The Role Of Social Media In Travel Information Search

Background and justification

Research in social media has received increasing attention within researchers, scholars and marketers due to the involvement that social media brings to society. According to Verhoef et al. (2010), it has developed a new ways of communication and improved the interaction between companies and customers in the last two decades.

The introduction of Internet has affected considerably on various aspects of doing business (Fotis et al, 2012). Among a number of advantages that the Internet brings to customers, firms, organizations and communities, web 2.0 is the most remarkable factor for long-term survival and successful business (Jaokar et al., 2009). Web 2.0 consists on the rising of social media and the way of information

First, customer behavior and the process of searching information in the context of tourism. This part will refer to the different studies about the concepts of customer behaviors, the categories of consumer behaviors, the process of information search and consumer behaviors in term of tourism. Second, the using of social media for travel information search. This part will discuss about the role of social networking sites and the trends of using these sites in travel information searching, in particular the contribution of Facebook. And after that, the next part will examine some theories about the use of social media in travel information search, including the theories of technology adoption and value-based model, the perceived value theories and identifying the key factors that can drive the perceived value. Through reviewing the literatures, the value-based adoption model (VAM) will be proposed to the research model. Accordingly, the perceived value of Facebook will be the driven concept in studying about the Facebook use

It could be explained by the characteristics of extended problem solving and extensive information search. For example, the decision for daily product such as food is undertaken by using limited information but when confronted with products, at high level of involvement and high risk perceptions, customers often need more extensive search for information.

Schroeder, A. and Pennington-Gray, L. (2014). The role of social media in international tourist’s decision making. Journal of Travel Research, 54(5), pp. 584-595

Schoroeder and Pennington-Gray (2014) gave the opposite result and finding when conducting their quantitative research and linear regression analysis about those travelling to four different countries. In term of the destination choices, the study realised tourists, who want to travel countries such Australia, Brazil, India and South Korea, tend to use information from social websites to evaluate the aspects of potential destinations. These factors could be the objective ones such as weather, nature including landscape, outstanding features, along with the risk of natural disasters during the holiday