Marcello M. Mariani
Research Plan and Tasks for the Researcher
Web 2.0 as a Destination Marketing Tool:
Evidencefrom Destination Management Organizations (DMOs)
(Marcello M. Mariani, Università di Bologna)
Background
Over the last 30 years the impact of ICT on global economy has been dramatic and has completely changed the way material and immaterial resources are mobilized, wealth is generated, business opportunities are created and seized (Baggio et al., 2013; Mariani and Baggio, 2012). Among the industries affected by improvement in technology, tourism is undoubtedly the one where ICT driven business process re-engineering has gradually generated a new paradigm shift, as “not only ICTs empower consumers to identify, customize and purchase tourism products but they also support the globalization of the industry by providing effective tools for suppliers to develop, manage and distribute their offerings worldwide” (Buhalis and Law, 2008).
Internet has significantly changed how travellers access information and the way they plan for and book trips andlater share their travel experiences (Chung and Buhalis, 2008; Xiang and Gretzel, 2010). But while at the beginning of the Internet era (i.e., Web 1.0) published information was static and interaction with other Internet users and/or publishers was almost non existent, the current stage of development of the Internet (i.e., Web 2.0)is characterized by social media websites (such as Facebook, Twitter, Tripadvisor.com) which have triggered a social network evolution. In fact they allow Internet users to form Virtual Travel Communities (VTCs) that make it easier for tourists to obtain information, maintain connections, develop relationships, and eventually make travel-related decisions (Stepchenkova et al., 2007; Wang et al., 2002).
Social media facilitate Consumer-Generated Content (CGC) such as blogs, videos, wikis, reviews or photos (Boyd and Ellison, 2008; Wenger, 2008) and are widely used by online travellers (White and White, 2007) thus marking a shift to users rather than organizations taking charge of the Internet (Schegg et al. 2008).
Sometimes CGC and online reviews (such as those published by Tripadvisor.com) might even undermine the authority of established Destination Management Organizations (DMOs) or conventional advertisements (Gretzel et al., 2000).As a consequence, DMOs at both national and local level should pay attention to the way they use social media as the latter one could play a crucial role for marketing effectively a tourism destination in competitive global context where the new reference framework is hyper-competition among destinations. The aim of this research is to explore why and how selected national and local DMOs employ the Web 2.0to market their destination, by illustrating their varying degree of usage of social media and trying to determine what factors contribute to advanced level of social activity in order to indentify best managerial practices in the use of social media by DMOs.
E-Tourism research and Social Media
Research on the role of ICTs in the tourism sector (i.e., eTourism research) has consolidated significantly over the last 3 decades, mirroringthe increasing number of ICT applications in the sector and the acknowledgment that the tourism industry is leading eCommerce applications (Wethner and Ricci, 2004).
Buhalis and Law (2008) while conducting a survey of the academic articles published on top impacted academic journals, identify three major axes within eTourism research: (1) technological innovation; (2) industry functions; (3) consumer and demand dimension.
As far as the first axis of eTourism research is concerned, in the recent years a number of technologies have been identified as critical for further innovation in the tourism industry. They are related mainly to interoperability and ontology building (Stabb and Werthner, 2002; Jakkilinki et al., 2007), multimedia (Fiore et al., 2005, Raggam and Almer, 2005), mobile and wireless technologies (Flouri and Buhalis, 2004; Alfaro et al., 2005), Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) and the Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMax) (Odinma et al., 2007), location-based services (LBS) (Berger et al., 2003), web design in both functionality and usability (Hashim et al., 2007; Baloglu and Pekan, 2006), accessibility (Michopoulou et al., 2007) and ambient intelligence (AI) (Buhalis and O’Connor, 2005; Yovcheva et al., 2012).
The industry functions (second axis of eTourism research) that have been mainly impacted by the aforementioned technologies are marketing and distribution (Go and Williams, 1993; O’Connor and Frew, 2002; Buhalis and Licata, 2002; Mariani and Mordenti; 2010; Mariani and Kylanen, 2012) that contribute to promote mass-customization allowing to target niche markets of significant size in different geographical locations.
Markets and customer relate to the third axis of eTourism research: the consumer and demand dimension. This axis points to the idea that from information search, to destination/product consumption and post experience engagement, ICTs offer a range of tools to facilitate and improve the process (Gursoy and McCleary, 2004; Luo et al., 2004; Frias et al., 2011) involving pricing devices (Clemons et al., 2002; Mariani and Mordenti, 2010), recommender systems (Fesenmeir et al, 2003; Ricci and Wethner, 2006), profiling methods (Wang et al., 2004; Tufte and Rasmussen, 2002; Matloka and Buhalis, 2010), mechanisms for dealing with complaints and electronic Word-of-Mouth (WOM) (Gelb and Sundaram, 2002; Shea et al., 2004), customer centric marketing (CCM) systems (Niininen et al., 2007), social media and Virtual Travel Communities (VTC) (Stepchenkova et al. 2007; Wang et al., 2002; Vogt and Fesenmaier, 1998; Xiang and Gretzel, 2010; Bras et al., 2010; Mariani et al., 2014).
The emergence of theWeb2.0 brings together the concept of social networking/virtual communities and applies it to the tourism sector in order to create the Travel 2.0. More specifically, a “virtual community is a group of people who may or may not meet one another face-to-face, and who exchange words and ideas through the mediation of computer bulletin boards and networks’’ (Rheingold, 1993: p. 58). A Virtual Travel Community is nothing but a virtual community within a tourism context wherein tourism-related Consumer Generated Content (CGC) is created (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2009). TripAdvisor ( is amongst the most successful social networking/virtual community in tourism that facilitates the reviewing of all hotels around the world and brings together individuals in discussion forums. The system provides users with independent travel reviews and comments written from TripAdvisor members and expert advisors and provides a powerful platform for interaction between peers (Wang & Fesenmaier, 2004).
Social media is becoming more and more relevant also as a destination marketing tool and it should be effectively managed by Destination Management Organizations (DMOs) willing to create a sustainable competitive advantage for their tourism destinations within the competitive arena of global tourism.This is even more relevant in the current economic climate of public austerity characterized by a decline of funding for both National Tourism Organizations (NTOs) and local DMOs. This state of affairs is pushing many DMOs to turn to social media as a relative low-cost and global reach marketing tool. Despite the aforementioned situation, research on the use of Web 2.0 and social media as a destination management tool is still scant (Feng et al., 2003; Stankov et al., 2010; Xiang and Gretzel, 2010; Hays et al., 2012).
Objectives
In order to bridge the research gap illustrated in the previous section, the present research has four main objectives. More specifically it aims at:
- exploring why and how top national and local Destination Management Organizations (DMOs) in Europe and the Russian Federation strategically employ the Web 2.0 to market their destination;
- illustrating the varying degree of usage ofWeb 2.0among the aforementioned DMOs;
- determining what factors contribute to advanced level of social activity and the degree of tourists’ satisfaction with social activity by DMOs;
- identifyingseveral best managerial practicesin the use of social media by DMOs.
Data and research methodology
An in depth qualitative and quantitative approach will be adopted. More specifically, three data sources will be used: (1) semi-structured interviews, (2) Consumer Generated Content (CGC) and big data for content analysis and archival data, (3) questionnaires.
Objectives 1 and 2 will be achieved firstly through an analysis and elaboration of secondary data and statistics (e.g., market intelligence and industry reports). Secondly, primary data will be collected through semi-structured and structured interviews with both tourism-marketing professionals of selected Destination Management Organizations (DMOs) and tourists using their social media (etourists). Last but not least, content analysis will be used as a research method to analyze data from DMOs’ official Facebookand Vkontaktepages and Twitter accounts consistently with prior research (Hays et al., 2012). Content analysis is chosen as it allows one to “use a set of procedures to make valid inferences from text” (Weber, 1990). More specifically a pilot study will be conducted in order to understand the types of content, information and engagement thatTwitter feeds and Facebook and Vkontakte pages produce.
Objective 3 will be achieved through semi-structured interviews to be conducted with tourism-marketing professionals (e.g., digital and social media specialists) at selected DMOs and through semi-structured interviews and questionnaires to be administered to etourists. Collected data will be useful to gain a better understanding of the customersatisfaction with the social media used by the analysed DMOs.
Last but not least, by triangulating the research findings obtained though the former 3 objectives with further in-dept interviews with tourism-marketing professionals (and more specifically digital media specialists) of the DMOs under consideration on one hand and etourists on the other hand, a set of relevant managerial implications will be drawn.
Following the lead of Schetzina (2010), several metrics will be used in order to evaluate the activity of social media: audience size (e.g., the number of followers), the degree of consumer engagement (e.g., number of comments), and consumer sentiment (e.g., consumer response). If possible also reach (e.g., viral impact) and outcomes (e.g., resulting traffic and conversions) will be taken into account
Sample
The empirical setting of the analysis is made up by relevant Destination Management Organizations (DMOs) - including both National Tourist Organizations (NTOs) and local DMOs - in both Europe and the Russian Federation. The choice of European countries is related both to the convenience in collecting data and to the fact that three of the Top 5 destination countries in terms of int’l arrivals are European: namely France, Spain and Italy (UNWTO, 2012). The Russian Federation has been juxtaposed to the former European countries because it is an important tourism source market but especially because it possesses differentiating characteristics in terms of online users behaviour: (a) it ranks seventh largest worldwide in terms of Internet users, thus beating any other European country, the second one being Germany (comScore, 2012); (b) it has the most engaged social networking audience worldwide in terms of time spent per user (comScore, 2012); (c)Russian internet users seem to differentiate from the rest of the world in their preferences for social networking as for example websites as Facebook.com ranks fifth, well below local sites such as Vkontakte.ru, ranked first and Odnoklassniki ranked second (Fotis et al, 2011).
Implementation
In order to achieve the projects’ objectives, relevant professionals in selected European and Russian DMOs will be involved. To this aim a shortlist of relevant DMOs and the contact info of their respective professionals will be crafted.
Expected research results
The findings of the project may bear important implications for tourism policy makers working at both the national and local levels. As already mentioned, several National Tourism Organizations (NTOs) such as VisitBritain have recorded a significant decline of their financial resources and have been forced to cut jobs and close overseas offices (Johnson, 2011). Accordingly – while they are turning to social media as a relative low-cost and global marketing tool reach strategy –it is important that they understand the actual effectiveness of their digital marketing strategies related to the Web 2.0.More broadly, the comparative approach adopted may shed new light on the major changes that are involving the use of digital media in marketing destinations globally,
Linkages to other European research teams
The research project hereby illustrated will enjoy the expert supervision and precious advice of a network of international colleagues specialized in eTourism research that have a history of previous collaborations with Prof. Mariani as co-chairs of the EIASM Conference on Tourism Management and Tourism Related Issues. More specifically they are:
- Prof. Dr. Dimitrios Buhalis, Director of the International Centre for Tourism and Hospitality Research, School of Tourism, BournemouthUniversity, Dorset, UK
- Prof. Dr. Rodolfo Baggio, Master in Economics and Tourism and DondenaCenter for Research on Social Dynamics, BocconiUniversity, Milan, Italy
- Dr. Marco Di Felice, Department of Computer Scienceand Engineering, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
- Prof. Dr.Salvador Anton, Director of the School of Tourism and Leisure, University Rovira i Virgili (URV),Catalonia, Spain
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