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The role of social media in the tourism and hospitality industry
Public relations in the tourism industry: the growing role of social media
Katerina Dimitrakopoulou
Deree, The American College Of Greece
Instructor: Thimios Zaharopoulos, PH.D
Winter Semester 2015
MA in Strategic Communication and Public Relations
Abstract
As in many other industries, the digital era and the development of Web 2.0 resulted into the arousal of new communication strategies and practices for the tourism industry. Social media, including online booking websites, ranking and rating platforms, online travel communities, blogs, and popular online social networking services, like Facebook or Twitter have forever change traditional PR tactics. The main research question asked within the context of this paper is "which are the most effective uses of social media in Tourism PR?" The paper further explores how public relations in the tourism industry are transformed over the last years, due to the emerging role of social media, as well as the main areas where this phenomenon is most visible. It further suggests how social media intervene, or influence the way customers interact with brands and organizations within the tourism, travel and hospitality sector. The main conclusions about the effectiveness of social media are based on a thorough literature review of recently published academic articles and books.
Keywords: Public Relations, Social Media, Tourism, Hospitality, Travel
Table of contents
Introduction…………………………………………………………………………....4
Defining tourism, social media and public relations…………………………………..5
Analyzing main concepts: electronic word of mouth (eWOM)……………………….7
User Generated Content (UGC) and Tourist Created Content (TCC)……….………10
Travelers, tourists and the concept of Turistus digitalis……………….…………..…11
The meaning of online travel communities for PR……………………………….….13
Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………15
References………………………………………………………..…………………..16
Introduction
The tourist is not the same when holding a smartphone; although the smartphone is also different with a tourist holding it. The entire social world is different, because these two subjects have created a relationship with one another. (Paraphrasing Latour, 1999). Beyond any reasonable doubt the digital evolution and especially the exceed of social media, is the main cause for huge changes in the way public relations are used for promoting organizations within the tourism industry. The question that arises naturally is (a) how PR has changed due to social media in the tourism industry and (b) which communication tactics are the most effective for companies operating within the tourism and hospitality industry.
In order for the two main research questions to be answered, it is essential to first define tourism and social media and then identify the basic fields, where social media have developed as an essential communication tool for the tourism industries. Based on a literature review, this paper will also discuss the concepts of (a) User Generated Content (b) eWOM and (c) the Turistus Digitalis, in relation to the public relations and conclude with most effective uses of social media for organizations within the tourism industry.
Social media have become a major part of most communication strategy plans for major organizations within the travel industry and this is justified by the results of both research and market analysis; social media are one of the most effective, cost reasonable and creative tools for PR in the tourism industry.
Defining tourism, social media and public relations
A definition of tourism is considered useful at this point; Wall and Mathieson (2005) described tourism as "the sum of relationships arising out of the activities of persons travelling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes". The huge size of the tourism industry also encompasses different kinds of services, known as 'principals,' such as transportation, providers, visitor attractions, tour operators and travel agencies (Mc Cabe, 2012). An even broader definition of tourism, would include parallel services like car rental, taxis, travel insurance firms, construction services and public sector services.
Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are considered to be the most common social media platforms for travel; however the term social media refers to all websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking. It is a truly vast category, for it includes travel blogs, online forum, social groups and social platforms like Instagram, Google+, LinkedIn, Tumblr, and Snapchat. Online travel agencies (OTAs), ranking and rating sites like Tripadvisor.com and online booking sites that allow feedback, like booking.com and Airbnb.com, are the main "pools", from where PR practitioners aim to drive traffic to the organizational website via online advertising. However, although online advertising is considered effective and cost efficient, a distinction is essential; users tend to prefer social media advertising that is based on interests and is created based on sophisticated segmentation, to search advertising, which is often considered as an intrusive tactic (Sass, 2011).
Social media is radically transforming how travelers and tourists organize their trips (Sigalas et. al, 2012). This change is visible throughout the process from deciding the destination, to booking various travel elements and even rating online after the tip is over. The way people search for and discover information, what they choose to read, the sources they trust, and finally how they collaboratively generate information about tourism suppliers and tourism destinations, ate totally different than what it used be not more than decade ago. It seems that the main objective for PR practitioners in the tourism industry is to identify how and when do people make the travel decisions, so they can send the appropriate message via the right channel at the exact time.
This demanding task requires specific expertise; the development of cutting-edge technology, the innovative Web 2.0 applications and the digital tools play a major role regarding the behavior of this new, sophisticated generation of travelers. The term Web 2.0 is identified as "increasingly influenced by intelligent Web services that enable users to contribute to developing, rating, collaborating and distributing Internet content and customizing Internet applications" (Vickery & Wunsch, (2007). Interesting enough, concepts involving availability, individual predisposition or trust in the contributions of individuals which promote the use of this type of technology, influence the tourist social media behavior (Parra-López et. all, 2011); simply put, people tend to value, appreciate and trust experiences shared by other people online.
Public relations present an amazing opportunity for promoting an organization's products or services in the travel sector, by building its positive reputation in the public social media space. Public relations as a strategic model of communication, has a clear intention on earning the audience's attention and acceptance, while at the same time building long term relations between the organization and its key publics (Smith, 2013). In the tourist industry, public relations and especially PR that has been integrated with marketing communications (ICM) are more than a need. This is mainly because public relations generate communication messages which are regarded as more credible than advertising, they are relatively more cost efficient and incorporate internal PR with reputation management and concepts like eWOM and user generated content, in order to achieve maximum results (McCabe, 2012).
Analyzing main concepts: electronic word of mouth (eWOM)
The first step towards discovering the most effective uses of social media is to understand why people use so heavily social media when travelling. Generally, people use social media "with a clear intension to take advantage of the functional, psychological, hedonic and social benefits, which these social networks are related to" (Parra-López et. al, 2011). Advanced technology made engagement easy and fast; tourists nowadays experience travel both physically, as well as an online experience. This transformative ability of tourism social media is a new field for theoretical and methodological approaches in terms of academic research. Scholars identify the collective value of new media and analyze how technology nurtures, improves and shapes social or commercial interactions in the tourism industry. During the past two decades many researchers suggested that the concept of knowledge is not rambling, but embodied (Latour (1999), Law (2002)). Embedded cognition suggests that "human language and actions are bodily enacted and that a large place of thinking takes place at the level of unconscious and subconscious" (Hayles, 2012). Naturally the academic interest now is towards the individuals' transaction with the environment, including the technology which is utilized in order for these transactions to occur (Munar, 2013). Focusing on tourism, many studies have highlighted the significance of the Internet for e-commerce (K. Weber, 1999; O'Connor, 2003), and the destination image formation (Frías et. all, 2008) for strategy, intermediation and e-tourism (Buhalis & Licata, 2002; Buhalis & Law, 2008; Mills & Law, 2004).
Travelers find and exchange information online using various information and communications technology tools (ICTs), including devices such as personal computers, cell phones and tablets, video conferencing software, radios, laptops, etc. Within the context of tourism the most popular ICTs are blogs, microsites, social networks, media sharing websites, review sites and rating sites (Stillman &McGrath 2008) and research has so far identified that the demand and the supply of tourism products have one way or another been affected by the expansion of ICTs (Buhalis, 1998). The interactions taking place in the cyberspace may take many different shapes and forms: a tourist may first search for cheap airline tickets on a booking engine and review critics for a hotel. When reaching his destination, he or she may upload a video on YouTube about the visited destination and then write a review on a travel blog or TripAdvisor. This process expands the experience of physical travel in diverse ways (Munar, 2013) and is associated with new phenomena such as the electronic Word of Mouth (eWOM). The eWOM is one of the most powerful effects since people tend to believe more what their friends suggest over traditional advertising.
The media channels via which eWOM is spread are also important; social platforms relying on user interactions and social relationships, are crucial in sharing eWOM among tourists. Luo (2015) identified that travel-related eWOM communication via social networking sites indeed rely on existing relationships, "ties of which can be categorized as strong, of middling strength, or weak". Moreover, the effect of transmitted information was more powerful than that of influential decision-making. The eWOM effect remains a popular research topic and characterizes the dynamic perspective required to approach how social media users and travelers are being influenced and how they interact.
Public relations rely on the power of eWOM as one of the most effective means of persuasion, in various ways when creating online campaigns. They often call publics to "share" information as a way to win gifts, or invest on regularly publishing high quality content, aiming for the members of the online community to "share" their content spontaneously. This last tactic is considered the most effective and has led to the creation of numerous online communities and groups like organizational blogs or Facebook pages.
Some of the most established community travel websites, include (a) Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree Forum (https://www.lonelyplanet.com/thorntree) which is considered as a one of the most credible travel forums, and features engaging discussions and information on destinations since 1996, (b) Tripadvisor (https://www.tripadvisor.com) which is the most popular commercial trip planner and review site, (c) Wikitravel (http://wikitravel.org/en) which provides a free, world-wide travel guide, based solely on user-generated content, (d) Outbounding (http://outbounding.org/) which is an independent online travel community, featuring high quality travel content from around the Web and members participate in discussions with an emphasis on ethical travel questions, and (e) Travelfish (http://www.travelfish.org/board/) which is an excellent community travel forum exclusively for Asia.
The reason for providing this list of the above "online travel influencers" is to further support the argument that there is a huge discussion taking place on the web, on a 24/7 basis concerning travel and tourism experiences. Again PR may effectively intervene based on three main axes; (a) monitor the web and these forums in order to identify and evaluate the brands reputation, (b) act proactively and prevent social media crisis when possible, and (c) invent engaging ways to take active part in these ongoing conversations.
User Generated Content (UGC) and Tourist Created Content (TCC)
The second phenomenon that effects PR for the tourism industry is User Generated Content (UGC); the concept refers to all the information – blog posts, images, videos, reviews etc. - that is uploaded by the users in the internet; a certain type of UGC is the Tourist Created Content (TCC). Munar (2010) published an interesting paper about the TCC, which mainly analyses the forms of UGC and active contributions in tourism. In this paper there are two main differences identified between UGC and TCC. The first difference refers to content created by tourists (a tourist uploading an image on Instagram) and content created by other users (a scholar uploading a blog article about tourism developments). The second difference is traced between users (businesses, organizations in the hospitality industry etc.), and end-users (tourists, visitors, customers etc.).
In terms of public relations this identification is extremely valuable because it distinguishes two main areas for practicing digital PR. The first one includes effective social media strategies that practitioners should create, such as reinventing websites with engaging plugins, adding social media icons in every page of the website, updating regularly corporate blogs and uploading meaningful and useful content on the official social media accounts. These tactics really can make a difference, especially within the tourism industry, where corporate reputation is a prominent intangible asset for brand, though hard to manage within this perplex, online environment. Dijkman (2015) concludes that the consumers' passion for social media is positively related to their engagement in social media activities, especially among customers; in a survey among 3.531 people, results identified the positive connection among an individual's heavy social media use and the organizations – specifically an international airline's - social media activities. The most exciting finding of this study was the fact social media engagement and corporate reputation present a positive relation particularly among non-customers; again effective use of social media may lead into making these people potential customers. A travel organization's reputation is a major element of information and is often created from customers themselves within the online dialogue; again research indicated that there is a proven connection between travel company reputation and travel decision (Horster, 2011). This finding indicates again the importance of effectively monitoring the web and conducting a sentimental analysis of all mentions about brands in terms of negative, positive or neutral evaluation.
Travelers, tourists and the concept of Turistus digitalis
What are really the differences between a traveler and a tourist? Popular culture suggests that travelers generally spend much more time visiting a country; while a tourist may stay up until three weeks a traveler may spend three months exploring the place. Tourist are interested in organized trips, museums, gift shops, while travelers are more interested in discovering the way local people live, share traditions and learn customs.
American writer Daniel J. Boorstin describes those differences in a unique way: "a traveler was active; he went strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience. The tourist is passive; he expects interesting things to happen to him. He goes 'sight-seeing". (Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/adventure-collection/traveler-or-a-tourist_b_3568344.html). Consequently, the digital evolution and the social media refer more to the tourists, who constantly upload images while traveling, rather than travelers. Of course exceptions always exist; many travelers maintain travel blogs and share their experiences online.
Munar (2013) introduced the concept of turistus digitalis; this idea refers to the central role of tourists in enacting various versions of destinations. Simply put, the touristic culture that is reproduces and spread via Facebook, Twitter or other networks alter the way in which tourist activities and destinations are perceived; all this views, opinions and comments add to the existing reputation of the destination or the activity and culturalize it again in a different way. The traditional criteria for selecting a destination like seasonality, have forever change; the digital touristhoods, like forums or communities, and the 24/7 online dialogue also effect the choices. PR effective strategies targeting this new generation of turistus digitalis should include excellent social media advertising campaigns, strategic content marketing and integrating online marketing strategies (for example a contest to win airtickets) with offline activities (for example an event, where the winners would share their experiences).
Varini & Sisi (2012) conducted a study to identify how social media strategies can be integrated with revenue management; they used a survey, so as to assess the way some travel firms use social media. Their study analyzed the potential synergy between the amount of time spent on creatively expanding social media channels and the opportunities these channels offered for travel firms; in terms of revenue this is a crucial variable. They concluded that travel firms "can build opportunities to capture additional revenues by focusing on building engaging and useful content for customers". The travel sector has only started to embrace the necessity to integrate PR tactics with new approaches which creatively engage, rather than interrupt or disturb online users in order to achieve conversions and increase sales. The more the audience's engagement with social media grows, the more visible it becomes that this fact will influence revenue management approaches. Organizations within the tourism industry are facing an opportunity to increase sales and deepen customer relationships; for that reason it is essential for such organizations to secure they have an effective social media strategy. In addition to the above, the fact that "tourists have more negative attitudes towards Search advertising on the Internet" (Sass, 2011) further promotes the adoption of social media; they present a very adequate, broadly spread and popular communication and advertising tool.
The meaning of online travel communities for PR
Online communities that are created by travelers encourage the visual exchange of information and the upload of user generated content. As a communication strategy for PR, the creation of such a community for organizational purposes, is based on the effectiveness of eWOM as a form of persuasion. However multiple issues derive from certain concepts related to human interaction in cyberspace, such as equality, anonymity, transparency, democratization, and publicity culture. Munar (2013) in Tourism Social Media: Transformations in Identity, Community and Culture emphasized on the role of fantasy and imagination in travel experiences and critically examined these concepts. Questions arise naturally: is an anonymous review or a comment posted from a fake account valid? Are paid Instagram accounts really part of UGC?
Wang et al. (2002) have discussed the perplexed implications of virtual communities and concluded into thought-provoking results: (a) the establishment and maintenance of these online communities are both an opportunity and a challenge for companies within the tourism sector (b) though audiences find it easier to create deeper connections and access easily information, however this two-way communication depends heavily on the organizations self-understanding and self-positioning within the market. From an organizational point of view this requires a clear mission and vision that will be positively communicated online. Therefore the creation and management of these communities should be handled by PR professionals, since without the personal involvement and careful planning these communities would not contribute to the organizations interest. Armstrong and Hagel (1997), as pioneers in virtual communities, were among the first to identify the need for those pools, both from the side of the organizations as well as from the side of audiences. The two researchers argued that "people aim to gratify four needs when joining these communities: interests, relationship, fantasy and transaction"; this is a truly remarkable context for effective PR initiatives to develop.
The way that tourism-related information is distributed, before and after the trip is over, has forever changed. Most travelers retrieve online tourism information out of four sources: blogs, public websites, company websites, and social media websites. Moreover, certain website attributes have been recognized; these are accessibility, security, information–trust, interaction, and personalization (No, 2015). Personal blogs are rather appreciated but not always considered as trustworthy, social media networks are also related with issues regarding credibility, while at the same time security is the main attribute for public websites. This result is relatively easy to understand: while for example the online review websites assist travelers in finding information, it makes it hard for them to evaluate how useful the information is.
This process of evaluating travel information online is effected by two elements: (1) the traits of the review provider (reveal of personal identity, reviewer's expertise etc.), and (2) the reviews themselves (star ratings, length of reviews, review readability etc.). A combination of both credible source and message positively affect the perceived usefulness of reviews, with qualitative aspects of reviews playing a more influential factor into that making travel reviews useful (Liu & Park, 2015).
Since social media are increasingly important as information sources for travelers, a logic assumption would be that search engine results are also related. Within in the context of travel-related searches, search engines like Google or Bing are most likely to direct travelers to social media sites (Xiang, & Gretzel 2010). Again PR experts who understand the growing importance of social media in the online tourism are adjusting their strategy accordingly, allocating more of the annual budget towards social media marketing and the encouragement of strong online communities.
However do online travel communities anyhow relate to offline interactions? A field experiment among travel community members concluded that individual reputation, online communication, and perceived similarity among travelers play significant roles in offline relationships (Kunz & Sheshandri 2015). This a field worth researching, since a proven connection would affect the communication strategy even further: strategists would invest more on recruiting individuals with similar interests, so as to increase the possibilities of an offline conversion.
Public relations communicators take into account all the above: trust and sympathy among community members should be promoted when referring to corporate online communities and adopting the appropriate tone of voice is critical for effective communication in online communities. The connotations of these findings contribute to the suggestion that tourism and hospitality marketers should invest on effective social media marketing.
Conclusion
Social media have earned their place in the communication plan of organizations within the tourism industry, as a valuable channel for engagement and reputation building. The effective uses of social media in the travel sector may be distinguished in relation to the growing role and the concepts that were described throughout the paper.
The significance of the eWOM as a mean of persuasion should be taken seriously into consideration; this means that public relations should monitor and manage the online reputation of an organization within the tourism industry. Monitoring the social media sphere has collateral benefits; in addition to the fact that PR professionals understand and evaluate how customers feel about the organization, they are also in a position to prevent social media crisis at an early stage, respond fast and provide proactive crisis management plans based on real scenarios. On the other hand the spread of positive eWOM about an organization in the tourism industry is highly appreciated among social media users. Tourists tend to trust more a friend's or fellow traveler's suggestion over certain forms of online advertising, like Search advertising, which is regarded as annoying and intrusive. On the contrary, social media advertising, within the context of promoting valuable travel content is regarded as highly efficient.
Other productive ways for PR in terms of eWOM include the establishment of organizational online communities like official Facebook Pages, organizational blogs or forums. Moreover, since scholars have strong indications on the dynamic way that travelers engage and share their experiences, PR tactics that encourage users to interact may also result into the decision making process. Therefore, PR practitioners tend to invest more on regularly uploading valuable travel content, which is fun, educational or provokes the travel desire; such kind of content can be easily and spontaneously shared online.
Integrated marketing is also efficient in terms of travel PR; online promotion activities combined to offline actions is the latest trend in the travel PR sector. Examples include hotels creating and communicating events via their social media accounts, uploading behind the scenes images and adopting a more fun and human aspect to corporate branding.
The increasing importance of review and rating sites has been proven by research and experience. Companies in the tourism sector should have a strong presence in those platforms as part of an efficient social media strategy; an effective social media planning should encourage clients to share their experience on popular social media platforms like TripAdvisor.com and PR professionals should also measure the quantity and quality of their comments.
Taking advantage of the positive User Generated Content and Tourist Created Content is also a productive PR communication tactic; successful examples involve tactics such as, reposting images on the organizational Instagram account or responding on a positive comment as a way to maintain positive online discussion.
Creating and maintaining online organizational communities based on trust and common interests, requires digital knowledges and fast reflexes; the world of social media is a fast moving environment based on technology that is constantly updating. Keeping organizational websites up to date and incorporating contemporary trends, such as mobile applications or check in plugins, should be part of the annual communication PR plan, hence the new generation of turistus digitalis is appreciating fast and user friendly experiences.
The growing role of social media in the tourism industry is still a rather new research field, especially due to the technology developments that shake the industry from time to time; who could imagine the impact of Facebook on the travel industry before 2008? Future research is yet to explore the extent to which travelers are influenced by social media, the specific uses and gratifications they seek via using particular ranking or rating sites, as well as new ways for organizations within the industry to keep up with these social and behavioral changes.
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