Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The effects of online social media on tourism websites

  • Conference paper
Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2011

Abstract

Web 2.0 and online social networking websites heavily affect today most of the online activities and their effect on tourism is obviously rather important. This paper aims at verifying the impact that online social networks (OSN) have on the popularity of tourism websites. Two OSNs have been considered: Facebook and Twitter. The pattern of visits to a sample of Italian tourism websites was analysed and the relationship between the total visits and those having the OSNs as referrals were measured. The analysis shows a clear correlation and confirms the starting hypothesis. Consequences and implications of these outcomes are discussed.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  • Akehurst, G. (2009). User generated content: the use of blogs for tourism organisations and tourism consumers. Service Business 3(1): 51–61.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Antonioli Corigliano, M. & Baggio, R. (2004). Italian Tourism on the Internet — New Business Models. In K. Weiermair & C. Mathies (Eds.), The Tourism and Leisure Industry — Shaping the Future (pp. 301–316). New York: The Haworth Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Au, A. (2010). Adoption of Web 2.0 by Tourism Businesses in NSW (Research Reports). Sydney: Tourism New South Wales. Retrieved June, 2010, from http://corporate. tourism.nsw.gov.au/Sites/SiteID6/objLib40/Adoption-of-Web%202Jan10.pdf.

  • Baggio, R. (2005). The relationship between virtual and real image of tourism operators, e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR), 3(5). Retrieved January, 2006, from http://ertr.tamu.edu/attachments/225_a-3-5-3.pdf.

  • Bai, B., Law, R. & Wen, I. (2008). The impact of website quality on customer satisfaction and purchase intentions: Evidence from Chinese online visitors. International Journal of Hospitality Management 27(3): 391–402.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Beck, N. (2008). Time-Series Cross-Section Methods. In J. Box-Steffensmeir, H. Brady & D. Collier (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Political Methodology (pp. 475–493). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Burgess, S., Sellitto, C. & Karanasios, S. (Eds.). (2009). Effective Web Presence Solutions for Small Businesses: Strategies for Successful Implementation. Hershey, PA: IGI: Information Science Reference.

    Google Scholar 

  • CBI. (2007). 2007 Country Brand Index. New York: FutureBrand. Retrieved January, 2010, from http://www.futurebrand.com.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chatfield, C. (1996). The Analysis of Time Series (5th ed.). New York: Chapman & Hall.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chung, J. Y. & Buhalis, D. (2008). Information Needs in Online Social Networks. Information Technology and Tourism 10(4): 267–281.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Constantinides, E. & Fountain, S. J. (2008). Web 2.0: Conceptual foundations and marketing issues. Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice 9: 231–244.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cosenza, V. (2010). World Map of Social Networks. Retrieved September, 2010, from http://www.vincos.it/world-map-of-social-networks/.

  • Dhyani, D., Ng, W. K. & Bhowmick, S. S. (2002). A Survey of Web Metrics. ACM Computing Surveys 34(4): 469–503.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fabris, M. (2010). ToscanaLab. Retrieved June, 2010, from http://www.slideshare.net/BTOEducational/gpf-monica-fabris-toscanalab-29-giugno-2010.

  • Friendly, M. & Kwan, E. (2009). Where’s Waldo? Visualizing Collinearity Diagnostics. The American Statistician 63(1): 56–65.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hamill, J., Attard, D. & Stevenson, A. (2009). National destination marketing organisations and Web 2.0. Mercati e Competitività 1: 71–94.

    Google Scholar 

  • Inversini, A. & Buhalis, D. (2009). Information Convergence in the Long Tail: The Case of Tourism Destination Information. In W. Höpken, U. Gretzel & R. Law (Eds.), Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2009 (pp. 381–392). Wien: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Inversini, A., Cantoni, L. & Buhalis, D. (2009). Destinations’ Information Competition and Web Reputation. Information Technology & Tourism 11(3): 221–234.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jeong, M., Oh, H. & Gregoire, M. (2003). Conceptualizing Web site quality and its consequences in the lodging industry. International Journal of Hospitality Management 22(2): 161–175.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jones, C. & Yu, R. (2010). Travel industry uses Facebook and Twitter to reach customers. USA Today (7 July 2010). Retrieved July, 2010, from http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2010-09-07-travelsocialmedia07_CV_N.htm.

  • Kasavana, M. L., Nusair, K. & Teodosic, K. (2010). Online social networking: redefining the human web. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology 1(1), 68–82.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lee, Y. & Kozar, K. A. (2006). Investigating the effect of website quality on e-business success: An analytic hierarchy process (AHP) approach. Decision Support Systems 42(3): 1383–1401.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Locke, C, Levine, C, Searls, D. & Weinberger, D. (2000). The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Publishings.

    Google Scholar 

  • Matloka, J. & Buhalis, D. (2010). Destination Marketing through User Personalised Content (UPC). In U. Gretzel, R. Law & M. Fuchs (Eds.), Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2010 (pp. 519–530). Wien: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Milano, R. (2010). Cosa fare e cosa non fare nella Rete turistica. Il caso ltalia.it. In G. Granieri & G. Perri (Eds.), Linguaggi digitali per il turismo (pp. 47–48). Milano: Apogeo.

    Google Scholar 

  • Miller, K. D., Fabian, F. & Lin, S.-J. (2009). Strategies for online communities. Strategic Management Journal 30(3): 305–322.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Minghetti, V. & Buhalis, D. (2010). Digital Divide in Tourism. Journal of Travel Research 49: 267–281.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Murray, R. (2009). A Good Example of a Bad Facebook Strategy. Retrieved March, 2010, from http://www.ploked.com/2009/05/29/a-good-example-of-a-bad-facebook-strategy/.

  • Parra-Lopez, E., Bulchand-Gidumal, J., Gutierrez-Tano, D. & Diaz-Armas, R. (2010). Intentions to use social media in organizing and taking vacation trips. Computers in Human Behavior, (In Press: DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2010.05.022).

    Google Scholar 

  • Perdue, R. R. (2002). Internet Site Evaluations: The Influence of Behavioral Experience, Existing Images, and Selected Website Characteristics. Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing 11(2): 21–38.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • PhoCusWright. (2009). The PhoCusWright Consumer Technology Survey (2nd ed.). Sherman, CT: PhoCusWright.

    Google Scholar 

  • Polanco, X. (2003). Concepts, Measures and Indicators in the Web Analysis. Paper presented at the Tercer Taller de Obtención de Indicadores de Producción Científica, Madrid, March 3–5. Retrieved June, 2010 from http://www.ricyt.org/interior/normalizacion/III_bib/Polanco.pdf.

  • Richardson, W. (2006). Blogs, Wikis and Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sayrs, L. W. (1989). Pooled time series analysis. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schegg, R., Liebrich, A., Scaglione, M. & Ahmad, S. F. S. (2008). An Exploratory Field Study of Web 2.0 in Tourism. In P. O’Connor, W. Höpken & U. Gretzel (Eds.), Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2008 (pp. 152–163). Wien: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Schmallegger, D. & Carson, D. (2008). Blogs in tourism: Changing approaches to information exchange. Journal of Vacation Marketing 14: 99–110.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sigaia, M. (2010). eCRM 2.0 applications and trends: The use and perceptions of Greek tourism firms of social networks and intelligence. Computers in Human Behavior, (In Press, DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2010.03.007).

    Google Scholar 

  • SPSS. (2008). SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) (Version 17). Chicago, IL: SPSS Inc. (www.spss.com).

    Google Scholar 

  • WAA. (2008). Web Analytics Definitions. Wakefield, MA: Web Analytics Association. Retrieved June, 2010, from http://www.webanalyticsassociation.org/resource/resmgr/ PDF_standards/WebAnalyticsDefinitions.pdf.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weinberger, D. (2007). Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder. New York, NY: Times Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Werthner, H. & Klein, S. (1999). Information technology and tourism — a challenging relationship. Wien: Springer.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Werthner, H. & Ricci, F. (2004). E-commerce and tourism. Communications of the ACM 47(12): 101–105.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Xiang, Z. & Gretzel, U. (2010). Role of social media in online travel information search. Tourism Management 31(2): 179–188.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Master in Tourism Marketing and Web Marketing, University of Genova - Savona Campus, Savona, Italy

    Roberta Milano

  2. BTO Educational, Florence, Italy

    Roberta Milano & Robert Piattelli

  3. Master in Economics and Tourism, Bocconi University, Milan, Italy

    Rodolfo Baggio

Authors
  1. Roberta Milano
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Rodolfo Baggio
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Robert Piattelli
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Hotel & Tourism Management, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China

    Rob Law

  2. European Tourism Research Inst. (ETOUR), Mid Sweden University, Östersund, Sweden

    Matthias Fuchs

  3. Faculty of Computer Science, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Bozen-Bolzano, Italy

    Francesco Ricci

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2011 Springer-Verlag/Wien

About this paper

Cite this paper

Milano, R., Baggio, R., Piattelli, R. (2011). The effects of online social media on tourism websites. In: Law, R., Fuchs, M., Ricci, F. (eds) Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2011. Springer, Vienna. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7091-0503-0_38

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7091-0503-0_38

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Vienna

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-7091-0502-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-7091-0503-0

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation