Tourism Information Sources Research Articles

Resolving local cuisines for tourists with multi-source social media contents

Social media are playing an increasingly important role as information sources for tourists. However, the research on increasing the accessibility of social media for tourists is sparse. In this work, we study local cuisine as a specific application of the problem. At the social media side, food has become one of the highest rated topics with the popularity of mobile devices. Texts, photos, and videos about various cuisines are produced when people tweet, blog, and interact with friends in the social networks in their daily life. On the other hand, tourists often encounter cuisine names that they have difficulties in understanding the meanings, even with the help of a dictionary. Comprehensive heterogenous social media contents about local cuisines thus can greatly help in filling the gap. In this work, we propose utilizing the multi-source social media contents to resolve the local cuisines for tourists. The overall approach consists of two major components. First, a location-aware linking module is built to resolve the cuisine names, especially the pseudonym issue where the same food is known differently in various contexts. Second, given the resolved cuisine names, a location-aware aggregation module is designed to compile the relevant social media contents in various media forms. Experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the two modules. Furthermore, a user study shows that both the linking module and the aggregation module are helpful for tourists entering localities of new food.

Use of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, demographics, and information sources as antecedents to cognitive and affective destination image for Egypt

This research examines the role of demographics and Hofstede’s cultural dimensions in the selection of tourist information sources and in the formation of destination image. Data were collected from 201 respondents from different countries. Findings generally support some of the hypothesized relationships. Cultural dimensions were significantly related to the use of travel agencies, friends, and magazines, while age was related to the use of the Internet. Previous experience and travel agencies were significantly and negatively associated with cognitive image. Only the Internet was associated with affective image. Academic and practical implications are presented as well as suggestions for future research.

Understanding Behavior and Needs of Halal Tourism in Andaman Gulf of Thailand: A Case of Asian Muslim

It is recognized that tourism industry is playing a vital role in contributing to economic development and sustaining employment, in both advanced and developing economies. Thus, various strategies have been launched to increase competitiveness of tourism industry. Attract a new market segment is one among other strategies for tourism business. Muslim tourist is the large niche market for tourism industry. Thus, the knowledge about Muslim tourist’ behavior and needs are highly needed for tourism business sectors to develop, promote and sell tourism products that suit to the unique needs of this new market. Therefore, this study examines the Asian Muslim tourist’s behavior and needs at Andaman Gulf of Thailand. A convenience sampling technique is utilized. Face-to-face interviews by using structured questionnaire are employed to elicit responses from 280 Asian Muslim tourist of Andaman Gulf, Thailand. The findings of this research reveal that seeing and experiencing a foreign destination is the main reason for visiting Andaman Gulf of Thailand. Internet is the major source of tourism information. The most popular theme of trip is Sun and Sea. Majority of tourist hired a car and travel with family. They demonstrated high needs towards the placement of Qibla stickers/ direction towards Makkah city in hotel room, availability of Halal sigh at Halal restaurant, and availability of Mosque. Thus, the results from this study provide useful information for policy makers and business mangers in formulating the strategy and program to enhance Halal tourism potential in Andaman Gulf of Thailand.

Progress in travel blog research and its implications

Travel blogs can provide a virtual platform of sharing travel experiences and feelings for tourists,and is becoming a reliable source of information for tourists' decision-making,which has received extensive attentions from the academia circle and tourism professionals. Thus travel blogs have become a new tourism research object. This paper attempted to make a comprehensive analysis of relevant literature regarding travel blogs from2005 to 2012 at home and abroad. The analysis procedures and results were as follows:(1) Domestic and foreign research started relatively late,but developed rapidly. Achievements were mainly published on tourism marketing and management journals.(2) The major research contents were categorized. Bloggers,blog's content and travel-blogging techniques were the main research subjects. Firstly,the analysis of bloggers included blogger's demographic characteristics,writing of blogs,and blogger's travel behavior. Writing of blogs was analyzed in terms of writing motivation,writing time,writing skills and blog's sharing. Blogger's travel behavior was analyzed in terms of travel motivation,travel spatial behavior and satisfaction level. Secondly,the analysis of blog's content included its effect on potential tourists,image construction of tourist destinations,and tourist destination marketing. Thirdly,travel-blogging techniques were proposed to solve the problems with blog-using,including information searching,information extraction,information sharing and writing application. Foreign studies have made considerable amount of progress on these subjects,and mainly focused on blogger's travel behavior,blog's effect on destination marketing and blogging techniques. Domestic research has been only focused on blog's influence on image construction and marketing of travel destination.(3) Main research methods were analyzed comprehensively in terms of their characteristics and the insufficiency. Firstly,in the aspect of information searching methods,searching on the Internet has been widely used. The paper listed the searching websites and made a comparison between Website searching and online survey methods in term of the cost,amount of information,authenticity,integrity,operability and so on. Secondly,in the aspect of analysis methods,there were abundant methods to analyze the content of blogs at home and abroad,including word frequency analysis,semantic network analysis,discourse analysis,interpretative analysis,narrative analysis,digital ethnography analysis,phenomenology analysis,stance-shift analysis and so on,among which content analysis and narrative analysis have been most widely used. The paper also made a comparison between content analysis and narrative analysis in term of their advantages and disadvantages.(4) The paper looked into the possible directions of future development from three aspects,namely,research scales,research contents and research methods,providing references and enlightenment for further application and study. In the aspect of research scales,it was suggested that the comparative study of different scales should be enhanced. In the aspect of research contents,it was suggested that the perspective of local community should be considered,and other contents in blogs could also be analysis objects,such as pictures and videos. And the results should be complemented by field research because bloggers are not representative of all tourists. In the aspect of methods,domestic study should learn the advanced theory and research paradigm from foreign research,as well as strengthen regional research constantly,in the hope to construct China-style travel blog research system.

The effect of searching and surfing on recognition of destination images on Facebook pages

Social networking sites (SNSs) are playing an increasingly important role as information sources for tourists. Among the various types of SNSs, Facebook has become the leading site in terms of number of users and volume of content. Despite the proliferation of Facebook, however, there has been little research on its users’ cognitive processes as they acquire visual images from photos. Particularly in the context of tourism and hospitality, one largely ignored area that warrants examination is individuals’ recognition accuracy when acquiring visual information via Facebook. Based on LC4MP, this study examines users’ ability to encode tourism information acquired from Facebook by differentiating the two types of information-search processing conditions, surfing and searching. After employing a visual-recognition test, the findings of this study indicated that participants recognized the photos they acquired from searching more accurately than the photos they acquired from surfing on destination Facebook pages. Further discussion and implications are provided in the text.

The influence of e-word-of-mouth on travel decision-making: consumer profiles

The emergence of Web 2.0 in recent years has significantly affected tourism information sources. This paper attempts to confirm how Travel 2.0 applications have influenced tourist decision-making behaviour. The results of the study show that tourists continue to be influenced to a greater extent by the comments and opinions of friends and relatives (word-of-mouth, WOM) when arranging travel than by other Internet users (eWOM). The study demonstrates that official travel destination websites are the most widely used online platform among tourists seeking information, followed by travel blogs and travel social network sites. Finally, different groups of tourists are classified according to their socio-demographic characteristics to explain the degree to which these information sources influence travel decisions.

The usage of online tourist information sources in tourist information search: an exploratory study

Tourist information search is a complex issue. This study contributes to the understanding of tourist information sources by comparing three online sources, that is, non-commercial travel blogs, Wikipedia and Yahoo! Knowledge+. A common denominator of a popular tourist information source is the presence of credible travel-oriented information, preferably in the form of personal experience or, if not so, carefully edited information. Entertainment and social networking elements can further enhance the information sources. If the destination is expensive and friends and relatives are not familiar with it, sources with strong networking element such as travel blog or edited information such as Wikipedia will be plus points. Online and non-online sources will co-exist and leisure tourists will continue to use a mixture of both to suit their needs in the foreseeable future.

Marketing Innovations for Sustainable Destinations

Introduction Advertising and Word of Mouth in Tourism, a Simulation Study Infosource Scale: a Measure to Assess External Tourism Information Sources' Importance European Tourist Destinations in Internet Search Engines: a Comparison Rejuvenating Touristic Consumption The Role of Emotions in Consumer Decision Making for Budget City Breaks Tourist Decision Strategies in a Multi-Level Perspective Push Motivations for Tourism Mountain Destinations Perceived Authenticity of Cultural Heritage Sites: Towards an Integrative Conceptual Model Assessing Mainland Chinese Tourists' Satisfaction with Hong Kong using the Tourist Satisfaction Index Angry or Regretful? The Effect of Dissatisfaction on Tourists' Negative Word of Mouth and Exit The Concept of Travel Horizon Revisited: Toward More Relevance of Past Travel Experience Assessing the International Image of an Urban Destination: the Case of Milan A Study of Non-visitors:Which Image Do They Hold of Destinations Not Visited? Effect of Controllable and Non-controllable Sources of Information on the Image of Turkey 'We'll All Go Down Together': the Marketing Response of Australia's Outback Destination to Recent Declines in Performance The Prospects and Challenges of Positioning Ghana as a Preferred African-American Tourist Destination Sports Tourism and Motorsports - an Exploration Marketing and Managing Nation Branding during Prolonged Crisis: the Case of Israel Is the Strategy of Becoming the Las Vegas of Asia Working for Macau? A Co-branding Perspective Towards a Tourism Brand Personality Taxonomy: A Survey of Practices The Role of Brands in Dialectical Relationships between Destination and Tourist Products The Power of Loose Ties - Networking for Market Diversification in Remote Australia From Marketing to Market Practices: Assembling the Ruin Bars of Budapest Determinants of Hotel Performance: Continental or Worldwide Style? An Investigation into the Relationship between Marketability of a Destination and the Long-Term Survival of Hawkers Index

Framing New Zealand: Understanding tourism TV commercials

Tourism TV commercials (TVCs) are a source of information for tourists. TVCs serve to assist the consumer in forming a mental image of a destination. These commercials, however, are seldom a topic of research. This paper analyses two New Zealand tourism TVCs, launched separately in 1999 and 2007. It combines video content analysis procedures suggested by Dimitrova, Zhang, Shahraray, Sezan, Huang and Zakhor (2002). and Rose (2007), a destination image research framework proposed by Beerli and Martin (2004) and Echtner and Ritchie (1991), and a film analysis methodology proposed by Giannetti (2008). The objective is to present a systematic approach to the understanding of tourism TVCs. It is found that 87% of camera shots in these two tourism TVCs last no more than one or 2 s; this is equivalent to using a montage to create an emotional or intellectual response. In the new TVC, established themes such as “nature” and “adventure” remain salient, and the way of life of the local people is emphasized. The aim of this study is to assess the destination image as framed through tourism TVCs to pave the way for future study on the visual elements that may influence an audience’s response to TVCs.

Tourism marketing information and destination image management

Destination image is commonly accepted as an important aspect in successful tourism management and destination marketing. The information about a specific destination is an important means of promotion for the tourism industry and influences destination image. In this context, the purpose of this paper is to identify those destination features which contribute to build a positive destination image and to analyze the relationship between those features and the image induced by brochures. Accordingly, this study is based on previous research on the impact of tourist information sources in destination promotion, and argues that brochures, as tourist information sources, have an important influence on destination image. Based on previous theoretical discussion regarding image, an empirical research was conducted to test the relationship proposed here. Multiple item indicators from previous studies were employed. Results indicate that there is a relationship between information sources and destination image. Key words: image management, brochures, tourist destination, information sources.

Understanding travel promotional narratives: The influence of narrative transportation and skepticism

SupervisorCarla A. SantosInstitution awarding the Ph. D. DegreeUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignDate of defence24th March 2008Goal and objectives of the dissertationAn important challenge for destination management organizations is designing effective methods to create awareness among travelers by means of promoting their travel destination to potential and/or return visitors. In response to this challenge, a growing stream of literature exists which examines travelers' decision-making processes, use of tourism information sources, and general search behavior; the identification of this process illuminates the influential role and overall effectiveness of various travel-related promotional information sources or narratives on travelers' knowledge of and visitation to destinations.However, an examination and understanding of how travelers process promotional travel-related narratives or information sources is lacking in current tourism literature. Moreover, when examined in the context of tourism, promotional narratives have been largely examined by literary and history scholars from a more critical standpoint where, in short, conclusions have often assumed that the narratives examined possess a certain level of persuasive power. Such research lacks a concrete examination and/or measurement of the actual persuasiveness held by the promotional travel narratives examined. In seeking to examine the oft-assumed persuasive power held by promotional travel narratives, this dissertation utilized an online survey format with an embedded experiment and included the adaptation of two established and validated scales: narrative transportation scale (Green and Brock, 2000) and skepticism toward advertising scale (Obermiller and Spangenberg, 1988).The utilization of these scales allowed for an examination of how message cue (travel article, travel brochure, no cue) influenced participants' processing of travel messages; how the format in which promotional travel messages was presented (story versus list) influenced the overall persuasiveness of the information received; how participants skepticism of travel articles and travel brochures compared; how participants skepticism toward travel articles and travel brochures influenced their processing of travel narratives; and, how participants' demographic characteristics influenced their narrative processing and their skepticism of travel articles and travel brochures.MethodologyParticipants were randomly assigned to one of the cells of the 3x2 (Message cue: travel article, advertisement, no cue x Presentation format: story or list) between-subjects factorial design. The dissertation incorporated six surveys; each identical except for message cue given (travel article, travel brochure, no cue) and presentation format (story versus list). The six versions were: 1) Travel article message cue (publicity) with story format; 2) Travel article message cue (advertising) with list format; 3) Travel brochure message cue (publicity) with story format; 4) Travel brochure message cue (advertising) with list format; 5) No message cue with story format; and 6) No message cue with list format. Depending upon the survey received, participants were instructed to read an excerpt taken from either a travel article, a travel brochure or to simply read the excerpt on the next page. Participants were then asked to read an excerpt presented in story format or an excerpt presented in a bulleted list format. The list format was created using the information presented in the narrative excerpt. All participants were asked to answer six questions relating to the Transportation scale, eight SKEP statements relating to travel articles, eight SKEP statements relating to travel brochures, and general demographic-related questions. The total usable data sample from the combined six survey groups consisted of 526 completed surveys.Narrative Transportation Scale: Green and Brock's (2000) Transportation scale was incorporated in order to examine the assumed persuasive power of travel narratives by measuring a narrative's ability to transport readers using both a story format and a list format. …

The many faces of Macau: A correspondence analysis of the images communicated by online tourism information sources in English and Chinese

This research aimed to compare Macau's tourism image in English- and Chinese-language websites from five sets of online information sources. It systematically identified Macau's online tourism image by content analyzing its official Macau Government Tourist Office website (MGTO), travel agency, guidebook and magazine websites, and blogs of tourists. This study revealed that the overall Macau images projected on English and Chinese websites are quite different. Cultural differences, when combined with other salient factors (such as distance from Macau), seem to influence destination image. The variations are not surprising, considering different communication objectives and targets of destination marketers, travel agencies, publishers and tourists. Macau destination marketers undoubtedly need to keep these deviations in mind when proposing communication strategies. While adequate communication about the government's intended Macau image becomes essential among destination marketers and other industry practitioners, it is also important to be aware of the various other communicated images online and harmonize the efforts as much as possible.

Studying the User Acceptance of a Mobile Information System for Tourists in the Field

In recent years several prototypes and concepts of location-based tourist guides have been developed. Only a few of them have been evaluated by actual users. This article presents the results of a field study in which the user acceptance of two kinds of mobile information systems for tourists was evaluated by means of a questionnaire survey and interviews. The first mode (Planner) provides tourists with a personalized tour, and besides multimedia-based information at the sights, it offers navigation instructions as well. The second mode (Explorer) shows nearby sights and offers multimedia-based information that can be requested manually. The results show that mobile information systems were the most relevant information sources for tourists during their city visits. Furthermore, it is shown that the acceptance of such systems is positive and significantly influenced by the quality (accuracy) of the pedestrian navigation.

Country-Dot-Com

The Internet is rapidly overtaking personal recommendation as the number one source of travel and tourism information. Therefore, in order for destinations to succeed in their efforts to attract visitors, they must design sound online marketing and branding strategies. Given the fierce competition for the attention of Internet users, online marketers must secure memorable web names and addresses. In the case of a nation willing to promote itself online as a destination, no other brand name could be more distinctive, easy to remember, and inimitable than the country's own name. This study investigates the extent to which countries have adopted their names as brands and secured ‘country name-dot-com’ domains to market themselves on the Internet to global audiences.

Evaluation of a Tourist Brochure

Even with advances in tourism information search technology, brochures are still popular information sources for tourists. The purpose of this paper is to describe tourist evaluations of a brochure, and to better understand how such evaluations influence visitation interest levels and actual visitation. A mail survey was conducted using a sample of individuals who requested travel information from Glendale, Arizona. Results suggest that the brochure did significantly increase respondents' interest in visiting Glendale and subsequent visitation, and that evaluation of the brochure was related to actual visitation. Visitors, prospective visitors, and non-visitors differed with respect to brochure evaluation. There were also some differences between respondents who had visited the community before and those who had not, as well as several demographic segments.

Discovering Next Generation Tourism Information Systems: A Tour on TIScover

Information technology has been playing a fundamental role in the tourism industry for a long time. The Internet particularly is increasingly emerging as a perfect platform to bring tourism products direct to the customer. Web-based tourism information systems, however, are required not only to offer online brochures but also to provide both value and service. The Austrian tourism information system, TIScover, meets this challenge by focusing on three crucial points. First, high-quality access is provided, both by supporting e-commerce transactions and by allowing access to the system via the World Wide Web, info kiosks, and cellular phones. Second, the content is of a high quality that is achieved by enabling tourism information providers to maintain their products directly, as well as by integrating external tourism information sources. Finally, the system is designed in such a way that it is easy to customize. This facilitates employment of the system by the various kinds of tourism information providers, as well as by different regions and even countries.

Concepts, definitions and strategic relevance

The attached paper presents a research assignment carried out between April and December 1999, by the GDR Tourisme: Lieux et Réseaux under the joint scientific supervision of Josette Mesplier‐Pinet and Sophie Elias The basic aim was the realisation of a Dictionary of Tourism Concepts, Information Sources and Methods for the Observatoire National du Tourisme to define a set of tourism concepts, point out the principal statistical tools and their accompanying methodology used to secure information on supply and demand. The principle underlying this research was to provide end users of the dictionary, namely national public authorities and private practioners as well as tourism researchers, with a guideline to better understanding as well as a more accurate means of interpretation and use of this information. The purpose of this paper is to present the research carried out and to analyse thereby the role and function of the two‐way process of information building and redistribution. Consequently, the research carried out follows up the work on monitoring change and strategic decision‐making presented at last year's TRC Conference in Vienna.