Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Pan and Ryan (2007) identifi ed that further research is needed in terms of the interactions
between national tourism organizations (NTOs) and international advertising agencies.
Also, recognizing the role that promotional materials play in infl uencing travel media content,
marketing managers' roles as gatekeepers to media content need to be explored. Further work
is required on gender and culture to understand any congruence between thematic reporting
and cultural backgrounds. They also highlighted that recent advances in quantitative analysis
could be applied to understand framing strategies to generate signifi cant new managerially
relevant insights. More research is required on the demographic characteristics driving use of
and responses to marketing communications in tourism. Little is known of the differences in
responses to tourism communications in terms of age, cultural differences, education and so on,
or on the receptiveness of different demographic groups to online or offl ine stimuli.
WOM communications
Many tourism marketing studies have recognized the important infl uence that friends and
relatives played in travel decision making (Beiger and Laesser 2004). Friends and relatives are an
important source of word-of-mouth (WOM) information and organic destination image agents
(Murphy, Moscardo and Benendorff 2007). Recommendations from consumers who have prior
experience with a tourism product are the most infl uential sources of information in travel
decision making (Pan, MacLaurin and Crotts 2007). However, WOM is often treated in research
as a homogenous category, when social media have made this much more complex. Murphy
et al
. 2007 distinguish between WOM from friends and relatives with that of other travellers.
Additionally, with the advent of viral marketing campaigns, a further blurring of the lines
between what constitutes WOM and commercial messages is also evident (Litvin, Goldsmith
and Pan 2008). Murphy
et al
. found signifi cant differences in travel choice and behaviour
based on differences in WOM information source usage, but weak links between WOM
information source and destination image. WOM is becoming more pervasive and amorphous
(Litvin
et al
. 2008) and so there is a need to tease out differences in effectiveness and types of
value they provide to tourists.
Word-of-mouth, often referred to as 'recommendations', can be described as 'informal
communications directed at other consumers about the ownership, usage or characteristics of
particular goods and services or their sellers' (Westbrook 1987: 261). The transition from web
1.0, which was characterized by one-way information publication and distribution with
limited opportunities for user involvement, to web 2.0, characterized by websites that encourage
users active participation in the provision of information content has created what Scott
and Orlikowski (2012) call a
power
-
charged
environment of accountability and performance
measurement. Online reviews are important in tourism as recent research has shown that online
reviews are infl uential in travel information search and decision making, such that reading a
review increases the probability that consumers consider making a booking in the reviewed
hotel (Vermeulen and Seegers 2009).
Particularly, Scott and Orlikowski were interested in how organizations were being held to
account by various constituencies (publics, governments, client groups, lobbyists and interest
groups and so on) and the responses of those organizations to this online accountability process.
Online review sites such as TripAdvisor are so important because of the profound effect they
have on consumer behaviour. Offering to break through the often misleading and hyperbolic
public relations-eze of conventional travel guides, through the provision of travel information
supposedly legitimated through the collective process of user-generated social media, TripAdvisor
claims to present unbiased and true (i.e. based on 'real', lived experiences of travellers, and thus
