Egger / Maurer Iscontour 2016

Tourism Research Perspectives
1. Auflage 2016
ISBN: 978-3-7412-0454-8
Verlag: BoD - Books on Demand
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 384 Seiten

Proceedings of the ISCONTOUR The aim of the International Student Conference in Tourism Research (ISCONTOUR) is thus to offer students a unique platform to present their research and to establish a mutual knowledge transfer forum for attendees from academia, industry, government and other organisations. The annual conference, which is jointly organized by the IMC University of Applied Sciences Krems and the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences, will take place alternatively at the locations Salzburg and Krems. The conference research chairs are Prof. (FH) Dr. Roman Egger (Salzburg University of Applied Sciences) and Prof. (FH) Mag. Christian Maurer (University of Applied Sciences Krems). The target audience include international students (also PhDs), graduates, teachers and lecturers from the field of tourism and leisure management as well as companies and anyone interested in the conference topic areas.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Egger, Roman

Maurer, Christian

Leseproben

Means of Social Media Communication by Tourist Information Centres: Vilnius Tourist Information Centre case study

Dovile Jankauskaite

Vilnius University, Lithunia

[e-mail]

Abstract

The role of social media as the new governing force in shaping the landscape of public image management of organizations and products on the virtual space is undeniable. Tourist Information Centres, being organizations and their advertised destination information being their products, are not an exception. Social media may be applied as a communication platform, which enables opportunities to advertise and engage with the potential consumer, conduct marketing analysis and obtain feedback, build destination image and contribute in other ways to the activity of the organization. However, unavoidably, tourism information centres face challenges. Considering that, article aims to analyse, how tourist information centres can use social media as a communication platform, through analysis of Vilnius Tourist Information Centres social media account content and user engagement.

Keywords: social media, communication, tourism, tourist information centre

1 INTRODUCTION

Tourism is an ever-expanding and improving industry, according to World Travel and Tourism Council in 2013 tourism sectors “total contribution to the global economy rose to 9.5% of global GDP, not only outpacing the wider economy, but also growing faster than other significant sectors such as financial and business services, transport and manufacturing” (WTTC, 2014). Tourism industry has been revolutionized by Information and Communications Technology (ICT) (Buhalis and Law, 2008), Internet technology being the key contributor. Social media is one of tools enabling tourism sector organizations to maintain their competitiveness and tourist information centres to provide high quality services, this way building a positive image of the destination. Despite the subject of social media in the context of tourism not being a new research area and interest among researchers and practitioners growing constantly, the amount of academic work in this area is still underwhelming, according to Mar Isa and Alizedh (2015, p.176) there are “few researches in the specific field of use of social media by tourism organizations”.

The tourist information centres contribute to the building of the destinations image, in this context social media becomes an important communication platform, due to which tourist information centres may increase their exposure, improve their image and increase the quality of the customer service by adequately reacting to customer questions, needs, complaints and criticisms” (Toplu et al., 2014). Additionally, the tourist information centres are able to build networks and improve performance in other ways (Ngai et al., 2015). Social media provides a communication platform that enables simultaneous engagement with several stakeholders and a space for advertising destinations and public relations, which may benefit tourist information centres engaged in destination image building. However, there are still risks involved in adopting this platform for the mentioned activities, despite the positive opportunities and benefits provided by the social media.

To mitigate the risks, one of the main challenges being faced is how the tourist information centres should manage social media communication in order to build and maintain a positive destination image? Article aims to analyse, how tourist information centres can use social media as a communication platform. To begin with, the article will discuss the definition of social media, its functions, impact of social media on tourism sector and application prospects of social media tools in tourism industry, focusing on tourist information centres. Finally the article investigates and discusses Vilnius Tourist Information Centre’s usage of social media.

2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

Definition of social media. The emergence of social media is a result of Web 2.0. According to Toplu et al. (2014), Web 2.0. includes interpersonal communication, information sharing and a user-focused design, these characteristics were not present in Web 1.0.; coincidentally, it is interpersonal communication and information sharing that make up the base of the social media. Hence, the definition of social media is usually similar to that by Kaplan and Haenlein (2010, p. 61), which defines social media as “a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allows the creation and exchange of user-generated content”. Another frequent social media definition is provided by Kietzmann et al. (2011, p. 241) which states that “social media employs mobile and webbased technologies to create highly interactive platforms via which individuals and communities share, co-create, discuss and modify user-generated content”. In both cases definitions distinguish Web 2.0 technologies, user-generated content, interpersonal communication, and information sharing.

Kietzmann et al. (2011) state that, different social activities possess different functional traits: identity, conversations, sharing, presence, relationships, reputation, and groups. Different traits can be common to specific social media sites, e.g., Tripadviser is mainly about sharing and presence, but reputation and identity are as well as important. As stated by Paniaua and Sapena (2014), organizations can derive different benefits, such as social capital, customer’s revealed preferences, social marketing and social corporate networking, from social media activities. Performance can be improved and eased by social media in a variety of ways. According to Parveen et al.’s (2015) the social media provides a great deal of application possibilities like branding, promoting, conducting marketing research, obtaining referrals for their product and services, sharing and gathering information about their customers and competitors, having two-way communication with stakeholders, building a good customer relationship, reaching new customers and get opinions or feedback from the customers.

According to Kiral‘ova and Pavliceka (2015) research, objectives most frequently claimed for the social media campaigns in tourism sector can be summed up as follows: 1) adjusting the position of destination in the mind of visitors; 2) creating/increasing awareness of the destination; 3) increasing the count of email subscribers; 4) generating buzz around the destination; 5) achieving global publicity; 6) increasing the amount of visitors; 7) encouraging planning of the journey by the visitors; 8) reinforcing the destinations image as a favourite destination; 9) targeting new/specific market; 10) expanding the Facebook fan base; 11) bringing back the destination as a visitor favourite. Additionally social media provide “a beneficial communication channel during a crisis situation“ (Maiorescu, 2014, p. 1290).

According to Lexhagen et al’s (2013, p. 154) research “it is clear that social media influence the behaviour of tourists in their planning, purchasing, and post-consumption activities“, due to the abundance of information, research has become simpler and more accessible (Llodra-Riera et al, 2015). Munar et al (2013) defines three research streams for social media in tourism. The first stream is defined by exploratory research of social media sites and content. A second stream of research examines the relationship among social media, decision making, and information search. A third stream of research assumes a supply-oriented perspective, dealing with the challenges that tourist-generated content represent for destination marketing organizations and tourism firms (Munar et al, 2013).

Communication process. Before the rise of social media, the customers had little to no power, they were only passive receivers of branding or marketing communication messages that were aimed at shaping the image of destination, and the tourist information centres themselves had larger control over the messages communicated in the society (Norel et al, 2014). When using social media as communication platform, the content and communicated messages are not as controllable and manageable like in the traditional media (Aula, 2010). The tourist information centres have access to employ a variety of content types, for instance text, images, video, audio, or games (Ouirdi et al, 2014). The organizations share the created content with the social media users, who can comment, modify, share or in other ways use the content provided by the organization in turn generating user content on it. An organization can control its own created content; however, the control of user generated can be very complex, or even impossible. The communication of the tourist information centres, provided, or user generated content can be widely spread because according to Floreddu et al. (2014), the social media enables communication among several stakeholders at the same time.

According to Becker and Nobre (2014), because of social media, organization information sharing with the consumer has changed, especially control over the content, timing, and frequency. Hence, when shaping the image of the destination the tourist information centres must conform to different social media sites and manage it all the time by developing positive content (Dennis, 2013). Social media is a communication channel, that enables users to share various forms of information – ‘anything goes’ (Voloaca et al., 2011); therefore, the users can publish a lot of unbacked, negative, or in other ways unacceptable...