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THE IMPACT OF TRAVEL BLOGGING AND ONLINE SOCIAL NETWORKS ON THE TOURIST EXPERIENCE

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Master’s Degree Course in

Languages for Communication in International Enterprises and Organizations (LACOM)

THE IMPACT OF TRAVEL BLOGGING AND ONLINE SOCIAL NETWORKS ON THE TOURIST EXPERIENCE

An analysis on Chinese and Italian consumers’

decision-making process

Supervisor: Master thesis by:

Prof. Barbara Luppi Martina Manzini

Second Supervisor:

Prof. Bernardo Balboni

Academic Year 2017/2018

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The importance of social media is growing around the world and it has created a new place of interaction and communication among people. Nowadays, among social networks an important place has been taken by blogs and the relevance of bloggers for business related activities is growing faster and faster.

The aim of this research is to analyze the increasing importance of social networks in the decision making process. In particular, the study analyses the impact of travel blogs on consumers’ purchasing activities. Blogging is a widespread phenomenon of this era and it has become increasingly interesting to analyze the relation of the blog genre with consumers and how it can influence their consumption decisions. The analysis takes into consideration two different cultural contexts: Italy and China, in order to offer a cross-cultural perspective. The present research aims at identifying the analogies and the differences between the Italian and Chinese markets and at drawing some suggestions to help marketers and also tourism institutions to be more efficient and make the most of the benefits offered by online sources.

Two different methodologies of research have been adopted. Firstly, a qualitative analysis has been carried out through interviews with professionals in the tourism industry and travel bloggers. Qualitative data collection technique allows to analyze the topic in depth through the words of the interviewees, providing a dynamic and interactive nature to the research.

Secondly, qualitative research has been complemented with a quantitative research, in order to support the findings raised from the interviews to privileged witnesses. The quantitative research has been carried out delivering questionnaires to a sample of Italian and Chinese consumers, accounting for a total of 90 questionnaires. The findings of the study have been analyzed adopting a comparative approach, aiming at identifying the main features of travel decision-making in Italy and in China. The qualitative and quantitative methodologies have

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been used in a complementary mode and provide research results that strongly support one another.

Travel blogs and social networks have proved to be a successful and effective strategy in order to improve the overall quality of the business related to tourism as well as to change significantly the consumers’ experience perception. The main result of the present study suggests a significant impact of the travel blogs on the touristic industry as a whole and on the individual consumer behavior.

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L'importanza dei social media sta crescendo in tutto il mondo ed ha dato origine ad un nuovo luogo di interazione e comunicazione tra le persone. Al giorno d’oggi, tra i social network un posto importante viene assunto dai blog e l’influenza dei blogger nelle attività legate al business sta crescendo sempre più velocemente.

Lo scopo di questa ricerca è analizzare la crescente importanza dei social network nel processo decisionale. In particolare, lo studio analizza l'impatto dei blog di viaggio sulle attività di acquisto dei consumatori. Il blogging è un fenomeno molto diffuso nella società odierna e per questo è stato considerato interessante analizzare la relazione che si crea tra blog e consumatori e il modo in cui queste piattaforme riescano ad influenzare le loro decisioni di consumo. L'analisi prende in considerazione due diversi contesti culturali: l'Italia e la Cina, con l’obiettivo di offrire una prospettiva interculturale.

La presente ricerca si propone di identificare le analogie e le differenze tra il mercato italiano e quello cinese in modo da trarre alcuni suggerimenti per aiutare gli operatori di marketing e le istituzioni turistiche ad essere più efficienti e sfruttare al meglio i benefici offerti dalle risorse online. Sono state adottate due diverse metodologie di ricerca. In primo luogo, è stata effettuata un'analisi qualitativa e i dati sono stati raccolti tramite interviste con professionisti del settore turistico e travel blogger. La tecnica qualitativa di raccolta dei dati ha donato una natura dinamica e interattiva alla ricerca e la possibilità di osservare in profondità l'argomento attraverso le parole degli intervistati.

In secondo luogo, a supporto dei risultati emersi dalle interviste, è stata adottata una ricerca quantitativa attraverso questionari somministrati ad un campione di consumatori italiani e cinesi per un totale di 90 questionari compilati. I risultati emersi dallo studio sono stati analizzati adottando un approccio comparativo in modo da identificare le caratteristiche

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principali del processo decisionale relativo ai viaggi in Italia e in Cina. La metodologia qualitativa e quella quantitativa sono state utilizzate in sinergia, offrendo risultati di ricerca che si supportano a vicenda.

Attraverso questo studio si è potuto dimostrare l’importanza e l’efficacia di tali strumenti nel migliorare la qualità complessiva del business legato al turismo e della percezione dell'esperienza di viaggio per i consumatori. I risultati principali emersi dal presente studio mostrano un impatto positivo dei blog di viaggio sull'industria turistica in generale e sul comportamento dei singoli consumatori.

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INTRODUCTION ... 9

CHAPTER 1 SOCIAL MEDIA AND TRAVEL BLOGS ... 15

1.1 What is social media ... 15

1.1.1 Social networking sites (snss) ... 17

1.1.2 Media-sharing sites ... 18

1.1.3 Blogs ... 19

1.1.4 Microblogging ... 20

1.2 The role of opinion leaders and influencers ... 22

1.3 The blog genre and the travel blog ... 24

1.3.1 Online communities and blogs ... 26

1.4 Travelers and tourists ... 28

1.5 How Instagram is changing travel and the tourism industry ... 29

1.6 The importance of personal branding ... 33

CHAPTER 2 CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR, A CULTURAL COMPARISON BETWEEN EAST AND WEST ... 35

2.1 Consumers’ decision-making process ... 36

2.1.1 Problem recognition ... 36

2.1.2 Information search ... 37

2.1.3 Evaluation of alternatives ... 38

2.1.4 Purchase decision ... 38

2.1.5 Post-purchase evaluation ... 39

2.2 Traditional channel vs. social media channel in the travel choice ... 40

2.2.1 Role of social media compared to traditional media in the pre-trip phase of the travelers’ travel planning process ... 40

2.2.2 Role of social media compared to traditional media in the during-trip phase of the travelers’ travel planning process ... 43

2.2.3 Role of social media compared to traditional media in the post-trip phase of the travelers’ travel planning process ... 44

2.3 The Consumers’ culture ... 48

2.3.1 Hofstede’s cultural dimensions ... 52

2.4 East vs. west (China vs. Europe) ... 56

2.5 Overview of Europe tourism economy ... 57

2.6 Overview of China tourism economy ... 59

2.7 Chinese tourists’ attitudes, constraints and use of information sources ... 61

2.8 Chinese travelling to Europe ... 65

CHAPTER 3 QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS ... 69

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3.1 Methodology of the research ... 69

3.2 The sample of the research ... 71

3.3 Data analysis – Open Coding ... 72

3.4 Selecting coding ... 89

CHAPTER 4 QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS ... 93

4.1 Methodology of the research ... 93

4.2 Data collection methods ... 94

4.2 Data analysis ... 96

CONCLUSIONS ... 105

LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS ... 111

BIBLIOGRAPHY & SITOGRAPHY ... 113

APPENDICES ... 123

Appendix 1. Questions of the interviews ... 123

Appendix 2. Cover Letter of the questionnaire ... 126

Appendix 3. Questionnaire for Italian consumers ... 127

Appendix 4. Questionnaire for Chinese consumers ... 135

Appendix 5. Graphs Analysis ... 143

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INTRODUCTION

The idea of this work has its origin in the mere observation of consumers’ habits in two different countries, Italy and China. I had the possibility to live for some months in the Chinese environment and during that period the idea of this work was born.

Nowadays we are exposed to numerous changes in our consumption habits and this is involving a huge part of the world population. Technology and new media are enlarging the possibilities consumers could select in order to be well informed about products and services and feel satisfied during the shopping experience, as well as after it. In fact, consumer behavior is interesting because it is a dynamic process which takes into consideration all the phases of a shopping experience and tells why and how a particular consumer has chosen to act like this in that particular moment. Moving forward, the research has taken as object of the analysis a particular sector: the tourism industry and the travel related services.

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More and more researchers are taking into consideration the impact of social media on the tourism industry because of the growing importance of new media and contents sharing platforms.

This is due to the fact that in postmodern societies human needs have changed and Internet offers the responses to these new needs. In this generation, people feel a strong need to be part of an online community, to be seen and recognized by others on social platforms, a strong need to interact through online communication media. These new needs, which are a trend especially in developed countries, can be fulfilled easily with online communication such as the one provided by blogs.

The aim of this study is to provide a new piece of knowledge conducting an analysis on the influence of social media and in particular of travel blogs on the consumers’ decision-making process. The present research provides a comparative study taking into consideration two different cultural backgrounds: Italy as a representative country of the western world, and China for the eastern area. Starting from the mere observation of the reality, this research aims to analyze in depth the two areas and provide with interesting outcomes. In other words, the main objective of the work is to analyze what are the similarities and the differences, interests and behaviors of Italian and Chinese consumers and how social media influence in their individual decision-making process in the tourism sector.

Chapter 1 introduces the reader to the social media that are used more frequently than face-to- face communication today. After a preliminary discussion of all different types of social media available today, Chapter 1 focuses on a growing genre: the blog, with particular attention will be given to travel blogs that are everyday more influential. This phenomenon can be explained by the fact that in contemporary societies the appearance of blogs continues to increase due to the need to both experiencing tourism and sharing these experiences with the world. The needs of consumers have changed and with them also the ways to attract and influence them.

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Chapter 2 analyses consumers’ behavior, discussing its general traits and the decision-making process flows, explaining its constituent parts: problem recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase decision and post-purchase evaluation. In the second part of Chapter 2, consumption decisions are analyzed in the context of tourism industry, focusing on the particular object of the present study. The analysis will concentrate on the role of social media compared to traditional media in the traveler’ decision-making process in the pre-trip phase, during-trip phase and in the post-trip phase.

The second part of Chapter 2 will also compare the travel attitudes in two countries from a cultural point of view. The main differences of the Italian and Chinese societies will be discussed through the use of Hofstede’s framework (Hofstede, 1991, 2001), which is considered largely useful in formulating hypotheses for comparative cross-cultural studies. The aim of Chapter 2 is to understand how cultural values play an important role in influencing consumers’

consumption. It will examine the concepts of individualistic and collectivistic society and how these traits influence the buying experience of Italian and Chinese consumers.

Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 constitute the core of the present study and present the original results of the research project. While Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 aim to provide a general background about travel decision making and the use of social media, Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 discuss the innovative research project obtained using a qualitative and quantitative approach. Both methodologies have been used side by side and they offered a valuable learning experience. On one side, with qualitative data collection it was possible to explore in depth the topic thanks to the dynamic and interactive properties of this technique. On the other side, with the complementary use of quantitative data collection it was possible to learn how to plan and design an effective questionnaire and how to use the data collected through questionnaires as well as strongly support the outcomes of the qualitative research.

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Chapter 3 presents the main outcomes of the qualitative analysis. I have opted for a qualitative methodology, to gain an in-depth understanding of the experiences and points of view of the supply side in the tourism industry. The research has been conducted through semi-structured interviews to a selected sample of professionals in the tourism sector as well as travel bloggers in order to gain a 360° view of the tourism sector from different perspectives. The heterogeneous sample, which includes 6 privileged subjects, has turned out to be a plus of the research offering a wide view on the travel industry in general and its relation with social media. The main results of the research will be extensively explained in the Chapter 3 and also in the conclusions of this work. The findings are particularly relevant to understand the evolution of consumers’ habits especially related to the change of travel consumers towards the status of “self-made travelers” and their relation with influencers and bloggers who indicate and create new trends everyday. From suppliers’ point of view, another important concept popped out from the qualitative research is the reliability of travel agencies which are still a reference point for tourists, in particular for eastern ones. With no doubts, also travel agencies are evolving in order to satisfy consumers’ changing needs.

While Chapter 3 analyses suppliers’ point of view using a qualitative analysis, Chapter 4 analyzes the topic from the consumers’ side. In order to support the main findings of the qualitative research, a quantitative analysis has been carried out through the delivery of questionnaires to a selected sample of travel consumers’. The questionnaire has been planned, designed and tested and then supplied to consumers. The respondents of the survey were both Italian and Chinese consumers and an overall of 90 questionnaires have been collected. After the collection of data, a comparative analysis has been carried out in order to highlight the main similarities and differences between eastern and western consumers’ whit respect to travel consumption choices. It is important to point out that the results of the quantitative research

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strongly support the main outcomes raised from the interviews offering a coherent view on the trends involving the relation between tourism industry and social media.

Conclusions and some limits of the present research will be finally discussed, providing also extensions for future research. Other comparative studies in the field of consumer behavior could be explored in order to deepen the understanding of cultural background on consumption choices and its application as a marketing strategy in the tourism industry.

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CHAPTER 1 SOCIAL MEDIA AND TRAVEL BLOGS

1.1 W HAT IS SOCIAL MEDIA

Human beings are social nowadays, consumers are participating in variety of activities, from consuming content to sharing knowledge, experiences, opinions, and they are involved in discussion with other consumers online (Heinonen, 2011).

As noted by Brian Solis in “The Social Media Manifesto,” social media is the biggest evolution to date in the history of public relations. Internet has become a mainstream medium that is “even more significant than the introduction of radio, television and motion pictures. With the injection of social media tools into the mix, people now have the ability to impact and influence the decision of their peers and also other newsmakers” (Solis, 2007).

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Media consumption is now increasingly personalized. This development is linked to the introduction of the web 2.0 platform, which enabled Internet users with little or no specialized technical experience to create online content. Web 2.0 is “a platform whereby content and applications are continuously modified and exchanged by all users in participatory and collaborative manner, and no longer merely created and published by individuals” (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010).

Internet is a social place where it is possible to create new experiences for consumers. Virtual communities, blogs and online social networks provide a platform to influence consumers in their decision-making process. Nowadays, the way of interaction between companies and consumers has been changed and power moved from company to consumers due to online social networking (Hagel and Armstrong, 1997).

The online social networks provide facilities for consumers to interact with one another, accessing to information, comments, reviews, and rates that can help them in the purchasing decisions in different ways (Heinrichs, Lim & Lim, 2011).

As Cheung and Lee (2010) stated, social media are online places where individuals as members construct public profiles to share their knowledge and their experiences, to post personal information and have contact with others who exchange and share similar interests. Internet today has become an interaction tool, not just an information access tool and the interaction between consumers can change their consumers’ behavior. Despite different definitions of social media, many of the existing studies and articles have stated out the common core purpose of social media.

According to Dann and Dann (2011), social media is formed based upon three interconnected elements, such as social interaction, content, and communication media. The socialization of information is facilitated and enhanced thanks to online social media, and the spread of information is available to vast online audiences (Smith and Zook, 2011). Moreover, social

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media encourage contributions and feedback from everyone who is interested, and it is a two- way conversation when comparing to the traditional media because social media platforms are open up to feedback and participation (Mayfield, 2008).

As many researchers have observed, social media describes the new relation between users engaging with the content on the Internet and vice versa. Social media is user-centric, facilitating the process of creating, commenting, editing and sharing. As stated by Solis (2007), the most important aspect of social media is the democratization of content. Because of this, anyone and everyone is a content producer and can potentially wield significant influential power.

There are different forms of virtual communities which can be divided in different categories, affecting consumers’ purchase decisions in different ways. Each of these platforms provide unique features and experiences to both marketers and consumers in the social media sphere.

1.1.1 SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES (SNSS)

Social Networking Sites (SNSs) are platforms like Facebook where people are able to connect with each other. As Weinberg (2009) states, “SNSs are generic terms for sites that are used to connect users with similar backgrounds and interests”. All these platforms have generally similar elements: users can create customized personal profiles less or more public, they have a list of suggested friends with whom they are able to share a connection and they can view the connections of others and what they post within the system. Through social networking sites consumers can also create a closer relationship with brands through several functions such as fan pages, groups simply putting a “Like” on a brand’s Facebook page. Brands could enhance their audience thanks to social networking sites influencing consumers’ behavior.

The popularity of social media is growing everyday and today seems fundamental, especially for a blogger, to have a Facebook profile, the most famous social network invented by Mark

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Zuckerberg and launched in 2004. Data from February 2017 show that Facebook enjoys a community of 1,86 billion active users and still growing everyday. Everyday more brands and companies use Facebook platform to promote themselves and get in touch with larger public.

Creating an effective Facebook page is a goal of many companies and new strategies to grow online are constantly researched in order to increase followers and blog’s visits.

1.1.2 MEDIA-SHARING SITES

Media-Sharing sites such as YouTube or Flickr are platforms where users can upload, share and store multimedia files, photos, video and music with other users. These websites are really popular because of the affordable technology used simply via subscriptions. One of the most important elements of these media-sharing sites is the tag. As defined by Zarrella (2010), “a tag is a word assigned to a piece of content that helps describing it”. The relevance of the search words has to be highlighted as a crucial aspect of these platforms.

YouTube is about user-generated content, whereby people are expected to create content not just consume it. They are given the power to create content that best expresses their consumption of content. new media like YouTube, have blurred the boundaries between traditional media producers and consumers, leading to participation of ordinary private individuals on a public platform. YouTube's and other video- sharing sites' accessibility have provoked visions of a total democratization of the audiovisual space, where there are no more barriers between producers and the audience, or between professionals and amateurs (Muller, 2009).

Social News sites and Social Bookmarking sites like Delicious or Digg are pretty similar to Social Networking Sites where users can create, control and customize their news streams. Not only users can control their social news, it is also possible for them to “submit and vote on content around the web” and most importantly “to collect any interesting links they have discovered and may wish to revisit” (Zarrella, 2010).

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1.1.3 BLOGS

Another type of social media are blogs, meaning personal journals typically maintained by individuals or groups and featured commentary and ideas for a larger group of audience. The online communities of bloggers are growing incredibly fast and they involve different topics for example fashion, travel, lifestyle, beauty. Blogs create a good hub for other social media marketing tools (videos, pictures, hyperlinks) because they can be integrated into the platforms and posts; besides, blog software provides a variety of social features such as comments, blogrolls, trackbacks, and subscriptions (Zarrella, 2010).

One of the most successful example is the fashion blog founded by Chiara Ferragni and Riccardo Pozzoli in 2009. The Blonde Salad evolved from being an outfit blog to a fashion and travel magazine and now to a digital platform offering a 360 degrees’ lifestyle experience. The Blonde Salad is a lifestyle brand that through its channels, it creates daily content to inspire its audience. The main goal for the crew working around The Blonde Salad is to encourage, inspire and get inspired by all the people around the globe through fashion contents, runway trends, beauty secrets and lifestyle tips.

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FIG. 1 SCREENSHOT FROM CHIARA FERRAGNIS BLOG

Nowadays she is a business woman and she embodies herself a brand, and a very lucrative one.

In 2015 she became a Harvard business case study as “The most successful blogger business”.

Her influence became very powerful and she started a huge trend on the web, followed by millions of people.

1.1.4 MICROBLOGGING

Another type of virtual community affecting consumers purchase decisions is microblogging.

Microblogging is a real-time information network which is similar to the activity of blogs, but it is limited in number of words. Each post can contain a limited number of words, encouraging short messages and fast communication. The most popular microblog worldwide is Twitter which was launched in 2006 as a microblogging service where users use mobile phones or computers to send and read instant messages, up to 140 characters long, called “tweets”.

Tweets are posted in a public profile or can be sent as direct messages to other users. Part of the appeal is the ability of users to follow any other user with a public profile, enabling users to

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interact with celebrities who regularly post on the social media site. In the fourth quarter of 2017, Twitter registered 330 million monthly active users.

Retweet is a one of the most powerful mechanism used by marketers which consist in copy and paste what other users including celebrities, politicians posted into their Twitter stream. The most welcome tweet of 2017 was that of President Barack Obama with a quote from Nelson Mandela, after the protests in Charlottesville, Virginia: the tweet became the most appreciated with over 4.6 million likes and 1.7 million retweet.

FIG. 2 BARACK OBAMA'S TWEET

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1.2 T HE ROLE OF OPINION LEADERS AND INFLUENCERS

A special source of social influence becoming more and more important in the blogging sphere is the opinion leader. An opinion leader is an individual who acts as an information broker between the mass media and the opinions and behaviors of a person or group. Opinion leaders have some position, expertise, or firsthand knowledge that makes them particularly important sources of relevant and credible information, usually in a specific domain or product category.

Opinion leaders are perceived as non marketing sources of influence by consumers, a perception that adds to their credibility. Opinion leaders are part of the category of the so called gatekeepers, people who have a special influence or power in deciding whether a product or information will be disseminated to a market (Hoyer, MacInnis, Pieters, 2013).

Many researchers studying opinion leaders have pointed out several peculiarities. They tend to learn a lot about products, and they usually buy new products as soon as they enter in the market to share products information, they are heavy users of mass media and use them to make their reviews about products features and give advices to their public. Opinion leaders have a powerful influence because they are generally seen as unbiased and credible. They are also regarded as knowledgeable about acquisition, usage, and disposition options because of their experience and knowledge.

Today we can use the term influencer to indicate this category of individuals which are bloggers and have an increasing power to influence consumers.

The emerging new influencer community is wielding significant power over the perceptions of brands and companies, largely driven by the rapid expansion of social media channels through which influencers communicate. An example is the phenomenon of “mommy bloggers” as brand advocates.

The platform in which they communicate is different, yet the concept of “word of mouth”

marketing has existed for decades. “Data shows that content spread from consumer to

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consumer through word-of-mouth are far more powerful at driving brand preference and purchase intent than content distributed by the brand itself. This has profound implications in social media. To illustrate, if a brand puts content on its Facebook fan page, it is far less likely to go viral than if an influential consumer puts that very same piece of content on his or her page or posts it to a relevant community of enthusiasts” (Hall, 2010).

The availability of easy-to-use blogging platforms from around 1999 onwards has allowed interactive collaboration through active engagement with other users (Bell, 2007: 98). The increased accessibility of blogs over the past decade has resulted in a rise in both their quantity and popularity.

The salient characteristic of blogs in this context is their creation of an ongoing dialogue between the writer and a multitude of potential readers. By contributing discussion to blog posts, users are part of an organic process of knowledge sharing that continues after the author publishes a text online. According to a journalist who successfully made the transition from newspaper columnist to blogger, audiences are no longer passive because of the role they play in creating a feedback loop: ‘my readers know more than I do, sometimes individually on specific topics, but always collectively” (Gillmor, 2003). The power of a community of internet users can therefore be harnessed to enrich the dialogue surrounding a topic.

“(Bloggers) usage reflects the location of blogs on the boundaries of what constitutes the private and the public. By engaging in communication online they are both sharing their personal lives with peers who are known to them, as well as being aware that the contents of their blogs can reach a potentially broader public audience.” (Stefanic, 2010). Since consumers enjoy the interaction and communication with each other and like to receive advice either positive or negative about different products or services, virtual communities have an impact on consumers’ purchasing decision (Evans, 2009).

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1.3 T HE BLOG GENRE AND THE TRAVEL BLOG

After an overview about online social networks and different types of social media, in this section the main purpose is to talk deeply about the blog genre and then focus on the travel blogs and the figure of the travel blogger as an important source of influence in consumers’

decision process related to tourism.

A blog is defined as a website on which the blogging discourse takes place and the blogger is the author, meaning the person who writes and creates the main contents of the blog. The blogging activity in the context of the globalization is seen as an embodiment of rapid and continuous social change.

It is possible to talk about blog genre from 1995, however a revolution in its use started in 2001.

According to Myers (2010), blogging software was created in 1999, giving to all web users the possibility to create their own blog. People wrote blogs in different ways, for many uses, as a personal diary or as a page where to post photos or sharing contents about different topics.

Thanks to the comment function the blogger and the users are able to interact actively creating a discourse around a topic. The community of users builds the blog genre through their comments and linking with each other they make the blog to stay alive and here the role of the blogger plays a vital part. Continuously sharing contents, the blogger enables the blog to stay alive, this is enhanced by users’ comments who share same interests.

Focusing on travel blogging as the topic of this study it is possible to say that when the main theme of a blog is “travel” it typically regarded the experience of visiting other countries and places and this creates the main content of the blog.

With the advent of Internet, the communication changed and with it also the way of perceiving tourism. As stated by Buhalis (2001), “the Internet empowered the new type of tourist to become more knowledgeable and to seek exceptional value for money and time”. As the

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Internet facilitated the process of globalization, tourism became increasingly more flexible by providing individualized and up-to-date information.

Travelling is considered a high-effort situation for which consumers put a lot of effort to choose the best option confronting a variety of different possibilities. When motivation is high the consumer is full of energy, ready and willing to engage in a goal-relevant activity. In other words, motivation is defined as “an inner state of arousal” that provides energy needed to achieve a goal. Motivation affects consumer behavior and the way consumers process information and make decisions. Choosing the best destination, finding the best place at a good price, planning the best travel experience, are all activities which demand a high effort behavior for the consumer.

According to Aho (2011), travelling gives the possibilities to fulfill a lot of different human needs: improving health through relaxation, socializing, learning new things, getting aesthetic impressions as well as prestige and self-realization. The author summarizes this idea giving four core motivations. The first one is the emotional experience such as collecting emotional impressions; then the informative experience meaning getting new intellectual impressions;

the practice experience, like improving some skills and finally the transformation experience which enables to change the travelers’ mindset. These four phenomena generally appear in every tourist experience with different degrees.

Some travelers read travel blogs, interact through comments and sometimes they even decide to create their personal blog to write down their experiences. The goal often is to witness something and get a record of it, a proof of actually having lived a certain experience, for example by taking photos (Rojek, 1993).

Information acquisition is one of the major reasons why people engage in online travel communities. The sharing of experiences is the main element found in a study carried out by Chung and Buhalis (2008) which consider particularly important the research information in

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tourism because travel related products are intangible and therefore it is quite complicated for the traveler to plan and assess everything before the visit. Blogs at this point play an essential role in suggesting how to choose a destination, how to plan the vacation and the blogger is seen as an unbiased person, more credible than traditional tourist information. Also socio- psychological and hedonistic reasons make people interact in the travel community to interact with friends and family and share the traveler’s own experience. At this purpose the interest of a travel community is to reduce uncertainty related to some countries, the perceived risks a trip might bring.

The relevance of social media in tourism has been noted by a larger number of scholars and researchers in helping tourism companies and the hospitality sector to increase their online presence, attract more potential guests leading in this way to grater revenues. Dellarocas (2003) also suggested that social media provide tourism companies with unprecedented opportunities to understand and respond to consumer preferences. Hotels and travel-related companies are able to understand through the customers’ reviews and comments on platforms like Trip Advisor, what they like, and what they can improve to always be one step further from their competitors.

1.3.1 ONLINE COMMUNITIES AND BLOGS

With the spread of online communication mediated by computers also the nature of the relationships changed. Before mobile communication, a community was defined as a relatively small group of people defined by close ties, transparent reasons, and trust (Green & Haddon, 2009). The authors show that for online communities, new definitions are needed. New communication technologies were claimed to be based on individualism but in more recent time online communities started to be seen in a more positive light.

Internet activities are embedded in many peoples’ normal day-to-day life and are able to strengthen social ties more easily through textual communication. Social communication

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processes became very flexible and better coordinated. Brubaker (2004) described the flexibility of online communities with the term “groupness”. According to him groupness has a fluent character, is not something given, but rather an event that is just happening. Given this, it is possible to accounts for moments of intense group interactions and high degrees of groupness; therefore, social dynamics and mobilization are increasing in times of globalization (Brubaker, 2004).

Online and offline communications share similarities but there is one main difference which consists in lack of physical presence in online interactions and users do not necessarily know each other face-to-face. Online interactions are mediated by computer systems which facilitate the communication. One of these online systems are blogs, which form a community called blogosphere. Even if in the blogosphere there are exchanges of information and personal matters through comments it is hard to define blogosphere as a public sphere. Myers (2010) said that it is perhaps better to talk about blogosphere as a set of multiple publics that have their own discussions about common topics of interest. Therefore, it is important to give a new interpretation about the old definition of “public” and “private” in this context. Blogs, which are meant to be private, can become public and public blogs can contain more personalized information (Gunter, 2009). Public and private spheres are really merged together today.

Nardi, Schiano and Gumbrecht (2004) found that in the blogosphere bloggers do not just create text, but they create a social world where the blog influences the reader and the reader influences the blog. They noted that bloggers usually want to update their readers on a topic and express opinions in order to influence them and at the same time they are seeking others’

influence and feedback.

In the case of the travel blogosphere, besides staying in touch with others, the travelers’ goal is to interact with people who have similar interests and lifestyles. The purpose in this case, is to reduce risk related to travel trip and uncertainty. If the need of information acquisition is

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fulfilled, members tend to have a more positive attitude towards the blog and participate more.

The high participation in turns, leads users to write more valuable content, making the blog more attractive (Cheung and Buhalis, 2008).

1.4 T RAVELERS AND TOURISTS

Generally, the words "tourist" and "traveller" are used interchangeably, but to some people in the travel community, these labels have different implications. In the tourism literature the distinction between the two terms has a long history. Tourists are identified as people who travel for leisure and pleasure purposes, while travellers are always looking for new experiences full of meaningfulness. Both tourists and travellers aim to go beyond their boundaries, but the main difference lays in the way their journey practices differ. Travellers perceive the travel experience as a way to enrich themselves, be in contact with the real soul of places and get in touch with the local culture. With the spread of mass tourism many people are more and more distant to this concept, and it seems that motivations for travel are changing.

This change is due especially to the constant need of commodity people are seeking. Tourists prefer full organized trip, usually planned with the help of a travel agency with all commodities.

Tourists are willing to live a more relaxing type of holiday in well-known places and with all services. This type of travel consumer usually goes on a trip one or two times per year, most of the times with the family and this is also the main reason to prefer well organised holidays. The focus of the tourists is not to explore something new, but they look increasingly to what they expect to encounter looking for popular attractions and experiences.

On the other hand, the traveller usually travels alone, with a partner or in a small group and s/he is more likely to prefer adventurous experiences, not really planned but with the desire to

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explore and discover new places especially try to explore the less-travelled areas and explore locations where tourism does not drive the economy.

There is also a distinction between tourism and travel in terms of writing style. Travel writing is very personal and usually the other presents his own experiences and adventures talking about new places discovered, the people encountered during the journey and the local food tasted. Whereas tourism writing is a discourse which tend to be more impersonal, limited to the description of popular attractions and must-see places using a very commercial style and language. Approaching the reading of a travel blog, readers are expecting to find a very personal travel discourse and in fact, authenticity is one of the most important trait to build a quality blog.

1.5 H OW I NSTAGRAM IS CHANGING TRAVEL AND THE TOURISM INDUSTRY

At the side of Facebook, the second most popular medium to share contents is Instagram. In the last three years Instagram has overtake 600 million users per month and this social media plays an even greater role in the travel-sphere.

Now six years old, Instagram, the most popular medium for instant picture sharing, has more than 500 million active users sharing an average of 80 million photos a day.

According to a recent study done by National Geographic particular locations featured on the app grow in numbers of visitors the more they are tagged. The strength of this media is clearly influencing people’s travel decisions.

For example, in 2015, the tourism board of the small alpine town of Wanaka, New Zealand, began inviting and hosting “influencers”, social media trendsetters with large followings, to

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post about their adventures. The result was the fastest tourism growth in the country: a 14 percent increase.

According to Lake Wanaka Tourism, influencers provide an “incredible” return on investment and this is an advantage all stakeholders and tourism drives should consider.

With around 400 million active users on Instagram, today companies strive to win consumer interest by using Instagram as a visual tool.

In an interview for National Geographic Chris Burkard (@chrisburkard), a photographer with more than two million Instagram followers says: “Now you’re less than 10 clicks away from seeing an image on Instagram to purchasing a ticket to go there”; “I’ve met people who have traveled to places because of my photographs, and I don’t mean that in an egotistical way … [That] wasn’t happening 10 years ago.”

The declaration made by the photographer is really interesting and emblematic to understand the travel experience today which is a lot more sophisticated than old paper guidebooks of twenty years ago and should be taken into account by all travel bloggers and tourism agencies. With social media, everyone is a potential ambassador of the places and people encountered during a trip. Instagram started as a social media channel, but over time has become a personal tour guide, like a special tourist office or even a new travel agent. In fact, in a survey conducted on Instagram, the platform is the go-to social network for 48% of people who want to choose destinations to visit on their next getaway and 35% of them use Instagram to get inspired and discover new places.

Instagram potential has been seen by many destination brands which start using the app to enhance and promote the destination itself, showing the most attractive and appealing content.

To achieve marketing targets and expand its online presence, a destination should pull the collective strengths of individual providers and collaborate with them. Brands which already

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collaborate with influencers with a lot of followers, are seeing an enormous growth in their visits.

Working with influencers is a strategy typically embraced by accommodation providers because it's easier to get results with tight deadlines. Waiting for a customer to start a conversation online and share user-generated content might be as effective, but it tends to take more time and results are often inconsistent.

The accommodation provider Airbnb, for example, use this strategy too by sharing experiences from the most beautiful places in the world, combined with real and inspiring stories from their guests. The stories inspire their audience to dream about their next getaway wishing to live the same experience as others.

Moreover, in the Airbnb community, it is asked to both guests and hosts to leave public reviews for each other after every trip. Having great reviews shows that member is trustable and respectful of the community, and can encourage people to book the place or accept the reservation request.

From August 2016, Instagram introduced also a new function called Instagram Stories which is a big news and helps even more people and brands to share their contents.

Today users, in particular the so called “millennials” (birth years from mid-1990s to early 2000s), are constantly looking for new ideas and innovations in the social media marketing scenario. For this reason, the trend of sharing social reality is increasingly successful, thanks to the introduction of new tools through which everyday life is truthful and of great impact on followers. Snapchat is the first app which introduced the sharing of everyday life getting a big success, and then Instagram followed the flow creating Instagram Stories.

With Instagram Stories is possible to share wherever content, photos and short videos without worrying to publish too many things. In order to have a successful account it is recommended

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to publish contents frequently. In fact, the content published will stay online for just 24 hours and then it disappears.

Instagram stories can be a valuable tool to be known by the public, to retain the audience and to extend the project through videos and photos which tell the behind the scenes of shots and everyday life. An “Instagrammer” or a travel blogger, should exploit the Stories to humanize the profile, shorten the distance with the user and share secrets and advice in order to have an extra channel where to be known in an authentic way.

Instagram is also opening Western eyes to more inaccessible places, giving people a glimpse into other worlds, cultures, and topics. It is also a way which enable the tourist to visualize before the departure the itinerary and all the must-to-go places, reducing the uncertainty and the risk of visiting unknown places.

FIG. 3 SCREENSHOT FROM @MURADOSMANN INSTAGRAM PROFILE

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1.6 T HE IMPORTANCE OF PERSONAL BRANDING

The concept of personal branding, first popularized by Tom Peters (1997) in his article “The Brand Called You,” has become increasingly important in the digital age. Once considered a tactic only for celebrities and leaders in business and politics, online tools have allowed personal branding to become an important marketing task for everyday people. The premise for personal branding is that everyone has the power to be their own brand and a person's main job is to be their own marketer (Peters 1997). In other words, personal branding is the ability to promote oneself, to communicate in a convincing way its own image and name.

In the age of web 2.0, self-branding tactics involve creating and maintaining social and networking profiles, personal websites, and blogs, as well as using search engine optimization techniques to encourage access to one's information. Similar to product branding, personal branding entails capturing and promoting an individual's strengths and uniqueness to a target audience. There is no need anymore to be familiar with complex coding languages or other technicalities to build websites, because virtually anyone can upload text, pictures, and video instantly to a site from a personal computer or mobile phone.

With technological barriers crumbling and its increasing ubiquity, the web has become the perfect platform for personal branding.

For a professional blogger it is really important to convey a perception of professionalism and dedication to work. If the reputational aspect is missing, the risk is not to be taken into consideration by the public, and in the worst case, by those who would like to contact the blogger to offer job opportunities. The strength of a blogger, compared to the travel columns in newspapers, lies in his ability to be the first guarantor of what he says.

Personal branding is based on two great flows which define the perception that others have of the blogger. These two activities create positive perceptions and bring credibility and

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reputation. These are called contents and behaviors. The former demonstrates the skills in achieving something, the latter show the personality and character of the blogger through social behavior. The good management of these two levels of positioning create the exact perception of the person to the audience, as happens in the extra-digital world.

Another important trait which a successful blogger should have is charisma. As stated by Rudy Bandiera (2016), “Charisma is the ability to exert a great influence on others, not over others. This is not about prevarication”. According to the author, charisma is a combination of four different elements which are: empathy, creativity, self-confidence and willpower.

Empathy is that prodigious ability to understand the states of mind of others, whether it is love, hate, joy or sorrow. Empathy is understanding what the other feels and sees with his eyes, being able to understand the thoughts of others in a complete and absolute way.

Empathy is the first real engine in the attempt to attract other people.

Creativity is another fundamental skill for a blogger in order to be successful. Creativity means finding everyday something new and write about it always in a new, original way. The effort lies in transforming what a person sees and experience everyday and make it personal in order to be creative.

Self-confidence is another important factor and it refers to the ability to be always conscious of what is going on, find the right way to deal with different situations. A self-confident person always has everything under control.

Another important feature highlighted by the author is willpower. Willpower is the ability to make real something highly desired, to achieve what one’s consider important consciously with a final goal in mind.

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CHAPTER 2 CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR, A CULTURAL COMPARISON BETWEEN EAST AND WEST

Consumer behavior refers to the study of how a person buys products. However, this process involves a lot more. In a complete definition it is possible to say that “Consumer behavior reflects the totality of consumers’ decisions with respect to the acquisition, consumption, and disposition of goods, services, activities, experiences, people, and ideas by (human) decision-making units [over time]” (Jacoby, 1976).

From the words of Engel, Blackwell and Miniard (1995), consumer behavior is “concerned with all activities directly involved in obtaining, consuming and disposing of products and services, including the decision processes that precede and follow these actions”.

The psychological core exerts considerable influence on consumer behavior. The so called psychological core includes motivation, ability and opportunity which affect consumer’s

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decision and influence what a person is exposed to. These factors also affect how consumers interpret information and how they retrieve memories and form attitudes.

Consumer behavior is still one of the major researched areas in the marketing and tourism fields, with the terms “travel behavior” or “tourist behavior” to indicate this particular area.

Considering the important role of social media in affecting the customers’ decision-making process in tourism as well as the importance for tourism management, it is provided the decision-making process from the consumers’ perspective focusing especially on the travel planning process. The pre-trip phase, the the during-trip phase and the post-trip phase of the travel planning process will be analyzed in order to understand the relation between social media and consumers’ decision making process in travel.

2.1 C ONSUMERS DECISION - MAKING PROCESS

The factors that are part of the psychological core are strictly tied to the process of consumers’

decision-making process. The decision-making process involves several steps: problem recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase decision and post- purchase evaluation.

FIG. 4 CONSUMERS' DECISION-MAKING PROCESS

2.1.1 PROBLEM RECOGNITION

Problem recognition is the first step of the process involving consumers making decisions.

Problem recognition occurs when a consumer has an unfulfilled need, so s/he desires

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something new. There are decisions which are easily recognizable and solved such as the need for food or water and those decisions which derive from unexpected problems and needs which are harder to solve such as the need for a new car or for a vacation.

There are many external factors affecting the problem recognition stage such as social and cultural factors, environmental and reference groups. Reference groups are people consumers compare themselves with for acquiring information and opinions, sharing values and attitudes (Hoyers et al. 2013). Reference groups influence on consumers’ purchase decision in three ways: informational influence (i.e. information search about different kinds of brands);

utilitarian influence (i.e. consumer’s purchase decision is relied on satisfaction of other in one’s social groups); value-expressive influence (i.e. the image that others have on consumers become important in order to choose particular brand), Solomon, et al, 2010.

Kardes, Cronley and Cline (2011) argued that social media are an external stimulus which may trigger a problem recognition. For example, a like on a Facebook page or on an Instagram post could make consumers recognize that they have an unfulfilled need.

2.1.2 INFORMATION SEARCH

Once a problem is recognized, consumers begin to have interest in acquiring interest seeking for relevant information. Before carrying out any actions, consumers identify available options, studying information of selected options, and eventually judging which of these options can deliver the best outcome (Silverman, 2001). Sources of information can be divided into two types: internal and external.

Internal search involves the consumers’ memory about the products, and external search includes word-of-mouth, stores visit, trial and online social networking and social media (Kardes, et al, 2010). Any information stored in the consumer’ memory will be used to form and evaluate different alternatives. Today online environment has a strong impact in the decision process and Internet has become an important tool for information search. The decision

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involves choosing which sources to consult spread in both physical and online environments.

Social media offer information exposition from “friends” but also from brands about product and services trough a “like” on a Facebook page, and “follow” on Instagram or Twitter.

2.1.3 EVALUATION OF ALTERNATIVES

Once consumers have formed in their mind the best solution in order to satisfy their own needs and desires and they have the proper amount of information in mind, they start to compare and evaluate different alternatives depending on their needs, motives and goals. In this stage consumers consider which alternative would be the best to fulfill their need (Blythe, 2008).

Sometimes consumers choose the simplest alternative to arrange, the cheapest one, or the alternative other consumers have chosen before to confirm the reliability of the information and confirm that the product will work out as anticipated.

2.1.4 PURCHASE DECISION

The evaluation of different alternatives leads consumers to make their own choice among the alternatives. The consumers’ choice can be influenced from different sources including the strong influence of Internet which is an effective tool in this stage.

Kotler and Keller (2009) have suggested that during the evaluation of alternatives consumers form preferences among the brands, however there are two factors which can interfere between the purchase intention and the purchase decision; attitude of the others and unanticipated situational factors.

Attitudes of others is the extent to which “another person’s negative attitude towards the preferred alternatives or reluctance to meet the terms of supporting the purchase intention, this may result in a readjustment of the consumer’s purchase intention (Kotler and Keller, 2009).

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Kotler (2009) also stated that consumers are, without any doubts, “influenced by the intermediaries who publish their evaluations” (for example, customer reviews, comments, blogs). Unanticipated situational factors refer to those factors may alter the purchase intention.

There may come a more urgent purchase for instance which is unexpected and alter the purchase process. Therefore, purchase intentions can not be a completely reliable indicator that the effective purchase behavior will happen.

2.1.5 POST-PURCHASE EVALUATION

After the consumption, consumers evaluate the choice made in selecting the alternative. The quality of the decision becomes important in this stage of process and how well the choice worked out. Consumers start to compare their perceptions of the product with their expectations (Kardes et al, 2011). Consumers are not always confident about their acquisition, consumption or disposition decisions. They may feel uncertain about whether they made the correct choice or they can even feel some regret. Two potential outcomes derived from this phase: satisfaction or dissonance. Post-decision dissonance is a feeling of anxiety over whether the correct decision was made and is more likely to occur when more than one alternative is attractive and the decision is important.

Consumers may also regret the decision they have made before. Post-decision regret is a feeling which occurs when consumers perceive an unfavorable comparison between the performance of the chosen option and the performance of the options not chosen (Tsiors M., Mittal V., 2000).

Moreover, the regret may go away over time. Consumers who avoid guilt by exercising self- control and not splurging on a hedonic choice like an expensive but exciting vacation may later regret this decision and feel that they missed out by not living in the moment (Kivetz, Keinan, 2006).

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2.2 T RADITIONAL CHANNEL VS . SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNEL IN THE TRAVEL CHOICE

2.2.1 ROLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA COMPARED TO TRADITIONAL MEDIA IN THE PRE-TRIP PHASE OF THE TRAVELERS TRAVEL PLANNING PROCESS

Mass media information sources are a key communication channel for service firms because they present immediate benefits to consumers (Zeithaml et al., 1985).

Although this search provides a greater variety of information to solve a specific information problem, it does not provide customized information. Consumers spend more time and effort than when collecting information from customized sources, as mass media information sources act independently of the consumers’ active process of information search. Researchers consider it as a formal and impersonal information source; mass media information sources have a volunteer character, and include reports and advertising on broadcast media.

Global exposure is of prime importance for tourism destinations. Till the mid-1990s destination promotions were entirely reliant on travel agencies to market its products. The web has enabled tourism destinations to market themselves through well designed and well promoted websites. Doing business on the web has helped avoid regulations and restrictions that companies must follow when physically doing business in other countries. For example, in some countries foreign travel companies are forbidden to operate. Finally, compared with the traditional media, the web allows unlimited access for hundreds of millions users to an unlimited amount of information. Even if the web has a relevant importance in the whole process of decision making regarding travel, in the pre-trip phase traditional media still have importance. When approaching for the first time to a new travel destination, traditional media such as advertising, magazines or radio broadcasting as well as word-of-mouth, are regarded as particularly influential on consumers’ mind.

The pre-trip phase is a crucial moment in all the process because it is here that expectations and interest are created and these will lead to a decision. As stated by Torres (2010), a recent

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research from Google has shown that 84% of leisure travelers used the Internet as a planning resource.

Urry and Larsen (2011), talk about “tourist gaze” in order to explain what happens in the consumers’ mind in this phase. This concept refers to the importance of the time before the trip, how people imagine their experience. At the moment to visit a new place instead of simply looking at what they encounter, people gaze at it. This way of gazing at new discoveries during the trip is a social construction. In this way it is possible to affirm that there is no objective way of seeing, but what tourists perceived is influenced by many other factors like the experiences someone had before in the place, or by the memory of some pictures. As the authors said, in the current age expectations are constructed by mobile images and new technologies.

The importance of social media in the research phase of the travel planning process is evident also because online platforms are seen as trustworthy and credible sources. Online suggestions and comments shared among users create a valuable source while making a decision.

Therefore, simply by gazing from the screen an experience can be repeated. Through the different perspectives or different knowledge sources, offered over the Internet, the tourist gaze gets extended and therefore “democratized” (Urry, Larsen, 2011).

As travel-related products and services are perceived as high-priced and high-involvement, people tend to care a lot about colleting many information and reviews in order to minimize the uncertainty. The word-of-mouth (WOM) source is still considered one of the best source of external information because of its high perceived credibility.

Litvin et al. (2008), talk about a new form of word-of-mouth called electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). Consumers can go beyond the limits of their social circle recommendations. The electronic word-of-mouth offers the possibility to acquire travel information from friends within the social networks, but also it offers the benefit to get more information from the users from all over the world sampling searching on Internet.

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Word-of-mouth was already very important for holiday-decision making and it is no surprising that the new electronic version, e-WOM, has also become very important. Bronner and de Hoog (2011) found that vacationers, when searching for information on the Internet, more frequently use sites with information provided by other vacationers for which subjective experiences are important (consumer-generated information).

Trust is fundamental concept when considering e-commerce. Ba & Pavlou (2002) stated that benevolence and credibility are the two main dimensions of trust. Considering other users reliable and believing them affect significantly the online experience purchasing. Positive comments and reviews from other users generate a higher level of trust and positive attitude in the consumer, especially in specific travel website with respect to generic social network sites.

Yoo and Gretzel (2011) noted that social media are more effective in equipping travelers with more comprehensive knowledge on a tourism product or destination than other information sources.

In the “democratization” of knowledge offered by the Internet, blogs seem to play an important role especially in the travelers’ pre-trip phase, helping to form the so called tourist gaze and the tourists’ knowledge. Brady (2005), noted that blogs tend to rank particularly high when looking at the results of search engines, since websites that are linked to and updated frequently are usually shown favorably. Moreover, blogs contribute to the creation of knowledge because they are used to filter information showing all relevant information and excluding irrelevant ones.

In the pre-trip stage travelers generate the expectations about the trip they will experience.

According to the Disconfirmation Paradigm when expectations: the beliefs about how the trip will be are met, the traveler will evaluate the experience as satisfactory. Disconfirmation is the existence of a discrepancy between expectations and the actual performance. When disconfirmation is negative this leads to dissatisfaction (Oliver, 1980).

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