What motivates posting online travel reviews? Integrating gratifications with technological acceptance factors

Purpose –The aim of the present study is to understand the effect of travelers’ motivations and technological acceptance factors on intentions to post online reviews. Design- Uses and gratification and the extended unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT2) were applied as the basis of the present study. Methodology – A structured questionnaire was designed on the basis of the previous literature. 600 questionnaires were distributed out of which 273 valid responses were considered for statistical analysis. Findings – The results reveal that altruism, reciprocity, effort expectancy, habit and hedonic motivations have positive influence, whereas economic rewards negatively influence the intentions of travelers to post online reviews. However, there is no significant relationship between social influence and review posting intentions of travelers. Moreover, a significant relationship was observed between altruism and effort expectancy; reciprocity and effort expectancy and habit and effort expectancy. Further, both behavioural intentions and habit were significant predictors of actual usage. Originality/ Value – The present study is among the few studies which investigate the effect of motivational factors in conjunction with technological acceptance factors on travel review posting intentions

Engaging consumers in the digital era: An analysis of official tourism Facebook pages in India

Digital Communication has provided an alternative and dynamic platform for interaction and socialization. Digital channels like social media and mobile phone are increasing their penetration into day to day life. According to a survey by (Digitalinsights, 2015), Indians are vigorously using different social networking sites and 88% of users share content on their social profiles. The interactive nature of social media has evolved the customer-approach of marketing from passive observers to active participators. Tourism Sector being an information intensive industry is significantly affected by social media, especially in destination promotion and marketing, providing information and generating awareness, influencing decision making and online purchase behavior. Thus, many researchers and marketers are concentrating on customer interaction and communication through social media and strategies to enhance customer engagement. This study aims to investigate which kind of content, media and posting day would engage consumers more on Facebook. Uses and gratification framework was used as the basis of the study. Official State Tourism Facebook pages were reviewed and a comparative analysis among the top three states on the basis of number of fans was done. The data was gathered manually from 15th Jan 2015-15th March 2015 and 15th Jan 2016-15th Mar 2016 and 430 posts in total were analyzed for this study. Consumer engagement was measured by the number of likes, comments and shares on the post. The results showed that large number of fans does not necessarily results into higher engagement index. The posts showing attractions have the highest engagement level. Also, it was established that single pictures have higher engagement index as compared to multiple pictures and videos. However, no relationship was found between the day of posting and engagement index