Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
social media has signifi cant infl uence on travel information search and sharing behaviour
and, consequentially, mediates the way travellers perceive and interact with travel products and
tourism destinations. Additionally, recent developments in mobile computing, particularly with
the emergence of smartphones and their apps for travel, creates new locales for information
search and use on-the-go where travellers' situational needs for information and communication
are becoming increasingly prominent (Wang, Park and Fesenmaier 2012). The notion of 'travel
in the network' (Gretzel 2010) serves as a convenient metaphor that helps us understand
travel behaviour in today's increasingly connected world and which has important implications
for travel information search.
It is argued that traditional views of travel information search are static and rigid and focused
primarily on the pre-trip stage of decision making. This perspective generally assumes that once
a trip planning task is given information search will follow suit to identify the optimal solution
to the problem and which is constrained by a number of factors such as the combination of the
travel party, time and fi nancial constraints, and other variables which frame the process (Gretzel
et al
. 2006). However in the current environment, travellers do not have to commit to a 'complete'
travel plan before they embark on the trip. Instead, knowing that the information is always out
there will change the trip planning behaviour in that travellers may postpone some of the
decisions to a later stage, resulting in more on-going and
en route
searches. A recent six year
longitudinal study conducted by the National Laboratory for Tourism and eCommerce at
Temple University on American travellers' trip planning behaviour clearly shows that there are
important trends in travellers' search behaviour (Xiang, Wang and Fesenmaier 2013). As can be
seen from
Table 21.1
,
searching for 'information about a particular destination' has been one of
the top priorities for American travellers in their travel planning activities in the past six years;
however, this aspect of search is a declining trend in that there are fewer people searching for this
type of information once a destination has been decided, and indicates travellers may look
for information about this specifi c destination at a later stage. Interestingly, this trend
contrasts sharply with another indicating that there are an increasing number of people using the
Internet to search for 'potential' destinations to visit. Another notable trend is that the use
of the Internet for 'printed out maps and/or driving directions' has been decreasing, likely
owing to the growing adoption of GPS systems. It is also very interesting to see that many of the
search-related activities have remained fairly constant over this time period.
Searching the travel network
also suggests that travel information search has become increasingly
connected with one's social circles and intertwined with one's everyday life in many different
ways. Recently, it has been recognized that the use of information technology in everyday life
'spills over' to other activities including travel (MacKay and Vogt 2012). Today's communication
tools such as smartphones and the Internet have been recognized for their capabilities to
'decapsulate' travel experience, which refers to connecting travellers with people, places and
issues in their ordinary lives and reminding them of 'reality' in another spatial and temporal
context (Jansson 2007). For example, the push alert function available on different smartphone
apps instantly informs travellers of incoming emails, friends' posts or comments and even the
potential friends nearby. As such, the information in other domains of life 'breaks the boundaries'
set up by space and time and spill over into the context of travel. Travellers voluntarily or
involuntarily absorb the information fl ows that are seemingly irrelevant to their trips, and they
have reported the willingness to stay 'informed' because those domains are part of their lives
(Wang, Park and Fesenmaier 2012).
The growing importance of social media also has attracted much attention and has been well
documented in recent tourism research (Xiang and Gretzel 2010; Leung, Law, van Hoof and
Buhalis 2013; Sigala, Christou and Gretzel 2012). In the same longitudinal study of American
