Contributions of Web Science to Tourism Research and Development
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Transcript of Contributions of Web Science to Tourism Research and Development
Contributions of Web Science to eTourism Research and Development
Dr. Ulrike Gretzel
Web Science Explained
• Interdisciplinary approaches and methods to understanding the Web as a large-scale and complex socio-technical phenomenon driven by technical architectures, government policies, business economics and social interactions of billions of people (Tinati, Halford, Carr & Pope, 2012)
eTourism = Big Data• Industry Data
– Complex product descriptions– Multimedia– Complex industry structure
• Government Data– Tourism statistics
• Consumer Data– Experience documentation– Queries, Inquiries– Feedback– Geospatial data
Challenges & Opportunities
• Dispersed – not always obvious what is tourism and what is not
• Highly localized/context-dependent – tourism ontologies, international sentiment
• Not routine – tourism as liminal space means behaviours can be irrational, out of character, time-specific, meaning relationships are fleeting.
Data silos
Tourism Consumer Behaviour
P R E – T R A V E L T R A V E L P O S T – T R A V E L
Physical Movement through Space & Time
S O C I A L
H E D O N I C
Preparation Prolonging the Experience
Travel as Social Activity Travel as Social Identity
Pleasure Entertainment
Dreaming – Planning – Booking - Anticipating Documenting
Debriefing – Sharing – Reconstructing Experience
Impact of Technology
P R E – T R A V E L T R A V E L P O S T – T R A V E L
Physical Movement through Space & Time
S O C I A L
H E D O N I C
Preparation Prolonging the Experience
Travel as Social Activity Travel as Social Identity
Pleasure Entertainment
Dreaming – Planning – Booking - Anticipating
Documenting
Debriefing – Sharing – Reconstructing Experience
The Geospatial Tourism Web
The Social Tourism Web
Social Media Developments
Defining the Tourism Industry• Baggio, Scott & Cooper, 2010• Piazzi, Baggio, Neidhardt & Werthner, 2012
Predicting Tourist Behaviour
Influencing Tourist BehaviourADVERTISING
DMO EFFECTINPUT
EXPOSURE EFFECT PROCESSING EFFECT
FollowersVerified
followersAverage
commentAverage forward
Active follower
rate
ACTIVITY
posts
Pearson Correlation .705** .789** .730** .631** .160
Sig. .000 .000 .000 .001 .444
average posts
Pearson Correlation .773** .800** .759** .704** .082
Sig. .000 .000 .000 .000 .697
Original post rate
Pearson Correlation .046 -.118 .080 .034 .037
Sig. .826 .573 .702 .873 .860
interactive rate
Pearson Correlation .814** .765** .870** .794** -.028
Sig. .000 .000 .000 .000 .894
Table 3 Correlations between the metrics of DMO activity and advertising effects**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
Describing Tourists’ Online Behaviour
Profile of Destination Experts – Emerging Social Structures
Profile Characteristic DEs General Reviewers
GenderMale 49.2 53.9Female 50.8 46.1
Age18-24 1.0 3.125-34 14.9 26.335-49 42.8 42.550-64 35.3 25.565+ 6.0 2.6
LocationEurope 28.0 36.0Asia 11.1 14.8Africa 2.2 1.7Oceania 8.6 9.9North America 41.6 34.5Central & South America 8.5 3.1
Average length of membership 5.8 2.6Profile picture 97.8 99.2Age indicated 70.5 44.6Gender indicated 86.3 49.2Badges
No badge 20.0 22.4Reviewer 10.3 19.1Senior Reviewer 12.5 18.4Contributor 19.3 16.8Senior Contributor 22.5 16.1Top Contributor 15.5 7.3
Compliments received 1.3 0.1
A Relational Perspective• Semantic relationships among
documents/comments/concepts• Interactions/social relationships among sources
of documents• Influence
Engagement with Travel Content
• Groups: Of those respondents who have a personal Facebook profile, 12.2% have joined a Facebook group related to travel.
• Pages: 36.6% are fans of destinations while 21.6% have “liked” a travel-related company.
Type of Travel Company Befriended% of Respondents who have befriended a
travel company on FacebookHotel 58.3Restaurant 49.9Airline/rental car 47.9Attraction/theme park 37.9Travel Agency 26.9Museum 26.9Travel community (e.g. Tripadvisor) 21.2Destination marketing organization 18.7Other 6.4
Relationship Status
• Rather passive: – 71.5% have liked a post, but only 24.9% of the fans have
actually commented on a company post, – 20.1% have actively posted something on the company wall, – 18.1% have downloaded an application from the company
page, and – 15.0% have participated in a discussion.
• Active word-of-mouth is limited: while friends of the fans will automatically see activities such as liking, only 27.4% of the fans actively shared a company post with others and 20.1% invited others to become fans.
Demographic Profile of Destination Fans
• More likely to be younger, African American and Asian, single, and more educated than non-fans.
• More experienced Internet users.• More active social media users and
content creators.• Travel more frequently than non-fans.
What Motivates Online Behaviour?
Motivation% of Fans
DestinationExclusive deal or offer 47.8Keep informed through news for events, etc. 63.8I am a current customer/plan to travel to the destination 71.0Interesting or entertaining content 70.8Customer service and support -I would like to help promote the company/destination 53.5Other people I know are fans of the company/destination 49.9I feel emotionally attached 66.7I want to show others that I am a customer/associate with the destination.
52.3
I (or people I know) am/are employee(s) of the company/current or former residents of the destination
60.4
Self-perceptions vs. Behaviour
• Destination fans are both more likely to influence other travellers and be influenced by opinions of others regarding travel than non-fans.
Opion leadership Opinion seeking2
3
4
3.1
3.4
2.5
3.0FanNon-Fan
Influence of Online on Offline
Travel Decisions% of Online American Travelers
Decreased Same IncreasedNumber of places/dest. considered Destination Fans 7.0 54.1 38.9 Others 5.6 73.7 20.7Number of places/dest. visited Destination Fans 6.8 58.2 35.1 Others 6.1 75.3 18.6Amount of money spent on travel Destination Fans 12.6 56.4 31.1 Others 12.4 72.4 15.2
Theoretical Implications• A Marxist view of the Web: techno-economic base
structures cultural outcomes; hence an understanding of the structure of the Web and its evolution is critical to understanding eTourism.
• eTourism as a collective phenomenon: Electronic traces of individual micro-behaviours, if aggregated on a grand scale, can provide important insights into behaviour and can be used to predict it.
• Social science theories important for making sense of electronic traces
Methodological Implications• Anti-disciplinary• Mixed methods• Need for new approaches to dealing with big
data, including extraction and storage• Natural language processing• Visualization
Travel Personalities