Understanding tourist information search behaviour: the power and insight of social network analysis

Abstract

ABSTRACT Numerous tourism researchers have studied the information search behaviour of tourists. However, a dearth of scholarship has been devoted to examining tourists’ information search behaviour from a network perspective. This study investigates the significant associations between the networks of contingency factors (i.e. purpose of trip, composition of travel party, and number of visit) and search outcomes (i.e. length of stay and number of attractions visited). Of the raw data collected from international visitors by a metropolitan government in South Korea, this study used the data of visitors who searched their tourism information online. The authors compared the descriptive characteristics of the networks by number of nodes, number of links, and network density scores. The quadric assignment procedure (QAP) correlation analysis reveals positive correlations between the contingency networks and the search outcome networks although it also identified differences in the strength. The theoretical and practical implications contribute to a better understanding of tourism information search behaviour, such as the complex connection patterns between tourism information categories, which the authors discuss in the conclusion.