates critical changes that will influence the tourism industry structure. A major contribution of this paper is its overview of the research and development efforts that have been endeavoured in the field, and the challenges that tourism researchers are, and will be, facing

A netnography study to uncover the underlying dimensions of customer experience with resort brands

The interest in customer experience has increased at a phenomenal rate. However, research to capture the true meaning of the concept is limited. This study aims to address the question of what are the underlying dimensions that constitute the construct of customer experience. The netnography method is utilized to validate a priori concepts that have been identified in the literature within the context of resort-hotel brands in a Sharm El Sheikh resort in Egypt. The results identified eight dimensions; comfort, educational, hedonic, novelty, recognition, relational, safety and sense of beauty which are consistent with major studies on experience

A netnography study on branded customer experience: Evidence from the red sea

This study addresses the question of what are the underlying dimensions and messages to self and others that constitute the construct of customer experience. The study uses a netnography method to validate or refute and extend a priori concepts that the literature identifies within the context of resort-hotel brands in a Sharm El Sheikh resort in Egypt. The results identify eight dimensions (comfort, educational, hedonic, novelty, recognition, relational, safety and sense of beauty) and unique configurations of these eight dimensions that extend prior research on customer experience

Cultural and rural tourism: potential synergies for a new economic development pattern. The Italian case.

Thanks to its important naturalistic, historical, cultural and artistic heritage, Italy is one of the Countries with the greatest touristic vocation in the world. As consequence, tourism is the most important productive sector in Italian economy, with an impact just below 12% on GDP. During the long period of economic crisis that affected the major world economies, between 2008 and 2014, some parts of the Italian tourism, including seaside for example, declined. This decline, at an aggregate level, has been however balanced by the development of cultural tourism. This also thanks to the increase of external demand: the number of foreign visits went from 140 million in 2000 to more than 190 million in 2016, without any decline also over the hardest period of the above mentioned economic crisis. About 37% of external demand is attributed to expenditures for holidays in art heritage cities and they represent the most dynamic part of Italian tourism. Although with more modest absolute values, agritourism and food and wine tourism are dynamic parts of Italian tourism too and, sometimes, they are linked with cultural tourism. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that the development of cultural tourism, agritourism and food and wine tourism can be a single goal of economic policy aimed at creating new growth strategies in order to overcome the effects of the economic crisis. Organizing as a single economic system the different parts of Italian tourism can be the most coherent action in order to cope with the different development needs and potentialities of Italy whose economic system is traditionally linked to the territorial values