Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Mills and Jiang 2007: 163). Niininen, March and Buhalis (2006) noted that numerous tourists
from around the world are connected via virtual communities and a variety of experience-based
information on tourism places and service are exchanged in these communities. Markus (2002)
classifi ed travel related online communities as relationship building communities as they are
formed around a shared interest as the result of geographical proximity, demographic similarity
or a common hobby. She suggests that commitment to the group is strongest in this kind
of community. Online travel communities changed communications among a large number of
people for travel related activities such as: obtaining travel information, maintaining connections,
fi nding travel companions, providing travel tips and suggestions, or just for the fun of telling each
other interesting travel experiences and stories without restrictions of time and distance (Wang
et al
. 2002). Aside from the functional use of virtual communities for tourists, they also offer
opportunities for members' sense of belonging, fun and self-identifi cation and serve as an exten-
sion of travel/tourism-related experiences beyond the actual travel (Jamal and Robinson 2009).
VTCs are also becoming an important channel for spreading word-of-mouth to other
travellers (Niininen, March and Buhalis 2006). For example, travel reviews in TripAdvisor.com,
raveable.com and tripwolf.com had become a sphere of social interaction for bloggers to post
evaluations and communicate with other bloggers through posts that provide a rich source of
marketing intelligence (Crotts, Davis and Mason 2012). VTCs have become platforms for
electronic word-of-mouth that are perceived as credible even if the readers do not know the
blogger personally. Several studies had pointed out that consumers have generally accepted
reviews from other consumers as more credible than marketers' communications (Allsop, Bassett
and Hoskins 2007; Gunter, Campbell, Touri and Gibson 2009; Pan, McLaurin and Crotts 2007).
Like any virtual communities, VTCs were observed to have several groups within the blogging
community as identifi ed by Fun and Wagner (2008) and Wang and Fesenmaier (2004) based on
the level of use of blogs and perceived benefi ts and incentives. These user groups are very similar
to de Valck, Bruggen and Wierenga's (2009) member types. However, the authors used different
labels: habitual or enthusiastic, active uses, personal bloggers and blogging lurkers (Fun and
Wagner 2008); tourist, mingler, devotee and insider (Wang and Fessenmaier 2004) which are all
self-explanatory. These groups will allow marketers to maximize the advantage of VTCs through
word-of-mouth communication and identify the most infl uential bloggers or opinion leaders to
monitor more regularly.
Blogs in virtual communities, according to Diaz-Loque (2009), pose new possibilities and
challenges for tourism marketers as they are considered to be more persuasive than advertising.
Schmallegger and Carson (2008) identifi ed the following VTCs that are most prominent for
their travel blogs: travelblog.org, travelpod.com, blog.realtravel.com, youtraveljournal.com,
travelpost.com, igougo.com and virtualtourist.com. Blogs on these VTC are now recognized by
some destination marketing organizations who have started to incorporate them in their websites
as promotional tools. Most city websites have special links to blogs which gives the organization
some control on the positive messages of a personal experience of the city (Diaz-Loque 2009).
Travel blogs
Blogs are usually presented in reverse chronological order via a web page interface (Wenger
2008). A blog has the following structure: header (with information about the author, title and
date of entry); body of the blog (may contain texts, images and other media fi les); footer (tools
for readers to comment and enter into a dialogue with the blog author and other readers); and
links (connecting to other sources of information available in the web). Technology such as blogs
makes the process of story-telling especially easy as pictures can be manipulated, contents can be
