Virtual communities - Tourism Marketing - page 528

3 event evaluations;
4 identifi cations of product or infrastructure gaps;
5 performance reviews of associated products or collaborators; and
6 competitor analysis.

Table 38.3 provides evidence on how travel blogs have been used to examine various areas of
tourism marketing and management.
To maximize the use of travel blogs for tourism marketing, it is crucial for researchers and
marketers to have a good understanding of the blogging phenomenon and to approach it in a
systematic and effi cient manner. For example, an examination of travel bloggers' profi les, their
practices and motivations can provide rich information about this specifi c group of tourists who
spend time and effort in blogging about their travels. The value of understanding travel bloggers
is demonstrated in the empirical work of Bosangit (2012) based on a survey participated in by
1,214 travel bloggers from travelblog.org, one of the top travel blogging websites. The survey
offered several insights to marketers and researchers on travellers' practices, for example:

1 the socio-demographic profi le of the travel bloggers (mostly between 25 to 44 years old,
educated to college level and some with postgraduate degrees, and the majority of the
bloggers coming from the USA, the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada) provides
an overview on who would be valuable promoters or critiques of destinations;

Table 38.3 Diverse focus of research on travel blogs

Authors Focus of research

Kurashima et al.
(2005, 2006)

Geographically mapped tourists' behaviour in urban settings at a specific time
and location by extracting tourist experience from blogs

Douglas and Mills
(2006)

Brand images communicated by bloggers who had visited the Middle East and
North Africa

Pan et al . (2007) Visitor opinions posted on leading travel blog sites via semantic network

analysis to gain an understanding of the destination experience

Carson (2008) Different sources of consumer-generated web content about travel to

Australia's Northern Territory; evaluated the authorship, readership and the
nature of the content itself

Schmallager and
Carson (2008)

Web 2.0 applications and how increasing number of travel blogs may
influence the key functions of new media such as promotion, product
distribution, communication, management and research

Wenger (2008) Insights into the use of blogs about travel to Austria for travel

recommendations (consumer to consumer) and market research (by
destinations and tourism operators)

Tussyadiah and
Fessenmaier (2008)

Understanding tourist experiences in their temporal and spatial dimensions

Keng and Ting (2009) Interactivity and perceived similarities between blog readers and others, and

incorporates the concept of customer experiential value of blog users

Volo (2010) Looked at the space and time continuum and distinguishing experience

essence and experience as offering

Source : Summarized from Zehrer, Crotts and Magnini (2011); Volo (2010); Tussyadiah and Fessenmaier (2008);
Kurashima et al . (2005, 2006)