Abstract
Influence of online community member’s postings on travel decisions were analyzed using thematic networks. Tremapper was used to discover which country postings to be analyzed and resulted in analysis of 8 countries. This study identified 8 organizing themes from an analysis of 81 communication threads that consisted of 713 members and 1691 postings. Out of the 81 threads included in the study, 23 showed a clear evidence of influence. The members’ decisions were categorized by the information sources experience at destination such as residents and experienced travellers The analysis of the chosen countries and topics indicate that residents were more influential in food and beverage recommendations, safety concerns at the destination, and travel itinerary refinements (including things to do and places to see) whereas experienced travellers were more influential in accommodation recommendations, transportation, monetary issues like exchanging money and how much money to carry during the travel, destination information including tourist hassle at a specific destination, and itinerary advice.
Keywords
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Andereck, K. L., Valentine, K. M., Knopf, R. C., & Vogt, C. A. (2005). Residents’ perceptions of community tourism impacts. Annals of Tourism Research, 32(4), 1056–1076.
Anderson, E. W. (1998). Customer satisfaction and word of mouth. Journal of Service Research, 1(1), 5–17.
Arndt, J. (1967). Role of product-related conversations in the diffusion of a new product. Journal of Marketing Research, 4(3), 291–296.
Attride-Sterling, J. (2001). Thematic Networks: an analytic tool for qualitative research. Qualitative Research, 1(3), 385–405.
Bieger, T., & Laesser, C. (2004). Information Sources for Travel Decisions: Toward a Source Process Model, Journal of Travel Research, 42(4), 357–371.
Bone, P. F. (1995). Word-of-Mouth Effects on Short-term and Long-term Product Judgments. Journal of Business Research, 32(3), 213–223.
Bounie, D., Bourreau, M., Gensollen, M., & Waelbroeck, P. (2005). Do online consumer reviews matter? Evidence from the Video Game Industry. Retrieved February 26, 2007, from http://www.sceco.univ-montp1.fr/laser/Conferences/iv200510201.pdf
Dellaert, B. (1999). The tourist as value creator on the Internet. In Buhalis, D., Schertler, W. (Eds.), Information and communication technologies in tourism 1999, Vienna: Springer-Verlag., 66–76.
Dellarocas, C. (2003). The Digitilization of Word-of_mouth: Promise and Challenges of Online Reputation Mechanisms. Management Science, 49(10), 1407–1424.
Dellarocas, C., Awad, N. F., &, & Zhang, X. (2004). Exploring the Value of Online Reviews to Organizations: Implications for Revenue Forecasting and Planning. Proceedings of the Twenty-Fifth International Conference on Information Systems. New York: ACM Press, 2004, pp. 379–386
Fodness, D., & Murray, B. (1998). A typology of tourist information search strategies. Journal of Travel Research, 37(2), 108–119.
Gremler, D. D. (1994). Word-of-mouth about service providers: an illustration of theory development in marketing in Park, C.W., Smith, D. (Eds), Proceedings of AMA (Winter). Chicago: American Marketing Association. pp. 62–70
Gruen, T. W., Osmonbekov, T., &, & Czaplewski, A. J. (2006). eWOM: The impact of customer-to-customer online know-how exchange on customer value and loyalty. Journal of Business Research, 59(4), 449–456.
Jackson, M. S., & Inbakaran, R. J. (2006). Evaluating residents’ attitudes and intentions to act towards tourism development in regional Victoria, Australia. International Journal of Tourism Research, 8(5), 355–366.
Jeng, J., &, & Fesenmaier, D. R. (2002). Conceptualizing the travel decision-making hierarchy: A review of recent developments. Tourism Analysis, 7(1), 15–32.
Katz, E., & Lazarfeld, P. F. (1955). Personal Influence. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.
Kim, W. G., Lee, C., & Hiemstra, S. J. (2004). Effects of an online virtual community on customer loyalty and travel product purchases. Tourism Management, 25(3), 343–355.
Merriam-Webster.Influence. Retrieved 10.5, 2007, from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionarv/influence
Morrison, A. (2002). Hospitality and Tourism Marketing (3rd ed.): Delmar.
Richins, M. L. (1983). Negative word-of-mouth by dissatisfied consumers: a pilot study. Journal of Marketing, 47(1), 68–78.
Stewart, S. I., & Vogt, C. A. (1999). A case-based approach to understanding vacation planning. Leisure Sciences, 21(2), 79–95.
Wang, R. Y. C., & Fesenmaier, D. (2002). Measuring the needs of virtual community members: an empirical study of an online travel community. In Wöber, K.W., Frew, A. J., and Hitz, M. (Eds.) Information and communication technologies in tourism 2002: Proceedings of the International Conference in Innsbruck, Austria, 2002, Vienna: Springer-Verlag., pp. 105–114.
Wang, Y., & Fesenmaier, D. R. (2004). Modeling Participation in an Online Travel Community. Journal of Travel Research, 42(3), 261–270.
Wang, Y., Yu, Q. &, & Fesenmaier, D. R. (2002). Defining the virtual tourist community: implications for tourism marketing. Tourism Management, 23(4), 407–417.
Wang, Y. C., & Fesenmaier, D. R. (2004). Towards understanding members’ general participation in and active contribution to an online travel community. Tourism Management, 25(6), 709–722.
Wu, J., & Chang, Y. (2005). Towards understanding members’ interactivity, trust, and flow in online travel community. Industrial Management & Data Systems, 105(7), 937–954.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2008 Springer-Verlag Wien
About this paper
Cite this paper
Arsal, I., Backman, S., Baldwin, E. (2008). Influence of an Online Travel Community on Travel Decisions. In: O’Connor, P., Höpken, W., Gretzel, U. (eds) Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2008. Springer, Vienna. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-211-77280-5_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-211-77280-5_8
Publisher Name: Springer, Vienna
Print ISBN: 978-3-211-77279-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-211-77280-5