An investigation of independent travelers’ trust in travel-related online content during pre-trip decision making

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 MA in Tourism Management, AllamehTabataba’i University, Tehran,I.R.Iran

2 Ecotourism Department, Faculty of Tourism Sciences, University of Science and Culture;Tehran, I.R.Iran;

Abstract

This research aims to investigate the trust of independent travelers to online content during the pre-trip decision making. The statistical population was travelers who had a completely independent trip with personal planning during the past year. Adopting snowball sampling, an online questionnaire was designed and the link was published through social networks. Findings indicated that men are more likely to make pre-trip decisions based on User-generated Content compared to women and this decision is mainly based on other travelers' comments and their opinions regarding their previous experiences. The results also show that the more people use social networks in their daily lives, the more they tend to trust other users' experience in making the pre-trip decision and plan their trip accordingly.

Keywords

References

Akehurst, G. (2008). What do we really know about services?. Service Business, 2(1), 1-15.
Arrigara, M., &Levina, N. (2008).Social dynamics in online cultural fields. ICIS 2008 Proceedings, 120.
Barreda, A., &Bilgihan, A. (2013).An analysis of user‐generated content for hotel experiences. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology.
Bronner, F., & De Hoog, R. (2011). Vacationers and eWOM: Who posts, and why, where, and what?. Journal of Travel Research, 50(1), 15-26.
Buhalis, D., & Law, R. (2008). Progress in information technology and tourism management: 20 years on and 10 years after the Internet—The state of eTourism research. Tourism management, 29(4), 609-623.
Burgess, S., Sellitto, C., Cox, C., &Buultjens, J. (2009, June). User-generated content (UGC) in tourism: Benefits and concerns of online consumers. In ECIS (pp. 417-429).
Cormode, G., & Krishnamurthy, B. (2008).Key differences between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0.First Monday, 13(6).
Cox, C., Burgess, S., Sellitto, C., &Buutlejens, J. (2009). Consumer generated web based marketing. Australia: CRC for Sustainable Tourism Pty Ltd.
Daugherty, T., Eastin, M. S., & Bright, L. (2008).Exploring consumer motivations for creating user-generated content. Journal of interactive advertising, 8(2), 16-25.
Del Chiappa, G., Alarcón-Del-Amo, M. D. C., & Lorenzo-Romero, C. (2016). Internet and user-generated content versus high street travel agencies: A latent gold segmentation in the context of Italy. Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management, 25(2), 197-217.
Di Gangi, P. M., &Wasko, M. (2009). The co-creation of value: Exploring user engagement in user-generated content websites. Proceedings of JAIS theory development workshop.sprouts: working papers on information systems, 9, No. 50, pp. 9-50.
Filieri, R., & McLeay, F. (2014). E-WOM and accommodation: An analysis of the factors that influence travelers’ adoption of information from online reviews. Journal of Travel Research, 53(1), 44-57.
Fotis, J. N., Buhalis, D., &Rossides, N. (2012). Social media use and impact during the holiday travel planning process (pp. 13-24). Springer-Verlag.
Gretzel, U., Yoo, K. H., &Purifoy, M. (2007). Online travel review study: Role and impact of online travel reviews.
Jensen, C. S., Vicente, C. R., & Wind, R. (2009). User-generated content: The case for mobile services. Computer, 41(12), 116-118.
Kim, I. K. (2010). Applying content analysis to web-based content. Journal of Computing and Information Technology, 18(4), 369-375.
Kotler, P. (2003). Marketing Management (11th ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall International Editions.
Kennell, S., & Rushton, A. M. (2015). User-generated content (UGC) in pleasure travel decision-making. Academy of Marketing Conference: The Magic in Marketing, (pp. 77-92).
Mishra, A. A. (2010). Consumer decision-making styles and young-adult consumers: An Indian exploration. Management & Marketing-Craiova, (2), 229-246.
O’Connor, P. (2008). User-generated content and travel: A case study on Tripadvisor. com. Information and communication technologies in tourism, 47-58.
O'connor, P. (2010). Managing a hotel's image on TripAdvisor. Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management, 19(7), 754-772.
Page, K. L., & Pitt, L. (2011).Web 2.0, social media, and creative consumers. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 10(6), i-iii.
Senecal, S., &Nantel, J. (2004).The influence of online product recommendations on consumers’ online choices. Journal of retailing, 80(2), 159-169.
Sidali, K. L., Schulze, H., & Spiller, A. (2009).The impact of online reviews on the choice of holiday accommodations. Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2009, 87-98.
Stepchenkova, S., & Zhan, F. (2013). Visual destination images of Peru: Comparative content analysis of DMO and user-generated photography. Tourism management, 36, 590-601.
Tsiakali, K. (2018). User-generated-content versus marketing-generated-content: Personality and content influence on traveler’s behavior. Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management, 27(8), 946-972.
Verplanken, B., Hazenberg, P. T., &Palenewen, G. R. (1992). Need for cognition and external information search effort. Journal of Research in Personality, 26(2), 128-136.
Wasserman, T. (2006). Consumers don’t trust blogs. Brandweek, 47(31), 10.
Ye, Q., Law, R., Gu, B., & Chen, W. (2011). The influence of user-generated content on traveler behavior: An empirical investigation on the effects of e-word-of-mouth to hotel online bookings. Computers in Human behavior, 27(2), 634-639.
Yoo, K. H., Lee, Y., Gretzel, U., &Fesenmaier, D. R. (2009). Trust in travel-related consumer generated media. Information and communication technologies in tourism 2009, 49-59.
Zeng, B., &Gerritsen, R. (2014). What do we know about social media in tourism? A review. Tourism management perspectives, 10, 27-36.
Zhang, X. L., Xu, Z. J., Zhang, Z. H., & Zheng, W. (2010). Exploitation Countermeasures Of Coastal Wetland Ecotourism In Jiaozhou Bay [J]. Hubei Agricultural Sciences, 6.
Journal of Tourism Planning and Development
Volume 9, Issue 35
March 2021
Pages 227-241

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics