Describe the Social media plays an important role in the world today.
Background of the study
Social media has been always argued to have initiated as a way by which traditional information sources can be replaced. Social media has been accepted by various researchers such as Jepsen, 2006 to have an impact on the process of buying behaviour and the same has also been described using several models such as Input-Processing-Response models. De Valck et al, 2009, moreover suggested that communities virtually have become essential consumer knowledge networks that impact the behaviour of the customer. Social media, today enjoys a phenomenal movement with respect to becoming famous among the users of web (Beerli et al, 2003). The claim of Facebook has also been that users actively are 750 million across the world with expenditure being more than 750 billion minutes every month (Constantinides, 2009). 175 million users are hosted by Twitter which averagely post a billion tweets in a week. Therefore, it can be said that in the industry of Tourism as well, behaviour of customers has been impacted by the information communication technologies developments and a dramatic change especially has been caused by Web 2.0 on the way in which customers make plans and consume products related to travel. According to Gretzel et al, 2008, social media influence has been predicted in the travel industry to have a dramatic emergence. It was found by eMarketer in the year 2008 by conducting a survey that approximately 82 percent of online customers in US have a frequent check over reviews present online, on blogs and several feedbacks gained online for purchase decisions related to travelling (Cox et al, 2009). The importance of social media role in the process of tourism planning on the behaviour of the customers has been the main reason for which this literature review has been formulated. This literature review academically will attempt to highlight the social media influence perceived level on choices of accommodation and destination along with trust perceived level to content of social media with regard to several information related to travel.
Identified Managerial Issues
The main identified issue in the paper upon significant research is on 2 perspective. The first is inclusive of analysing the impact of social media over knowledge of tourism and culture along with problem with social media from the perspective of tourism.
In the world today, companies of tourism such as Trip Advisor, which is the leading customer review website across the travel industry, is serving more than 50 million individuals every month seeking advice on their plans of travelling with the help from reviews of travelling and their suggestions (Decrop, 1996). It has been argued that moreover social media has taken up an essential role in the search for information amongst the travellers and behaviours of decision making. In order to further elaborate on the social media influence in travel industry, the focus will be on measuring the usage levels of social media and their scope during the planning process of complete travel plans of these customers (Buhalis et al, 2008).
(2.1) Social Media Impact on Knowledge of Culture and Tourism
According to Kaplan and Haenlein, social media can be defined as a group of applications based on the web helping to enhance the ideology and technology base of Web 2.0 in order to help in creating and exchanging content generated by users. Even though there are several approached existing with regard to taxonomies of social media such as taxonomies developed by Constantinides 2009, Fischer et al 2011, Kim et al 2010 and Mangold, 2009, a taxonomy was proposed by Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010 that could provide types of social media to be classified in accordance to the social presence level and self-presentation level (De Valck et al, 2009). There are 6 social media types identified by them inclusive of websites to network, blogs, community’s content, virtual social environment and virtual gaming worlds. However, still, social media of other types are neglected under this taxonomy such as those inclusive of small blogs, reviews of customers and websites rating and fora on Internet.
Purchases related to travelling are generally regarded complicated especially because these products have a composite and experiential appearance which involves higher risks and this results in needing a vast range of search related to information. In such processes of information search, customers depend upon other experiences of travellers as a way by which utilities exchange can be increased and uncertainty can be deceased. Right after the initial communities over the virtual world were created, it was transpired that the content on the web was regarded same as suggestions being given by close friends or people with same thought process (Hansel et al, 2005). Throughout the era of Web 2.0, the applications of social media started becoming more famous with levels of use helping in delivering characteristic plethora that allows expression of individuals and content sharing. The support of Ad-ology is also on the fact that concerning more than 20 percent users of web in US somewhat being impacted through social media when considering travel plans. Therefore, social media has become essential in the planning process to travel especially because of the main role that they play that is helping the sources of information to be gained by the travellers from other people’s experiences. At the similar time, sources of information being provided is not the only purpose social media serves but it also helps in telling stories, posting activities related to travelling etc in a consistent manner along with providing a belongingness to communities of virtual travel (Gretzel, 2008).
There have been various studies focusing on social media impact and role related to decisions of travelling such as the studies by Gretzel et al 2007 wherein it was found by the researchers that posting reviews online related to travelling and rating the travel related websites helps in enhancing the motivation of the customers especially when they are still making decisions regarding their plan (Decrop, 2006). Also, the travellers feel their risk is reduced and they are assisted by the views of so many in making an accommodation or a destination selection. Henceforth, social media for travellers helps in rightly formulating a decision as per the plans and requirements of the travellers. Additionally, it was found by Blose and Pan 2008, that travellers throughout the various stages of their process of planning consistently check the reviews of accommodation to make choices in the best possible manner (Fotis et al, 2012). According to Mack et al, 2008 the travel blogs influence and credibility is evident and the WOM traditionally has been found to be more trust worthy in comparison to posts of blogs advised by strangers.
(2.2) Social media advancement in the tourism industry
According to Technorati, 2010, those individuals posting in the blogs are perceived to be blog with authority and still have scope to improve in the future in terms of credibility with increase in the number of blogging posts (Technorati, 2010). According to Yoo et al, 2009 on the other hand, it was found that content generated by users is of the perception that there is more credibility when a post is from official bureau sites rather than from general sites of review along with travelling blogs, sites of social networking and communities based on content. According to Vermeulen et al, 2009, in their study, it was acknowledged on the basis of reviews of customers that an impact is also gained over the customers by reading reviews related to accommodation choices and it was found that the hotel consideration is increased when they gain exposure to reviews that are not only negative but also positive (Martin et al, 2013). In this attempt of revealing social media role across the process of planning in tourism industry by the customers, it was found by Cox et al 2009 that mostly social media is used before trip is planned and during the trip as well as after it the use of social media is highly limited. In a specific manner it can be said that primarily social media was used only after the choice of holiday destination was made instead of during the destination choice evaluation. Social media, moreover has been also perceived to be lesser reliable than information sources available traditionally (Nicoletta et al, 2012). It can be however argued that this results can attribute to the perspective that the sample of studies has been obtained from official tourism website’s mailing list and hence there is a possibility of predisposition positively to take place in the direction of information sources present officially. It has also been suggested by White, 2010 that photos on Facebook related to travelling help in enhancing viewer’s interest and can in an easy manner form a component of viewers travelling destination (White, 2010). On the contrary, the research performed by Mack et al, 2010 suggested that blogs related to tourism are trustworthy but only after personal reviews and ratings provided by the customers who are members on online websites of travel agents.
However, the arguments presented by Parra-Lopez et al 2011, in alignment to the above mentioned research studies indicated that most of the current studies have made an attempt to highlight the social media role instead of focusing on particular social media types and particular communities or even at particular planning process stage when travelling plans are made indicating that there does not exist sufficient research academically on social media role and impact completely across the planning process of holiday travel (Nusair et al, 2012). This literature review will attempt to fill the gap by understanding the social media extent when impacting, influence, predominance of social media and even the changing customer behaviour.
(2.3) Problems with Social Media in Tourism Industry
More and more information related to travelling destination is collected by travellers in order to prevent themselves from securing wrong information on their planned destination for travel. Rust of tourists can be altered especially by giving marketing advices officially but the only fact that these tourists will abide to it is that offer them credibility and reliability. According to Murphy et al, 2010, attitudes shared online generally have been examined in their study in which they found that frequently approximately 50 percent of respondents shared messages and photographs when they were travelling and lesser percentage shared videos of the same. From this perspective the study indicated that participants mostly shared information on their individual website of social media rather than sharing on media sites (Payne Jown et al, 2013).
According to Gretzel et al 2007, a comprehensive survey in their study indicated that the reviews of online travel impact customers also when they are recommending a tourist destination to their friends or acquaintances. The study was performed on 1500 participants who were tripadvisor.com regular users (Parra-Lopez et al, 2012). The important result in the study indicated that the opinion of the travellers on the reviews of travelling were used frequently as an information source.
Travel 2.0 is a phrase representing Web 2.0 extension and customization within the industry of tourism. The description provided by Travel 2.0 is on travel websites in the new generation advocating newer technologies helping in collaboration of society between the travellers wherein sharing experiences of the travellers becomes easy with other travellers (Shao et al, 2012). This data is regarded by tourists to be even more credible than normal suggestions because more interest nowadays of these customers is in gaining suggestion of partner travellers. Web 2.0 also in the tourist businesses has a unique opportunity to provide which is related to attaining beneficial scores for travellers helping businesses to focus on the reaction of markets when offering a product and service and for using the same data in developing businesses.
(2.4) Importance of Social Media in Tourism
Image of a brand helps customers to acknowledge the rightness of a product for fulfilling the needs. Stronger image of branding for a company helps in encouraging loyalty of brand. The brand image associated helps the customers in creating, transforming and expressing individual identifies (Marianna et al, 2012). Brand attributes functional and symbolic nature has an impact on loyalty of the tourist’s destination. Self-congruity and symbolic characters influence the intension of tourists in revisiting their selected destination. There are various factors influencing the choice of destination made by a tourism. Self-congruence strongly is present when the image of a destination is in alignment to the self-image tourist ideals. Congruence functionally takes place when attributes related to performance in a destination helps in meeting the important requirements of holiday’s regarding the tourists such as relaxing, comforting or conveniently apprehending (Technorati, 2010). Self-congruence examination related to tourism research and congruence in functional manner is limited. However influence of functional congruence over choice of destination suggests that decision making over destination is dependant most probably on attributes of tangible’s for fulfilling the general requirement of utilitarianism.
According to recent studies however such as those performed by Nicoletta et al 2010, p 19, it has been states that push and pull factors are both considered responsible with regard to tourist destination (Social Media, 2011). Motivational mechanisms are also used to state sense of attachment being generated appropriately in the mind of the traveller illustrating that image of destination is a collection not only of subjectivity but also of construction based on social media. From this perspective, the main components of image related to a destination represents the tourism attraction simplified messages. Image therefore can be said to be used for promoting the destination of tourists and the managers of tourism need to acknowledge the visitor’s visual attributes as perceived from the preference of others involved. With increase in competition levels globally and also the change in motivation of tourists along with the change in their requirements has communicated that an essential role is played by social media in forming a positive image of a destination (Um et al, 2010). Only when agencies in tourist business industries provide correct information related to image of a destination, customers are only then able to regard the agency to be beneficial through word of mouth.
On the other hand, most image selected for promoting the destination of tourists is based over symbolic stereotypic nature. These images with stereotypical aspect are realities simplified versions. Little information is often provided by them and they also lack accuracy of perfect nature.
Tourism sector has gone through significant change with dynamic competition considerably in the industrial environment has led towards several prospects to emerge. However, there is a requirement of elongating the medium of social media as per Beerli et al 2003 in order to enhance the decision making process regarding tourism appropriately. Also, it has to be noted that the process of decision making does not come to an end when the customer has purchase a product or service (Vermeulen et al, 2009). The same is the scenario within tourist industry. Evaluating a product is also an important step that takes place when a customer is gaining experience from his or her consumption and this in turn helps in reinforcing enhanced attitude. An even enhance role is played by post experience within the domain of social media wherein an individual’s satisfaction the reviews positivity can help in enhancing the purchase decision of a customer. Whenever it is believed that the cycle has ended for a potential customers, a cycle again actually starts for another traveller in the future (Wang et al, 2012). The dissatisfaction implication is generally aroused when external factors such as negative feelings are impacting over the decision of a vacationer and these external factors can also be inclusive of variables of supply such as accommodating, transporting and food been seen as a product of factors present internally such as inclusive of behaviour, desires and rewards of intrinsic nature. Tourist satisfaction is also referred by other authors as the product of tourist experience interaction and hence social media bridged the gap between tourists and their destination especially in the decision making process of the traveller.
(3) Conclusion
This literature review has contributed to present academic literature on the application and influence of social media in tourist’s decision making process. On the contrary, most of the current studies have focused on specific travel planning process stages with an attempt to enhance the social media impact comprehensive picture on the whole across the process of planning in the travel industry. In connection to the study performed by Cox et al 2009, it has been described that using social media influencing the trip planned by tourists and henceforth it makes attempts to illustrate the real behaviour at travel (Yoo et al, 2007). The literature review also has helped in showing that social media is used at every holiday planning stage with different purposes for all tourists. Finally, it becomes appropriate to state that study findings in the literature review when compared amongst each other have depicted an empirical contribution of each in the field of tourism industry especially when acknowledging the influence of social media on the decision making process of the customers.
This literature review findings has suggested that searches related to travel done using the medium of social media have an equal impact throughout the planning process of tourists across the travel industry. The influence of social media is not only grave but it also is in-depth, in turn helping in understanding the changing customer demands that is beneficial for tourist agencies across the industry (White, 2010). Brand image enhancement and customer satisfaction being delivered are also two products of using social media tools resulting in benefiting the businesses in the tourism sector.
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