Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
assembled from one's own materials or integrated from other sites, narration and sounds can be
easily added, and posted materials can be assigned with different meanings through tags (Jamal
and Robinson 2009). Podcast and videos add an auditory and visual dimension to story-telling
while tagging provides an opportunity to add relevance to consumer-generated stories and make
them even more searchable (Jamal and Robinson 2009). Most blogs allow readers to comment
or respond to postings which is an important part of the feeling of community that typifi es Web
2.0 (O'Connor, Wang and Li 2011: 233).
Puhringer and Taylor (2008) defi ned travels blogs as those forums and individual entries
which relate to planned, current or past travel. They are the equivalent of personal online diaries
and are made up from one or more individual entries strung together by a common theme (for
example, a round-the-world trip) (Puhringer and Taylor 2008: 179). These blogs generally cover
general description of destinations such as climate, cuisine, transport, attractions or region-
specifi c stereotypes (Carson 2008; Pan, Crotts, McLaurin 2007; Wenger 2008). Blogs are also
comprised of pictures and videos uploaded by tourists for their readers to view. Used as digital
substitutes for traditional photo albums, the digital images uploaded onto community web pages
and discussion boards help recall aspects of trips and assist consumers in constructing memories
of vacations (Jamal and Robinson 2009: 569). An important feature of blogs is the functions that
allow tourists to share their experiences with others easily by updating their blogs directly even
from mobile phones (moblogging), or capture a moment or scenery and upload it directly to
their blogs (Tussyadiah and Fesenmaier 2009). Micro-blogs is a form of blogging that allows users
to write brief text updates (usually 140 characters) and publish them from text messages from a
mobile phone, instant messaging by email or from a website (O'Connor, Wang and Li 2011).
Examples of these are updates from Twitter, Jaiku, Tumblr and Facebook. Consequently, this blurs
the lines between enroute activities and post consumption behaviours which Jamal and Robinson
(2009) predict will increasingly happen while still on a trip. For example, bloggers, particularly
backpackers and long-haul and multiple destination travellers, are seen to be blogging while they
are travelling instead of doing it upon returning home (Bosangit 2012).
Travel blogs are considered by tourists as records of their travel experiences. Blogs are rich
narratives that contain details of experiences from multiple guests and provide a great deal of
useful information to the blog reader (Zehrer, Crotts and Magnini 2011). Jansson (2007) pointed
out how blogs have provided opportunities to compose a personal script based on very specifi c
sources of knowledge and, most importantly, have reduced the risk of cultural shock or alienation.
The travel stories can mimic real-world storytelling activities typical of the last stage of the
tourism consumption process (Jamal and Robinson 2009). In a blog, narratives and images can
be reworked, rearranged and idealized into a framework for a touristic memoryscape in a website,
photo-sharing sites and weblogs that are consumed by a wider audience (Jansson 2007). Blogs
are comprised of images, videos and fi lms that Tussyadiah and Fessenmaier (2009) refer to as
technology-assisted mediators which represent destinations. This mediation of experiences
covers the various stages of tourist experiences as shown in
Figure 38.1
.
Tussayadiah and Fesenmaier (2009) emphasized that shared images help tourists at the
post-visit stage in the recollection process and the remembrance of past experiences. In this case,
blogs can also be considered something for the tourist when they get home; as Crang (1997)
observed, tourist events are not so much experienced in themselves but rather for their future
memory. Blogs can reinforce the magic of a leisure trip and prolong the creation of ideal
ensembles of representation through the immediate sharing of extraordinary multisensory
experiences (Jansson 2007). This medium offers new levels of interactivity and immediacy in
broadcasting a story that were not conceivable in the past and has the advantage of closely
resembling traditional travel journals which used to be kept by many travellers (Jamal and
