Selling Rooms Online: The Use of Social Media and Online Travel Agents

Purpose – This paper aims to focus on the reason why hoteliers choose to be present in online travel agent (OTA) and social media web sites for sales purposes. It also investigates the technological and human factors related to these two practices. Design/methodology/approach – The research is based on a survey sent to a wide range of hotels in a Swiss touristic region. The empirical analysis involves the specification of two ordered logit models exploring the importance (in terms of online sales) of both social media and the online travel agent, Booking.com. Findings – Findings highlight the constant tension between visibility and online sales in the web arena, as well as a clear distinction in social media and OTA web site adoption between hospitality structures using online management tools and employing personnel with specific skills. Practical implications – The research highlights the need for the hospitality industry to maintain an effective presence on social media and OTAs in order to move towards the creation of a new form of social booking technologies to increase their visibility and sales. Originality/value – This research contributes to understanding the major role played by OTAs and social media in the hospitality industry while underlining the possibility of a major interplay between the two

Destination Online Communication: Why Less is Sometimes More. A Study of Online Communications of English Destinations

This research investigates the relationship between Web site design and the Web site end-user experience of a vast number of English tourism destinations, both local and regional ones. Following recent research in the field, this paper evaluates destinations' online communication based on the implemented Web site features and on the effectiveness of the communication itself, borrowing its research methodology from different domains. After content and functionality analysis, a user-experience, scenario-based investigation has been carried out, which demonstrated that complex Web sites do not always serve end-users' needs properly; in other words, Web site complexity is not directly related with good user experience. This research may help destination managers to foster their online communication if they have fewer content and functionalities but are better focused and clearly user-oriented. © 2014 Taylor & Francis

Managing passengers’ experience through mobile moments

Travelers’ experience is dramatically affected by the use of digital technologies. On the one side, travel companies use them to support management and marketing practices with the purpose of fostering efficiency and ultimately increase competitiveness. On the other side, travelers heavily rely on their digital devices to organize, personalize and to a certain extent ‘live’ their travelling experience. Within this scenario, mobile devices are seen from both ends as crucial mean for location and context based interactive communication. Mobile devices are here discussed as personalization tool for leisure air passengers’ experiential journey in an airport starting from customers’ journey analysis, along with information sources used within the whole journey

eTourism for socio-economic development

Tourism has often been described as an economic driving force that contributes to rural and emerging economies development. However, when it comes to the social aspect of development the nature of this contribution is still debated by academics. Information and Communication Technologies can help enhancing the socio-economic contribution of tourism by fostering community-based tourism independent marketing and sales dis-intermediation. eT4D can be defined as the independent use of technologies by micro and small community based tourism firms to market and sell their products and services thus fostering local socio-economic development

The Internet Impact on Travel Purchases: Insights From Portugal

This research proposes an analysis of online consumer buying behavior in the travel and tourism field in Portugal. The study utilizes a self-administrated survey on a sample of 380 individuals created in order to understand the influence of the Internet on consumer buying behavior. The survey was administrated in Portugal, one of the European countries that are still struggling with Internet penetration. Results show the importance of the Internet has on two stages of the buying process: (i) alternative evaluation and (ii) buying act. Furthermore, this research highlights the critical role of touristic products availability and search costs on the buying behavior of consumers. However, past bad experiences and a certain level of insecurity persist as factors limiting the online purchase process. Results confirm the general trends in consumer behavior and highlight the need of moving further for Portugal in terms of technology adoption

eTourism for Development (eT4D): The Missing Piece in the ICT4D Research Agenda

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Destination EWOM: A Macro and Meso approach

The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework that describes the characteristics and the underlying drivers of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) at destination level. Tweets about a destination were collected while the destination hosted a hallmark event for 5 years(2011-2015). In each year, interactions on Twitter were analysed using macro and meso-level social network analysis to identify the network structure and hubs of eWOM activity. A K means clustering algorithm was then applied to create clusters of nodes with similar characteristics and eWOM content within each cluster was analysed using automated content analysis. The resulting model indicates that destination and event eWOM maintains a macro network structure in which a small number of accounts or hubs influence information sharing. Hub characteristics evolve over time, whereas eWOM content can fluctuate in response to high profile destination activities

Smart tourism destinations: ecosystems for tourism destination competitiveness

Purpose – Grounded in service-dominant (S-D) logic, the purpose of this paper is to explore the core components of smartness to present a framework for the development of the smart tourism destination. Design/methodology/approach – The paper explores the core components of smartness through case study analysis of well-established smart cities. Findings – The paper conceptualises smartness and argues ICT, leadership, innovation and social capital supported by human capital are core components of smartness. Although ICT is a critical enabler for smart tourism destinations, it is insufficient on its own to introduce smartness. The combination of hard and soft smartness components within a S-D logic ecosystem structure holds the potential for sustained competitive advantage and enhancement of quality of life of both residents and tourists in smart tourism destinations. Originality/value – The paper extends the application of S-D logic to the context of smart tourism destinations, specifically to examine the smartness concept as a means for competitiveness in tourism destinations

Community crosstalk: An exploratory analysis of destination and festival eWOM on Twitter

Research suggests that festivals can promote a destination via online word-of-mouth (eWOM) on socialmedia, even though the nature of this effect is not yet fully understood. Using a combination of Social Network Analysis and text analysis (qualitative and quantitative), this article examines eWOM at a tourism destination (Bournemouth) when a festival (Bournemouth Air Show 2013) is staged. The Communities of Interest of eWOM interactions on Twitter were captured and analysed to understand the structure and content of eWOM. Findings indicate that key users are usually already prominent individuals and that festivals act as both a direct generator as well as an online animator of eWOM. Finally, network size, span and scope may be useful indicators when comparing eWOM networks