Tourism Marketing for small businesses Chapter 10

Transcript:Tourism Marketing for small businesses Chapter 10:
Tourism Marketing for small businesses Chapter 10 Digital and Social Media in Tourism Chapter learning aims To enhance your understanding of: the influence of digital and social media in tourism how travellers are using digital and social media opportunities for small businesses to use digital and social media Key terms Digital media Media content such as text, photos, graphics, audio and video, which are encoded into machine readable formats (digitised), and able to be transferred to other devices, sent across the internet, and used across a business’ various online promotional platforms. Web 2.0 The internet platform facilitating content and applications to be continuously modified by all users in a collaborative way. Social media The activities of virtual communities who share information, knowledge and opinions, using Web-based applications that enable ease of creating and modifying content. Digital and social media The opportunity to digitise media content has transformed the way in which small tourism businesses’ promotional material can be made available across different internet-based platforms. Over half of the world’s population are internet users, and we are now witnessing the most technologically savvy consumers in history. The emergence of Web 2.0 in 2004 enabled co-creation of content on social media, which has democratised the internet. User-generated content (UGC) on social media, related to tourism, has reached levels that now swamp the marketing communications of the global travel industry. Table 10.1 – World internet users 2017 Consumer-traveller power http://www.untied.com/ For complaints about United Airlines http://www.airlinequality.com/main/forum.htm Reviews on airlines and airports http://www.tripadvisor.com/ Post a trip review or question www.expedia.com Read travellers’ reviews Tourism industry forced to adapt quickly Source: Pike (2016) The internet has emerged as a dominant medium for travel bookings, both through travel trade intermediaries and through disintermediation Many travel situations involve high levels of information seeking in the planning stages, with the internet a primary source Tourism offerings are mostly intangible services with many types of risk, and UGC is regarded as credible form of word of mouth advice Increasing influence of travellers’ online reviews of destinations and tourism services Tourism industry forced to adapt quickly Source: Pike (2016) Increasing use of mobile social media applications and portable navigation devices (PND) during travel Increasing free Wi-Fi available for visitors and residents at destinations High levels of brag value UGC in virtual social networks during travel Unlike any other brand category, travellers are spoilt by choice of an almost unlimited number