Analysis of travel bloggers' characteristics and their communication about Austria as a tourism destination

Abstract

Travel blogs are becoming an increasingly important mechanism for exchanging information among tourists, and for destinations and businesses to learn about the attitudes of their markets. The purpose of this research was to analyse blog entries relating to trips to Austria posted to www.travelblog.org. The research sought to establish similarities and differences between those posting blog entries and Austria's tourism markets. It analysed the content of blog entries to identify positive and negative perceptions of Austria as a tourism destination, and compared these with other research into Austria's destination image. The research found a largely homogenous population of blog authors that had quite different demographic and touristic characteristics from Austria's total population of visitors. Blog authors were visiting Austria as part of a larger European tour, and they provided relatively few insights that might assist in understanding Austria's destination image. The value of monitoring blogs may depend on locating blog authors who are more likely to influence key markets.