Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
experience, as with any service experience is personally and individually constructed, as refl ected
in the nature of brand experience as 'actual sensations, feelings, cognitions, and behavioural
responses' (Brakus
et al
. 2009: 54), and indeed, '(t)he experience is the brand. The brand is
co-created and evolves with experiences' (Prahalad and Ramaswamy 2004: 136). This is refl ected
in a paradigmatic change in the way that value is created; no longer by the fi rm, but jointly by
consumers and the fi rm, with the co-creation of the experience providing this value (Vargo and
Lusch 2004; Prahalad and Ramaswamy 2004).
The experience environment is composed not only of the fi rm and its employees, channels,
products and services, but also the consumer community - and the consumer co-creates his/her
individual and unique experience, within this environment (Muniz and O'Guinn 2001;
Bengtsson 2003; Prahalad and Ramaswamy 2004). Essentially, the individualized brand
meaning emerges - not from the brand communications of the fi rm (though this is of course
signifi cant) - but through the social interaction of the members of the brand community
'with brand meaning being socially negotiated, rather than delivered unaltered and in toto from
context to context, consumer to consumer' (Muniz and O'Guinn 2001: 414). Signifi cantly, this
does not have to involve physical interactions with other brand users, but can involve online
social interaction through such means as forums or blogs, or even be characterized by a
psychological sense of brand community, where brand users do not necessarily interact socially
with others (Carlson, Sutter and Brown 2008).
Tourism and the social media challenge
The term 'social media' can be used to represent all of the various Internet based applications
that infl uence the tourism brand, based on Web 2.0, and using user generated content (UGC)
(Kaplan and Haenlein 2010). A noticeable feature of social media is their role in extending
traditional consumer word-of-mouth (WOM) into an online space (Mangold and Faulds 2009),
becoming eWOM (Hennig-Thurau and Walsh 2004). Positive eWOM has been found to
produce a more favourable attitude towards the brand (Jones, Aiken and Bousch 2009). Web 2.0
represents a later incarnation of the Internet marked by collaboration and content sharing,
facilitated by technological functionality, provided by applications such as Adobe Flash (which
enhances web pages with animation and interactivity), and RSS (Really Simple Syndication),
which provides frequently updated web feed content (Kaplan and Haenlein 2010).
UGC represents online content provided by consumers on publicly available websites,
facilitated in latter years by technological advances, and a more technology and media savvy
younger generation (Kaplan and Haenlein 2010). An integrative defi nition of social media is
'a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological
foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of User Generated Content'
(Kaplan and Haenlein 2010: 61). These applications include company and user blogs, email,
consumer feedback websites, online discussion forums, social networking websites, virtual
worlds, and content (video, image, music . . .) sharing websites (Mangold and Faulds 2009).
Specifi c attention in this chapter will be given to a number of social media that are increasingly
infl uential on the brand strategy of the tourism fi rm, and the tourist experience, including user
generated content; tourism communities; tourism fi rm websites; destination brand online
promotion; intermediary websites; social networks; virtual environments; and blogs.
User generated content
shared by individuals can be in the form of e.g. video (YouTube), text
(Wikipedia) or other content such as photos (Flickr). YouTube has become an incredibly
successful and prolifi c medium. Almost eight years of content is uploaded daily (70 per cent from
outside the USA), and nearly 17 million people have linked YouTube to at least one social
