TOUR 121- Tourism Information Management

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Module 3
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Social Media for Travel Organizations

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This module belongs to:

Name:

A.A.
Student No.:

Course, Yr. & Sec.:

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LEARNING OBJECTIVES

At the end of the module, the student should be able to:

1. understand the types and functions of social media;

2. explain why electronic word of mouth is important to travel organizations;
3. analyze the advantages and disadvantages of different social media platforms;
4. discuss how different social media platforms can be used to engage with travelers; and
5. adopt a strategic approach to using social media for a range of applications in travel
organizations.

I. ESSAY. Answer the following questions briefly but comprehensively.

1. What features of social media make them different to other media?

2. What are the advantages and disadvantages of using electronic word of mouth (eWOM)
to find information about places and destinations?

3. If you were the GM of a hotel, what strategies would you use to deal with fake reviews
posted about your hotel?

4. What is the role of virtual worlds in travel?

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Module 5
3
Social Media for Travel Organizations

INTRODUCTION
This module starts by providing some conceptual foundations, then shifts to the different
social media platforms and how travelers and travel organizations can use them.The module
concludes by considering the need for a strategic approach to the use of social media by
travel organizations.

UNDERSTANDING SOCIAL MEDIA

★The term social media has two components, "media" is the plural of medium and
refers to the communication channels through which information, news and
entertainment are delivered; the “social" part of the phrase suggests that these
media support connections and interactions. Social media can be defined is as “a
group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological
foundation of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated
content" (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010, p. 61). This user-generated content (UGC)
distinguishes Web 2.0 and social media from the largely static, marketing-generated
content found on the web.
★Social media allows users to access, discuss, share, collaborate and update web
content (Lange-Faria and Elliot, 2012). This “collective intelligence” challenges the
hegemony of marketers and public relations managers who have produced most of
the information traditionally used by travelers to plan their trips (Xiang and Gretzel,
2010).

The social media landscape

★Social media includes many diverse platforms and technologies, including social
networks, blogs, wikis, forums, social bookmarking, media sharing and virtual social
worlds. An organizing framework is useful for making sense of all of these. Kaplan
and Haenlein (2010) identify six different types of social media, which are arranged
in a two-dimensional framework, as shown in Fig. 5.1. Along the horizontal
dimension, social media rites vary based on media richness and social presence.
Social presence is related to the level of acoustic, visual and physical contact
between individuals (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010). In a media environment, richness
is often closely linked with social presence. A rich medium provides more cues on
which to base social responses. Blogs and wikis are largely text-based and, as a
result, their richness and social presence tend to be lower. Social networks and

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content-sharing sites provide greater visual richness, and images and video offer
more cues for social interaction. Virtual worlds are rich, simulated environments with
real-time animated avatars that allow people to interact in a digital space.

★The second dimension is related to die amount of self-presentation or self-

disclosure facilitated by the platform. The content on collaborative platforms and
content-sharing sites is often subject-centric rather than author-centric. Similarly, in
virtual gaming worlds, the fantasy environment obscures the disclosure of real
personal details. In contrast, blogs and social networks are author-centric and often
encourage the sharing of personal details, images and video. This classification is
useful because it highlights the unique traits of each platform and allows
consideration of how a travel company might establish a presence across social
media types. However, the boundaries between the different types have become
increasingly blurred and new social media platforms have emerged since the
development of this model.
★A more recent framework for understanding the social media landscape is
provided by Cavazza (2012), who updates his blog annually with a new depiction of
social media. His 2012 framework, shown in Fig. 5.2., divides social media into six
categories:
1. Publishing: sites that allow content curators and curators to develop new
content, create “mashups” of existing content or to post questions and
answers (eg. Blogger, Wikipedia, Quora).
2. Sharing: sites that allow users to share text, links, images, slides,

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documents and videos (c.g. Pinterest, YouTube, Slideshare).

3. Playing: sites that support online multiplayer games (e.g. Zynga,
Playdom),
4. Networking: social networking sites that allow users to share updates
and information for personal or professional contexts (e.g, Facebook,
Qzonc, Linkedln).
5. Buying: social commerce sites that provide customer intelligence,
reviews and recommendations (e.g. TripAdvisor, Urbanspoon,
Bazaarvoice).
6. Localization: mobile apps and websites that provide information and
opportunities for social interaction based on the location of users (e.g.
Foursquare, Tinder, Yelp).

★The major players (Google, Facebook and Twitter) are included at the center of
the model because they have developed a full-range social media ecosystem where
functions and tools are connected. For example, Facebook Graph Search provides
users with access to a social semantic search tool, while Google Maps provides
location-based recommendations, pictures and reviews, The framework identifies
that some media are more about conversations while others are about creating
interactions. Different technologies also dominate particular types of social media, as
shown by the outside ring of Fig. 5.2., but these distinctions are also becoming
increasingly blurred. Although some of the tools listed in the figure are already
defunct, and new players have emerged, it provides a useful framework to
understand social media sites.

Fig. 5.2. The Social Media Landscape. (From: Cavazza, 2012)

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★There are a number of regional differences in the use of social media. For example,
a social network site (SNS) called Orkut has been popular in Brazil and India, Xing
is well known in Germany, and Russia has a number of homegrown social networks.
China has one of the largest and most unusual social media landscapes. The
Chinese government restricted access to most Western social media platforms in
2009. As a result, a number of similar social networks have emerged in China to fill
the same niches as those in the rest of the world. Table 5.1 provides some examples
of these networks, although it is important to note that some Chinese social media
have evolved rather differently to western social media. Cultural differences also
impact the behavior of Chinese social media users.
★For example, Sina Weibo does provide a microblog similar to Twitter, but the site
also provides a range of other social media features. Mobile messaging is also much
more popular in China than in other parts of the world. Companies such as WeChat
have expanded well beyond text-based messaging by offering a number of social
networking features such as friending, group chat, video chat, file sharing and photo
feeds. An awareness of these parallel social media platforms will be important for
travel organizations as the number of outbound Chinese travelers continues to grow
(see Case Study).

Platform C.
Western examples Chinese examples
Blogs Blogger, Wordpress Blogbus
Microblogs Twitter Sina Weibo, Tencent
Weibo
Wikis Wikipedia Baidu Baike
Social networks Facebook Qzone, Renren, Pengyou
Video sharing YouTube Youku, Tudou
Location-based Foursquare Jiepang
Review sites TripAdvisor DaoDao
Messaging Facebook Messenger, WeChat
WhatsApp

Table 5.1. Popular western and Chinese social media platforms

Social media functions

★Kietzmann et. al. (2011) propose a honeycomb framework of social media made up
of seven functional building blocks (see Fig. 5.3). Kietzmann et al. (2011)
highlight overlaps between the functional blocks and note that they are not always
present in every social media context. But the model is useful because each building
block provides insights into a specific aspect of the user experience and the
implications for travel organizations.

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★The following observations can be made for each building block:

✴Identity is the extent to which users reveal their identities in a social media
setting. Users share information, thoughts, feelings, likes and dislikes to
reinforce who they are or how they would like others to see them. This can
include disclosing personal information such as name, age, gender, location
and other information that forms part of their identity. For travel organizations,
there are issues around striking the right balance between sharing information
and privacy data mining and surveillance.
✴Conversations refer to the extent to which users communicate with other
users in a social media setting. Many sites facilitate conversations among
individuals and groups. The management of negative sentiment and
encouragement of positive sentiment are important challenges for travel
organizations.
✴Sharing is the extent to which users exchange, distribute and receive
content. The "social" part of social media implies that the exchange of
"objects" between people is crucial. These shared objects can include text,
links, images, videos, sounds and locations. It is important to understand how,
what and why objects are shared and how travel organizations might facilitate
the sharing of objects (such as evocative destination images) for strategic
purposes.

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✴Presence is the extent to which users can knew where others are and
whether they are available. Location and context aware applications offer
great potential for travel organizations, but the availability of real-time online
support is also important in some travel contexts.
✴Relationship is the extent to which users converse, share objects, meet up
or list each other as friends. For organizations, the relationship between social
media users often determines what and how information is exchanged. The
position of a user in a network is important. Opinion leaders often have large,
dense networks of followers and identifying these opinion leaders can be
important for platforms such as forums, blogs and microblogs.
✴Reputation is the extent to which users can identify the standing of others,
including themselves, in a social media setting. Monitoring an organization’s
reputation in terms of strength, sentiment and reach across multiple social
media channels is important.
✴Groups refer to the extent to which users can form communities and sub-
communities. In a travel context, the challenge is how organizations build
virtual communities and their brands.

★Different social media platforms have strengths in different functions of the

framework. For example, LinkedIn is particularly successful at the identity and
relationship functions, while YouTube excels as a channel for sharing.

Electronic word of mouth

★The influence of word of
mouth (WOM) has been
acknowledged in t he
consumerbehavior
literature for many decades
(Dichter, 1966; Richins,
1983), WOM has been
defined as “all informal communications directed at other consumers about the
ownership, usage, or characteristics of particular goods and services or their sellers”
(Westbrook, 1987, p. 261). The honeycomb model identifies Conversations and
sharing as two of the key communication functions of social media. These two
functions are perhaps the most interesting for tourism organizations because they
facilitate a special type of WOM that has been called electronic Word of Mouth
(eWOM) (Litvin et. al., 2008). eWOM can be defined as: "any positive or negative
statement made by potential, actual, or former customers about a product or

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company, which is made available to a multitude of people and institutions via the
Internet” (Hennig-Thurau et. al., 2004, p. 39). Research suggests that travelers
consider eWOM to be more trustworthy than other information sources (Xiang and
Gretzel, 2010).
★eWOM differs from traditional WOM in a number of ways:
1. Scale: eWOM can influence travelers on an unprecedented scale
because it is available in a digital format that can be searched, linked and
shared (Dellarocas, 2003; Litvin et. al., 2008).
2. Relationships: the strength of the relationship between communicators
and recipients is often weaker in a social media setting. The recipient of
an eWOM communication may not even know the original communicator.
3. Anonymity: the anonymity of many social media platforms calls into
question the legitimacy of same eWOM communications.
4. Durability: eWOM messages are more durable - once a message is in
the public domain it continues to influence consumers over time.
5. Variety: eWOM can take many forms, including blogs, product reviews,
social network status updates, tweets and YouTube videos.
★That have been numerous instances wherein a piece of eWOM was created and
went viral. In 2008, United Airlines broke Canadian musician Dave Carroll’s guitar.
While it was not the first time an airline had damaged luggage, we may never have
heard about Carroll’s difficulties in seeking compensation from the airline had it not
been for social media. Carroll wrote and recorded three music videos about the
experience and posted these on YouTube. The first video in the series went viral and
received over one million views in the first four days. The video was widely reported
by the press, generating very negative publicity for United Airlines. By 2018 the
video had been viewed more than 18 million times. See the video at: http://youtu.be/
5YGc4zOqozo/

★Twitter has also become a popular platform for customer complaints. Each year
millions of luggage items are “’displaced" by airlines. In 2013, Hasan Syed paid for a
promoted tweet that simply read: "Don’t fly @BritishAirways. Their customer service
is horrendous". He followed this up with a series of messages criticizing the airline
and threatened to continue paying for Twitter ads until British Airways resolved an
issue with his father’s lost luggage. British Airways responded swiftly and issued a
public apology. These examples illustrate the power of eWOM and the challenges

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for travel organizations, particularly when opinion leaders with many followers report
negative experiences.
★We can understand eWOM using a two-dimensional model in which various eWOM
channels an organized according to communication scope and level of interactivity
(Litvin et. al., 2008).
★Communication scope refers to whether the channel involves one-to-one
communication, one-to-many communication or many-to-many communication.
Level of interactivity can be organized on a spectrum ranging from asynchronous
to synchronous. Asynchronous communication takes place between individuals
who respond at different times while synchronous communication involves real-
time or "live” responses. Figure 5.4 shows how different online channels (including
social media) can be organized using this framework.

★We can also understand the dynamics of eWOM from a communications

perspective. In Module 4 we saw how the internet transformed one-to-many Sender-
Message- Receiver (SMR) communication into many-to-many communication. If we
break these communications down into the basic SMR components, we can
investigate some of the variables that impact eWOM (see fig. 5.5).

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1. Sender- The first important element in the SMR model. The features of an
individual who initiates an eWOM communication can impact how the message is
perceived and used. Researchers have identified a number of important sender
characteristics:
✓ Motives attempt to explain why a sender might share their experiences
online. Research suggests that senders are motivated by a desire for social
interaction, economic incentives, altruism towards other consumers and the
opportunity to enhance their own self-worth (Hennig-Thurau et.al., 2004; Yoo
and Gretzel, 2008).
✓ Appearance can be difficult to establish unless the social media platform
uses profile photos. Research in traditional communication contexts has found
that communication with more positive attributes (e.g; physical attractiveness)
are more persuasive than ones with less positive attributes (Nabi and
Hendriks, 2003).
✓ Source Credibility is how believable, competent and trustworthy the sender
is believed to be (Cheung et.al., 2009). Senders perceived to be more credible
often possess expertise or product knowledge and express this knowledge in
a trustworthy manner. Senders on product review sites and forums often earn
badges or points based on their contributions, which can be used to indicate
expertise or trustworthiness. The challenge tor travel organizations is
determining who the opinion leadens are and how to encourage them to
spread positive eWOM.

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2. Message- The second key element of the SMR model. Four dimensions
contribute to information quality: relevance, accuracy, timeliness and
completeness. If recipients perceive a message to be important and relevant
they are more likely to read it carefully (Petty and Cacioppo, 1986; Bhattacherjee
and Sanford, 2006). The perceived usefulness of the information depends on its
accuracy, whether it is correct and reliable. Related to this is the issue of
timeliness, whether the the formation is current and up-to-date. Completeness
refers to the comprehensiveness of the message. lt is important for travel
organizations to develop a better understanding of how the information quality of
a message can impact travelers. A recent study of hotel reviews conformed that
information accuracy, relevance and timelines were strong predictors of
travelers’adoption of information in a social media context (FiK«ri and McLeay,
2014). In another study, Xiang et al (2015) deconstructed online hotel reviews into
elements that represent the guest experience and found they are indicative of the
guest’s level of stitisfacrion with their stay at a hotel.
3. Receiver- The third key element of the SMR model. The characteristics of the
receiver can also influence how the message is received and how the recipient
responds. Their age, gender, cultural background and experience can influence
whether they pay attention to the message and how it is interpreted. Experience
may include familiarity with the social media platform, past interactions with the
sender or involvement with the product or product class (e.g. hotels). The
cognitive processes of the recipient will determine what meaning the recipient
attaches to the message. The receiver can respond to the message by ignoring it,
reading and then discarding it, committing it to memory or choosing to share it
with others. Understanding how receivers perceive and share these messages is
critical for travel orginizations. Although an organization may not always be able to
control senders or messages, it can respond to the messages.
4. Relationship between the sender and receiver- The final element of the SMR
model. Relationships are a key function of social media. Scholars have used
network analysis to examine how relationships impact the flow of information.
From a communications perspective we are interested in the intensity of the social
relationship (tie strength), the similarity between the sender and the receiver
(homophily) and the level of trust between these two individuals. The tie strength
can range from strong primary ties (such as family and friends) in the individual’s
personal network to weak, secondary ties (acquaintances, friends of friends,
strangers). Strong ties usually provide emotional or substantive support while
weak ties tend to propagate information sharing on more diverse topics (Mittal
et.al., 2008). In some cases, such as product review sites, forums and media-
sharing sites, there may be no relationship at all between the sender and receiver.

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Homophily refers to the similarity between the sender and receiver in gender, age,
education and lifestyle. Individuals with a higher level of perceived homophily are
more likely to interact with each other and to engage in eWOM communication
because they share similar traits (Steffes and Burgee, 2009; Thelwall, 2009).

SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS IN TRAVEL

Social network sites

★Social network sites (SNSs) are
defined as "web-based services that
allow individuals to; (i) construct a
public or semi-public profile within a
bounded system; (ii) articulate a list
of other users with whom they share a connection; and (iii) view and traverse their
connections and those made by others within the system".
★SNSs such as Facebook, LinkedIn and WeChat allow individuals and organizations
to find new connections or establish and maintain relationships with people they may
know offline. The core of modern SNSs consists of visible profiles and mechanisms
that allow "followers" or “friends" to leave public messages on these profiles. Using
the honeycomb model, we can suggest that the key strengths of SNSs are built on
conversations, sharing and identity. However, many SNSs also provide additional
services, including image and video sharing, instant messaging, blogging, status
updates and online apps.
★Most SNSs fall into one of four categories:
1. Universal SNSs: general networks with global appeal open to anyone
above a minimum age with an email address. Examples include
Facebook, Twitter and WeChat.
2. Professional SNSs: services that allow professionals to interact and
build business networks. Examples include Linkedln, Yam mer and Xing.
While Linkedln if an open platform. Yammer provides tools that allow
organizations to create internal social networks of employees.
3. Regional SNSs: these include sites that are used in particular regions of
the world, such as Vkontakte in Russia, Biip.no in Norway, and Qzone
and Renren in Chiaia.
4. Niche SNSS: sites that cater for groups based on shared interests or
activities. Examples include school reunion networks (e.g.class-
mates.com, FriendsReunited), art and design (eg. deviantART), music
(e.g. Buzznet, Last.fm), movies (e.g. Flixter), academic research
networks (e.g. academia.edu and Research-Gate), African-Americans

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(Blackplanet), teens (e.g. Habbo), and languages (e.g. Busuu). SNS tools
such as Ning provide platforms for people to create their own micro-SNS.
★For travel organizations SNSs offer four major opportunities:
1. First, organizations can create pages for travelers to join or "like". This
connection generates regular updates and newsfeeds to travelers who
are highly involved with a product or destination. Some destinations were
early adopters of social media and have built large communities of
followers through innovative campaigns and contests.
2. Second, this allows organizations to use SNSs as online touch points to
deliver customer service.
3. Third, while then are privacy and ethical concerns related to the use of
personal data, many sites harvest this "big data” to develop detailed
profiles of consumers. By using profile data and monitoring online
behavior such as the amount of time users spend online, what they click
on and what they share, social network companies can develop accurate
dossiers on the interests, activities and opinions of each user. This
information is then used to target SNS users with more relevant
advertising messages. Advertising on SNS sites is a cost-effective
marketing tool for travel companies because the ability to accurately
target users based on their interests and online behavior increases the
click-through rate of online advertising.
4. Finally, many travel industry professionals use professional SNSs such as
LinkedIn tor networking, strategic listening and recruitment.
★From a traveler perspective, SNSs are playing an increasingly important role in the
travel lifecycle. Mainstream SNSs like Facebook and Google have developed tools
that support different functions in the digital tourism ecosystem. In the inspiration
stage, comment, photos and videos shared by travelers can motivate others to plan
a holiday. Apps have been developed to allow travelers to book travel products from
SNS pages, supporting the acquisition phase of the lifecycle. During the experience,
the accessibility of SNSs through mobile apps supports the sharing of stories,
photos, videos and status updates that, in turn, inspire other trawlers. Travel
organizations can support this behavior by providing free WiFi to make it easy for
travelers to share positive experiences. SNSs provide a range of tools to allow
travelers to document their journeys, including linking GPS-enabled digital images to
maps. In the reflection stage, SNSs allow the convenient cataloging of travel
experiences in a useful timeline format.
★Recent SNS developments include improved connectivity and the development of
tools that harness the massive amounts of user-generated content. Facebook's
Graph Search is a good example. It is a semantic search engine that provides

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users with answers to natural language-based search queries. It combines user-

generated big data from within a users network of friends with other information to
provide user-centric results. For example, a user might ask for: "friends who have
been to New York’’. Graph Search will then return results that combine friends’
content with external data from the web. This tool provides a powerful search
function for eWOM and meshes this content with other information sources to create
results that are unique to the users social context. Travel organizations can take
advantage of these developments by encouraging travelers to share positive content
about their experiences to reach their social networks.
★External travel companies have also developed innovative apps for SNSs. For
example, OTA eDreams developed a Facebook app called Domingo, which allowed
users to share their travel experiences and be inspired by seeing where their friends
have been. Another example is the integration between Facebook and TripAdvisor.
Users who log in to TripAdvisor using their Facebook username will see reviews
from friends or “friends of friends" before reviews from strangers. These examples
illustrate that the search for travel information is becoming increasingly personalized
and social as a result of harnessing the "big data" available to SNSs.

Wikis, blogs and product reviews

★Wikis, blogs and product review sites provide asynchronous platforms for sharing
digital content. A wiki is a real-time editable website that helps users create content
through cooperative development and ownership (Bean and Hott, 2005). The term
blog is a contraction of the phrase "web Log" and refers to a personal tvebsite or
webpage that allows an individual to present content and opinions. The key
difference between a wild and a blog is that one author controls the content on a
blog, whereas wiki supports multiple authors. A product review site is a website
devoted to providing subjective consumer feedback on products and services.

Wikis
★Ward Cunningham created the first wiki in 1995.
The word was derived from the Hawaiian wiki-wiki
which means quick. Today there are two types of
wikis:
✓ The first category includes wikis in the public
domain, which allow anyone fo contribute
content.
✓ The second type includes private wikis where access is limited to users
collaborating together on a project.
★Unlike SNSs, individual contributions to wikis are often anonymous. The world's

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largest wiki project, Wikipedia, contains many entries about places that travelers
may use as an authoritative information source. The Internet also offers several
specialist travel wikis. A travel wiki is a crowdsourced travel guide offering
information about travel products and destinations authored by an online travel
community. WikiTravel attracts more than 350,000 readers per day and is a good
example of a travel wiki. The key strength of a travel wiki is that the content is
dynamic and constantly updated by travelers. Consequently, the information is more
timely, complete and personalized than that provided in commercial guidebooks
(Schwabe and Prestipino, 2005).
★Savvy tourism organizations can contribute to wiki pages to present travel products
and destinations in a favorable light. However, care needs to be taken that the
information is factual, written objectively and supported by reputable sources.
Blatant attempts at marketing prose are likely to be quickly edited or corrected by
other members of the wiki community. Collaborative editing is the defining feature of
wikis. An individual can edit any content and changes are logged using a history
feature so that users can see and restore previous versions of a wiki page. Travel
organizations can use private wikis for collaborating on strategic plans, marketing
materials, reports, manuals, project management and software (Majchrzak et.al.,
2006). These features are particularly useful when collaborators are in different
locations.

Blogs and microblogs

★Blogs have evoked separately from wikis. The first
blogs emerged in the late 1990s as online diaries,
allowing authors to record regular entries.
Technological developments led to web-based
applications for authors to post entries without
learning HTML coding. A number of different types
of blogs have emerged, including the following:
1. Traditional blogs: personal entries or opinion pieces in text format and
organized in reverse chronological order. Popular mainstream online
platforms include Blogger, Wordpress and Blogbus. Some sites, such as
Travelpod, provide a platform for travelers to document their travel stories
in a blog format.
2. Microblogs: sometimes called "social blogs", microblogs allow users to
broadcast short status updates (140-200 characters) to followers.
Microblogs can be public or distributed to private followers. They offer
higher levels of immediacy and portability because posts can be quickly
created using different devices. Typically, posts are tagged so that

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multiple posts related to particular topics, events, places or people can be

easily retrieved. Examples include Twitter and Sina Weibo, but many
mainstream SNSs also include microblogging tools.
3. Multi-author blogs: some blogging platforms support blogs with multiple
authors (e.g. Wordpress). This allows blog owners to increase the content
and reach of the blog but also requires management of multiple authors.
A good travel example is National Geographie’s Intelligent Travel blog.
4. Video blogs: video blogs use tools like YouTube, VouKu and Vimeo to
allow bloggers to share their opinions and content in video format. Video
bloggers typically set up a channel used to provide regular “broadcasts"
based on their topic of expertise.
5. Curated blogs: curated blogs involve discovering, gathering and
presenting digital content on a specific topic from a variety of sources.
This amalgamation is called a ‘mashup’ and on include text, articles, links,
images, video and maps. For travel professionals and companies,
content curation assists with search engine rankings because linking
multiple pieces of content about a specific topic increases its exposure
when that topic is searched.
★Schmallegger and Carson (2008) propose that blogs have a number of travel-
related applications, including communication, promotion, product distribution,
management and research. While the first three suggestions are clear, the
management and research elements of blogs are often overlooked. Travel
organizations can use blogs as internal management tools to communicate with
employees, intermediaries, partners and VIP customers. Many travel organizations
have adopted a proactive approach by embedding blogs on their own websites. For
example, the Marriott Rewards Insiders site includes hotel reviews, forums and a
blog for members of its loyalty program. There is also scope to mine traveler blogs
for market intelligence. Bosangit et al. (2012) suggest that the representations of
places found in blogs provide rich insights into how travelers perceive destinations.
Destination marketers could use these insights to marketing strategies and
destination branding efforts.
★Twitter is perhaps the most ubiquitous of all the blogging platforms. Travel
organizations are increasingly establishing twitter accounts to engage with travelers.
Like SNSs, microblogs provide another channel for public relations, marketing and
customer service. However, in the travel industry there is also a focus on engaging
prominent bloggers who are opinion leaders. These blogs blur the lines between
travel features found in the traditional press and the diary format already discussed.
As a result they are becoming increasingly influential in travelers’ decision-making.
As travel companies offer free familiarization trips to travel writers and travel

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intermediaries, the best travel bloggers are now invited to experience the best a
destination has to offer. Many well-known travel bloggers are nomads who move
from one destination to another, often gathering and writing about their experiences
courtesy of the travel organizations that sponsor them. Tourism destinations also
routinely recruit and reward their own “ambassadors’ to write favorable blogs about
their experiences.
★The “Best Job in the World” competition is an example of how elaborate some
campaigns have become. In 2009, Tourism Queensland invited people worldwide to
apply for the best job in the world - caretaker of a tropical island on the Great Barrier
Reef. The position was primarily a public relations role that required the winner to
blog regularly about their adventures. The competition was won by 34-year-old Ben
Southall. People could follow Ben's adventures by visiting “Ben's Blog“, which acted
as a central digital portal for media interviews, videos, stories and photo-diaries
based on his experiences. This format has, subsequently, been copied by a number
of other destinations using increasingly sophisticated blogs, microblogs and other
social media.

Product Review Sites

★Product review sites offer
another UGC platform for
travelers to record their travel
experiences. Unlike blogs and
wikis, product review rites
aggregate short reviews from
m any t r av elers i n a
searchable database.
TripAdvisor is perhaps the
best known example in the travel industry. Other examples include Urbanspoon for
restaurants, Yelp for localized reviews and Skytrax for airlines. Some product review
sites also specialize in particular market segments, for example Minitime, which has
planning tools for families with children.
★TripAdvisor, originally focused on accommodation, has expanded to provide reviews
on attractions, tours and restaurants. It has also developed innovative links with
SNSs and rewards reviewers by awarding badges. The site has grown significantly
in the number of images submitted by reviewers, indicating that a more connected
and media-rich format is developing. Recently the site has become a travel
metasearch engine by facilitating bookings through links with suppliers and
intermediaries. This provides a seamless service for people to read reviews and
book a product on one website.

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★The growth of product review sites has encouraged eWOM and has taken the
control of information out of the hands of marketers and handed it to consumers.
While they help to identify dubious operators and give more market power to
reputable ones, product review sites have created challenges for travel
organizations. Some provide organizations with an opportunity to respond to traveler
reviews. The challenge for managers is to determine whether a response is required
and hw it should be worded (O’Connor, 2010). In the case of negative reviews, a
standard response under each review might have little impact, whereas a
personalized response following well-established service recovery steps could
restore the trust of readers.
★Malicious use of review sites by competitor who post positive reviews of their own
product and negative reviews of rival offerings is another problem (Yoo and Gretzel,
2009). While most mainstream product review sites employ sophisticated software
and human intervention to detect suspicious reviews, some fake reviews slip
through. Once online, it is difficult to remove them, damaging the reputation of the
business in the interim. However, product review sites can also be harnessed for
useful outcomes such as suggestions for service quality and product improvements.
Many suppliers actively encourage travels to post reviews, and some embed live
feeds of the most recent reviews on their websites.

Forums
★Forums represent one of the oldest
examples of social media. An
Internet forum, or discussion board,
is a website where members can
post comments and respond to
postsfromothers.These
comments are typically organized
into threads or topics to keep
particular conversations together.
Forumsusuallyrequire
membership before comments can
be posted. Members are typically identified by a handle, or nickname, and an avatar,
but some forums also display real names and photos. During the registration
process, members are asked to agree to forum rules relating to online etiquette,
such as respecting other members and refraining from the use of inappropriate
language. Members can usually edit their own posts, start new topics and reply to
posts written by other members. Many forums are moderated by senior members to
restrict content posted by trolls and spammers.

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★Two common uses of forums can be found in the travel industry. The first application
involves the use of forums to discuss particular destinations or to seek travel advice.
For example, TripAdvisor is not only a product review site but also a forum where
travelers can pose questions about destinations, which are answered by local
volunteers or other travelers. Other well known examples include VirtualTourist and
LonelyPlanet’s Thorn Tree. In the airline sector, FlyerTalk provides a forum for
aviation buffs and the frequent-flyer community. The second application is by
intermediaries, suppliers and destinations for customer service purposes. For
example, the Department of Tourism in Kerala, India, maintains a traveler forum
where users can port questions that are answered by members of the local tourism
industry.

Media sharing
★Many travelers share photos and videos of their journey using media-sharing sites
like Flickr, YouTube and YouKu. Greater bandwidth and cheaper electronic devices
capture images and video has caused media-sharing sites to grow rapidly. For
example, by 2013, more than 1 billion unique users visited YouTube each month and
more than 100 hours of content were added each minute. These sites not only
facilitate the easy upload of visual content but also allow followers to share, rate and
leave comments about images and videos. It is this interactive aspect that makes
media-sharing sites special.
★Photo-sharing sites like Flickr have obvious applications for the tourism industry;
which often relies on evocative images to sell holidays. The sharing of photos on
SNSs is powerful to build virtual communities around a brand. But, the images and
associated metadata, such as tags, geotags and temporal information can also be
useful information about the sites travelers visit. Most digital cameras and
smartphones embed GPS geotags and timestamps into image data, which provides
useful market intelligence about the duration of visits to sites and visitation patterns
in a region (Popescu and Grefenstette, 2009; Vu et al., 2017). The comments left by
viewers can also provide market intelligence.
★Video-sharing sites offer tools for travelers to share their journey with family and
friends. Aside from documenting their trips, travelers are also using Youtube to share
their reviews of hotel rooms, tours and attractions. Hotel room walkthroughs with
commentary are now common and provide viewers with content that cuts through
the professional photography and marketing hype found on hotel websites. Travel
organizations can also contribute content to video-sharing sites but promotional
videos produced for traditional media are not suitable for video-shoring sites (Reino
and Hay, 2011). Travelers use sites like Youtube to search for information, watch
reviews and seek advice about a product or destination. As a result, consumer-

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generated videos are more pervasive than marketer- generated videos (Lim et a/.,
2012). The use of authentic travelers, ambassadors or locals with genuine insights
into the product or destination is more successful in this medium. As with other
social media platforms, video sharing sites also provide a visual platform for viral
marketing campaigns. Embedding videos on other social media platforms facilitates
the sharing of video content. However, like many other platforms disgruntled guests
and employees can upload content that could cast a product or destination in an
unfavorable light.
★Another application of media sharing sites is the use of document-sharing services
such as SIideshare and Scribd. These sites allow organizations to share documents
such as reports, infographics and presentations with internal and external
stakeholders. Document-sharing sites also allow readers to rate, comment on and
share uploaded content. These sites are useful for communicating with stakeholders
such as investors and the media and therefore serve an important public relations
function. Most document-sharing services also allow travel organizations to easily
share digital versions of traditional marketing collateral such as brochures and other
printed material.

Crowd Sourcing
★Crowdsourcing involves using the
Internet to "find people to perform
tasks that computers are generally
lousy at" (Howe, 2006, p. 5).
★These tasks require very little time
fromeachindividual,and
consequently they offer little, if any,
compensation.
★Crowdsourcing also offers a number of opportunities for destinations. In 2012, the
Philippines government decided to crowdsource its next tourism campaign by asking
Facebook and Twitter followers to combine the "It's More Fun in the Philippines”
tagline with their own images and ideas. This resulted in hundreds of images that
were shared across social media platforms. Other destinations, such as Colorado,
USA, have used a similar approach by inviting visitors and locals to answer the
question "What makes Colorado Colorado?"
★An emerging application of crowdsourcing involves the use of Local experts to
provide information, tips and advice to travelers. Google’s Local Guides were
created to provide visitors and locals with a source of expert advice about the best
places to eat, shop and play. Local experts write reviews and upload photos, which
are displayed on Google Maps.

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Virtual worlds
★Virtual worlds are three-dimensional, computer-based simulated environments
through which users can interact using avatars. Virtual worlds are generally divided
into virtual social worlds (e.g. Second Life) and virtual gaming worlds (e.g. World of
Warcraft). Virtual social worlds offer opportunities for users to participate in virtual
representations of tourist experiences. These representations may be copies of real-
world sites, such as hotels, theme parks, heritage sites and even entire destinations,
or they may be completely artificial fantasy environments. The advantage for
travelers is that they can experience places that they may be unable to visit in reality
because of budget or time limitations, poor mobility or restricted access. Virtual
worlds can also offer substitute experiences for sites that may be too sensitive to
visit.
★Many travel organizations and destinations have established headquarters and sites
in virtual worlds such as SecondLife. This virtual presence provides another touch
point for interacting with potential travelers and offers many marketing opportunities,
including browsing virtual brochures, viewing videos, linking to external websites and
visiting virtual representations of tourist sites. A number of travel companies have
also used SecondLife to generate and test new product ideas. For example,
Starwood Hotels used SecondLife to test designs and hotel room features for its
Aloft brand before the first real property opened in 2008 (Sigala, 2007). Residents of
SecondLife have set up tours, opened travel agencies and written guidebooks to
help visitors navigate around the complex virtual environment. Virtual worlds also
provide a virtual meeting place for travel employees in different locations.

Travel podcasts
★A podcast is a series of digital audio or video files, often in the form of episodes,
which a user can download and listen to. Podcasts can be subscribed to or
downloaded as individual episodes. Travel podcasts can be used to provide
destination information to travelers. Some podcasts are produced by individual
travelers (and therefore can be viewed as a form of social media) and others by
major travel guides; some are audio only and some include video. Table 5.2 shows a
few of the travel podcasts that are available. DMOs can also use podcasts to inform
visitors abort their destination; however, very few do so. A study of city DMOs in the
USA found that the minority used podcasts in this way, and so they can be utilized
more in the future (Xie and J .ew, 2008).

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Name of podcast Content

Beautiful Places Video podcast focusing on the outdoors
Finding America Travel every road in the USA
Frommer's Podcast Travel information from the editors of
Frommer's
Italy from Inside Native Italian gives travel advice
Lonely Planet Very international in scope - audio only
Travelcasts
Travel in 10 Ten-minute tours of destinations
Travel with Rick Many individual country guides
Steves

angilo
The Travel Travel information and guidance on
Destination Podcast many destinations

g/
Walksofa Lifetime National Geographic: selection of

M
world's greatest walking tours

Table 5.2. Examples of travel podcasts (http://www.openculture.com/)

STRATEGIC APPLICATIONS OF SOCIAL MEDIA

★Social media offers a number of opportunities for travel organizations. However,
social media is not the panacea of marketing - it is merely a new tool in the toolbox
of media and information channels available to travelers and organizations. Travel
organizations need to consider their target markets and their expectations because
not all market segments expect engagement through social media. In addition, some
markets will expect engagement through specific social media channels, suggesting
that organizations need to spend time to understand their key markets.
Organizations need to ensure that traditional tools are not ignored and that social
media efforts are well-planned and integrated into the firm's overall strategy.
★A strategic approach means that organizations need to plan their engagement with
social media (see Fig. 5.6).
★The framework displaced in Fig. 5.6 demonstrates the need for a strategic
approach:
✓ This involves learning what social media can do by using it, studying case
studies, hearing from practitioners and exploring the latest trends.
✓ A strategic approach also requires the organization to prioritize its social
media objectives.
✓ There are risks attached to the use of social media and it is important to
establish a governance framework to identify opportunities, manage risk and
establish policies.
✓ Once this framework is in place the organization should project manage its

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social media efforts by defining key activities and stages.

✓ The capacity of employees and managers should also be considered and, if
necessary, the organization should invest in developing the capabilities of
social media champions.
✓ A strategic approach requires that efforts are measured and refined by
establishing key performance indicators and reporting mechanisms.
✓ Finally, the nature of social media means that the organization needs to
prepare to engage in conversation regularly and to listen by monitoring
markets, communities and key influencers.

Fig. 5.6. Communication Factors Influencing eWOM

Marketing and sales

★From a strategic perspective, social media may be particularly effective for building
virtual communities around a brand. This is done through viral marketing campaigns
and contests that attract “likes" and encourage people to engage with the
organization - whether it be a social network page, media-sharing website or blog.
Increasingly, social media can also play a role in the sales and distribution of tourism
experiences.
★The two key lessons from organizations successfully using social media are that
marketing campaigns need to be consumer-driven and integrated across several
channels, meaning that integrated marketing communications (IMC) should drive
marketing efforts. IMC is a strategic marketing approach that requires, the

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coordination of both traditional and digital channels to ensure that they reinforce
each other and are centered on the consumer. IMC leverages the strengths of each
channel to accomplish an outcome better than that achieved by each individual
channel. This means that organizations need to understand the limitations of each
channel and how different target markets respond to these channels. For example,
when Tourism Queensland launched the "Best Job in the World” campaign (see
Case Study) it initially made use of traditional media to advertise the contest.
However, the focus quickly moved to leveraging several social media channels as
contestants submitted their videos and news of the competition went viral.
★The Tourism Queensland example illustrates the power of leveraging the strengths
of each platform. Each channel offers a unique formula for engagement, creating a
deeper, more enriching experience. Table 5.3 indicates how blogs and media-
sharing sites can be used to generate exposure. SNSs provide the perfect platform
to engage and influence followers while seamless links to booking platforms can
support product acquisition.
★Another social media in the travel industry is the idea of social booking and seating.
A good example is SeatID, which specializes in providing ticketing and booking
websites and apps with social dements that allow travelers to log in with their social
media profile. Information from their profile is then used to determine whether any of
their social contacts have flown with the same airline, stayed in the same hotel or
visited the same attractions or events. Travelers are even able to choose a flight and
and a seatmate based on their social network profiles.

Strategy Objective Media Metrics

Exposure Generate Traditional media, blogs, Number of visits, views,
awareness microblogs, media followers
sharing
Engagement Connect with Social network sites, Repeat visitors, re-
travelers microblogs, forums tweets, shares
comments, replies
Influence Change Social network sites, Click-through rates,
attitudes blogs, media sharing, message recall,
reviews sentiment, ratings
Acquisition Facilitate Website, booking engine Conversion rates, sales,
bookings visitor numbers, length of
stay, expenditure

Table.5.3. Strategic use of different media for a tourism campaign.

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Market intelligence
★Social media can play an important role
in strategic listening. The social
interactions between and among
organizations and customers generate a
vast amount of “big data” that can be
mined for market intelligence. This includes information about market trends,
customer sentiment and the impact of competitors. Organizations can monitor social
media channels or outsource this to media monitoring companies specializing in
tracking conversations in the social media space. Social media also allow
companies to listen directly to customers by encouraging questions, feedback and
suggestions. Questions from travelers can generate more accurate FAQs, and
inform marketing campaigns and product design.

Customer service
★Social media is essentially about conversations and dialogues and it thus provides
many opportunities for customer service, relationship building and public relations. A
glance at any travel organization’s social media profile will reveal that travelers use
these platforms to ask questions, provide compliments and post complaints about
poor service. In the latter case, social media provides another touch point for service
recovery. Clever handling of complaints in these public forums sends a message to
other consumers that the organization takes its customer service obligations
seriously. Facebook, WeChat and other SNSs have also developed chatbots, which
use machine learning to interact with users to answer simple queries. These
chatbots often run on messaging apps or company websites and can simulate a
human conversation, thereby passing the Turing test. Some chatbots use
sophisticated natural language processing systems respond to text or voice queries.
In 2018, Google demonstrated how Google Assistant could book a restaurant over
the phone by combining the capabilities of a chatbot with a virtual assistant.
★There are opportunities to demonstrate just how far the organization will go to
strengthen its relationship with guests. Consider the following example of a guest
named Chris Hurn who stayed at the Ritz-Carlton on Amelia Island in Florida with his
family. When the family checked out of the hotel, Hurn’s young son forgot his
beloved stuffed giraffe, Joshie. Figuring that the giraffe was lost forever, Hurn told his
son that Joshie was just staying on vacation a little longer. When hotel staff called
Hurn to say they had found Joshie he was relieved but asked the hotel to help him
substantiate the story that Joshie was relaxing a bit longer at the hotel. Hurn asked if
someone could take a picture of Joshie in a lounge chair by the pool. The Ritz

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obliged but went one step further, sending Hurn a package that included Joshie,
some Ritz-Carlton merchandise and a full book of pictures of Joshie enjoying all of
the amenities at the hotel. Hurn was so impressed by the customer service that he
shared his experience on social media, including photos taken by hotel staff.
★Social media is a powerful platform for converting disgruntled customers and
creating positive public relations and customer service interactions. In a nutshell,
social media provide opportunities for organizations to build and strengthen
customer relationships.

Reputation management
★There is a broad application of the
concept of reputation today due to the
volume and variety of information on the
Internet, particularly social media, which
plays a central role in reputation
formation and circulation for individuals
and businesses (Marchiori and Cantoni,
2011). Online reputation analysis, therefore, allows tourism businesses such as hotel
and/or destination managers to:
(i) monitor mentions on social media platforms;
(ii) categorize consumer reviews based on topics, importance or urgency;
(iii)review past and current trends; and
(iv)compare an organization's online presence with its competitors and manage
customer feedback.
★Opinion mining is an important technical tool that helps managers to identify topics,
sentiment and trends for a variety of purposes (Pang and Lee, 2008). In online
reputation analysis in hospitality and tourism, professional tools such as ReviewPro
(https://www.reviewpro.com) and Revinate (https://www.revinate.com) have been
developed for data harvesting and data classification, including methods such as
frequency analysis of keywords, sentiment analysis of the online mentions and topic
association with brands and/or with predefined topic categories. Take Revinate for
example: its website helps hotels collect and mine data from travel review websites
such as TripAdvisor and Google Reviews, and social network sites such as Twitter,
Facebook, LinkedIn and others. These reviews will allow hotels to understand what
went wrong so that they can respond (e.g. reply to consumers). There has been an
official partnership between Revinate and TripAdvisor since 2011 which allows
Revinate to monitor customer reviews, ratings and hotels' rankings on the
TripAdvisor Popularity Index. Revinate also measures guest experiences by
combining online reviews, survey data and social media mentions, and connects

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hotels with their customers through smartphone apps to allow them to check in and
share their experiences.

Recruitment and partnerships

★While most of the strategic applications discussed so far focus on business-to-
customer interactions (B2C), the potential for B2B applications should not be
overlooked. Social media also creates opportunities for travel suppliers to recruit
business partners and staff. The social presence of an organization should not only
target travelers but also other businesses and employees who are attracted by the
organization's brand values. Social media provides the perfect platform for
communicating these brand values. Professional SNSs such as Linkedln support
networking partnerships and recruitment.

SUMMARY
★This module has provided several frameworks to help students understand the
social media landscapes and the functions of social media platforms. We have
explored the importance and features of eWOM as an influential source of
information tor travelers. Our discussion of the social media platforms has
highlighted opportunities for travel organizations. In the final part of this module, we
emphasize that despite all the hype surrounding social media, travel organizations
need a strategic approach to these technologies. Planning is required to integrate
social media with other marketing channels, to monitor the results of social media
efforts and to help the organization to capitalize on the opportunities provided by
these new media.

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I. ESSAY. Answer the following questions briefly but comprehensively.

1. What features of social media make them different to other media?

2. What are the advantages and disadvantages of using electronic word of mouth (eWOM)
to find information about places and destinations?

3. If you were the GM of a hotel, what strategies would you use to deal with fake reviews
posted about your hotel?

4. What is the role of virtual worlds in travel?

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AritW.G. {2006) Not very wil Ikommort: the Internet as a mar kef ing I MI foratt racti ng Germa
n -spea king tau rists to non-European destinations. Jriformoriorr Technology and Tourism
813/4}, 227-238. DOI: 103727/iWE3Q506778000803
Baloglu, S. and Pekcan, YA (20061 The website design and internet site marketing practices
of upscale and luxury hotels In Turkey, Tourism Alcwgewnt 27{l), 171-176, DOI; 10,1016/j,
tourman.2OO4.O7.0O3
Belch, G.E, feldi, M.A., Kerr, G.E. and Powell, I. (2003} Advertising and Promotion: An
Integrated Marketing Communicaiiont Perfective, 6th edn. McGraw-Hill, Boston,
Massachusetts.
Beldona, 5. and Cal LA. (2006) An exploratory evaluation or rural tourism websites. Journo)
of Coivenriaa iwf fwwt Tourism 8(1), &S-BO.
Bene kendorff, R and Black, fill. (2000) Des ti nation marketing on the I ntemet: a case study
of Australian regional tourism authorities. Journal of Tourism Studies 11 fl), 11-21.

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