Main Journal of My Thesis

7/30/2019 Main Journal of My Thesis

1/12

Influence of an Online Travel Community on TravelDecisionsIrem Arsaf, Sheila Backman^, andElizabeth Baldwin^

^ Department of Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Man agementClemson Universi ty, USA

[email protected]

AbstractInfluence of online community member's postings on travel decisions were analyzed usingthematic networks. Tremapper was used to discover which country postings to be analyzed andresulted in analysis of 8 countries. This study identified 8 organizing themes from an analysisof 81 communication threads that consisted of 713 members and 1691 postings. Out of the 81threads included in the study, 23 showed a clear evidence of influence. The mem bers' dec isionswere categorized by the information sources experience at destination such as residents andexperienced travellers The analysis of the chosen countries and topics indicate that residentswere more influential in food and beverage recommendations, safety concerns at thedestination, and travel itinerary refinements (including things to do and places to see) whereasexperienced travellers were more influential in accommodation recommendations,transportation, monetary issues like exchanging money and how much money to carry duringthe travel, destination information including tourist hassle at a specific destination, and itineraryadvice.Ke yw ords: online community, influence, travel decision, word-of-mouth, thematic networks.

1 IntroductionTourists' information search behaviour has been of interest to tourism researchers forma ny years. Travel planning is a complex proc ess that consists of different decisions(Jeng & Fesenmaier, 2002). A myriad of sources of information that can influencetourists' vacation decisions exists. According to Fodness and Murray (1998) touristsobtain information from both personal sources such as friends and relatives throughpersonal word-of-mouth as well as marketer-dominated paid forms of commu nicationsuch as information retrieved from hotels, airlines, resorts and destination marketingorganizations. In addition, after a definite trip decision travellers use informalinformation sources such as friends and relatives since they are considered moretrustworthy than the formal sources (Bieger & Laesser, 2004).However, the way tourists search for travel information has changed because of thedom inant role of the Internet in tod ay 's society. Us ing the internet for travelinformation search offers the traveller several advantages. However travellers' onlineinformation search can lead to information overload due to the vast amount of
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]


2/12

83information available on the internet. Furtherm ore, the information sough t can alsobe irrelevant information (Good et al, 1999; Pan & Fesenmaier, 2005).Retrieving information from online discussion board s specific to their travel interest islikely to be a solution to this problem. Postings in online communities are consideredas a form of word-of-mouth (W OM ) comm unication and thought to be more crediblethat supplier produc ed information. W OM has been found to be one of the mostinfluential information sources for travel (Morrison, 2002). Travellers engage ininformation exchange in online travel communities because they provide theopportunity to share knowled ge gained from a previous trip. Rese arch has shown thatthose with past experience with a specific travel destination who engage in digitalword of mouth communication are most likely to be the most preferred source ofinformation, as well as the most influential, in the pre trip stage of travel decisionmaking (Crotts 1999). Not only do potential travellers and travellers with previousexperience post in online communities, but so does another group who may also havean influential impact on potential travellers' travel decisions. In the digitalcommunity, residents of the tourist destination also participate in the informationexchange.However, little is known about which segment in the online community, travellerswith previous experience or residents of the tourist destination is the most influentialsource for potential travellers. The purpose of this study, therefore, was to explorewhether residents or experienced travellers were more influential in pre-trip traveldecisions of inexperien ced travellers to a destination. Specifically types traveldecisions were examined to determine if residents or experienced travellers influencevaried by travel decision type. M icrosoft 's Treem apper was used to identify wh ichcountry forums to examine. Resulting data from the identified countries was analyzedusing thematic networks. Additionally topics were analyzed in accordance withcommunicator type.

2 Literature Review2.1 Word-of-mouthWord-of-mouth (WOM) is defined as "informal communications between privateparties concerning evaluations of goods and services"(Anderson, 1998). ThroughWOM, individuals exchange their experiences with products or services, which canbe positive, neutral or negative. The influence of WOM is different in each step ofconsumer decision making process. Previous research has shown the impact of W OMon consume r choice (Am dt, 1967; Ka tz & Lazarfeld, 1955; Rich ins, 1983) andperceptions of post-purchase product (Bone, 1995). A single recommendation isenough to influence an individual to try a specified service provider (Grem ler, 1994).The internet offers travellers a relatively efficient way in which to engage in digitalword of mouth. Online WOM has different names and forms such as virtual opinion


3/12

84platforms, consumer portals and online feedback mechanisms. However Dellarocas(2003) pointed out that online WOM is different from traditional WOM in three ways:(1) Online WOM's scale is larger due to the Internet ' s low-cost and communicationcapabilities; (2) Online WOM gives the ability to organizations to monitor and controltheir operation; (3) the absence of contextual cues and not knowing who theinformation provider is makes it harder to interpret the subjective information inonline interaction. For organizations online feedback mechanisms affect brandbuilding and customer acquisition, product development and quahty control, supplychain quality assurance activities (Dellarocas, 2003).The influence of online WOM and whether it affects consumer behaviours is still arelatively new subject for researchers. Online consumer reviews of video gamespositively affect purchasing behaviour (Bounie, Bourreau, Gensollen, & Waelbroeck,2005 ). Acc ording to Gue rnsey (2000 ), consum ers use online review s to guide theirbuying decisions across a wide variety of product classes.The influence of online WOM has also been studied by assessing its value inforecasting motion picture revenues and the results show that average online movieratings are better predictors of future movie revenues than movie's marketing budget,professional critic reviews and other variables that have been used before (Dellarocas,Awad, & Zhang, 2004).Online WOM is assumed to be true and authentic, though trust and credibility arecom mon issues in online environm ents. Desp ite this, consum ers perceive e lectronicWOM (eWOM) to be a rel iable source of information (Gruen, Osmonbekov &Czaplew ski, 2006).2.2 Word-of-mou th and Online travel comm unitiesDellaert (1999) proposes that online communities became a key medium in tourismmarketing over Internet. Wang et al. (2002) studied virtual tourist communities from amarketing perspective. They indicated that virtual communities can help brandbuilding for tourism organizations as well as relationship building with consumers.Moreover, virtual communities can aid travel companies in new product developmentby communicating with consumers about their needs and wants. They are the cheapestform of customer interaction for information dissemination. Depending on the successand volume of traffic of the virtual travel community, revenues such as sponsorships,banner advertising, prospect fees and sales commissions can be gained.Wang and Fesenmaier (2004) examined the antecedents of online travel communityactivity and found that online travel community members mostly seek social andhedonic benefits. Members join the community for exchanging travel information andtips and sharing their travelling experiences with others. The reasons for activecontribution to the comm unity include efficacy and possibility of reciprocity. W angand Fesenm aier (2002) concluded that online commu nities were able to fulfil social


4/12

85and psychologica l needs of its me mb ers. They also found that me mbe r need s andparticipation were influenced by membership status and demographic characteristicsof the members (W ang & Fesenm aier, 2004).Sense of virtual community's affect on loyalty and travel product purchase wasmeasured in a virtual travel community (Kim, Lee, & Hiemstra, 2004). Four factors -membership, influence and relatedness, integration and iulfilment of need, and sharedemotional connection - were used to measure sense of virtual community. Other thanshared emotional connection, the other three factors were found to have significantimpact on purchasing behaviour of the m ember.Wu and Chang (2005) examined whether trust and interactivity influence flowexperience and online travel community members ' purchase intentions. The resultsindicate that interactivity is an important factor of flow state where as trust is not.Although online travel community research has examined motivations, sense ofcommunity, interactivity, little or any research has been published that examined theinteractions between potential tourists, residents and travellers with previousexperience . Previous research on residents and tourists interactions did not exam ineonline communities (Andereck, Valentine, Knopf, & Vogt, 2005; Jackson &Inbakaran, 2006). Furtherm ore, residents were not seen as information sources fortourists. In this study, residents and experienced travellers are both considered travelinformation sources as they can answer the member's questions. Since the residentsare onsite and have the insider knowledge about a destination, they are extremelyimportant information sources for potential first time visitors. Thus they could beconsidered influential sources of information for travel decisions. Travellers whohave knowledge about the destination are also important sources of information forpotential tourists. In contrast to residents, the travellers are likely to be moreinfluential to potential touris ts' decision from a travelle rs' perspec tive. Ho wev er,together both residents and experienced travellers may be important for travellers. It islikely that their aspect of influence will vary by travel decision type .

3 Methodology3.1 Study AreaThe present study was conducted on Lonely Planet's thorn tree forum located athttp://thorntiee.lonelyplanet.com/. Thorn Tree is an online travel community thatincludes various topics such as destinations, what to pack, travelling companions, andtravellers with disabilities. This community is a part of lonely planet's website, whichis mostly known by its guidebooks. In order to post messages to the forum, users needto become members by registering on the website. Registration requires an emailaddress and usemame. Members ' password is then sent to their email addresses, thusit has low entry barriers. On the other hand, anybody can read information in the
http://thorntiee.lonelyplanet.com/http://thorntiee.lonelyplanet.com/http://thorntiee.lonelyplanet.com/


5/12

86forum. As of March 2007 Thorn Tree forum has approximately 400,000 membersworldwide.3.2 Data collection and analysisIn order to identify which country forums from which to collect data, Microsoft 'sTreemapper was used. The treemaps represent the data visually by treating eachcountry as a box whose area is proportional to the number of average responses topostings.The Thorn Tree forum has 15 world regions that include 204 countries. The treemapsof each world region was drawn by using the number of topics, number of replies andthe number of average replies to each topic under each country. The top threecountries that had the most discussion going on including the most number ofdifferent topics were identified. This resulted in 52 country forums. Then the top 10most discussed topics were identified in each county forum and classified accordingto discussion topics. Some postings were categorized more than once since they hadinformation that would fit into more than one category. If same number of replieswe re indicated for the 10* posting and the 1 1* and so on, they we re also included inthe topics analysis. Africa and Western Europe were chosen as a result of theirdiscussion topics to maximize variation in data. Data from chosen countries andtopics was collected for a three month period that represents eight months of postings.The country forums that were analyzed in this study are shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Analyzed country forumsI Average direct j Total numberRegion Country response of topics

Africa Guinea 16.4 9SouthAfrica 5.7 686I I Ghana I 5.48 I 143 II I Morocco^') I 5.05 I 902

Western Europe Netherlands 6.245 269I I Belgium I 5.22 I 110

Germany 5.14 520I Spainn I 5.09 | 1225

I * Indicate the most number of topics in one country category. |

Data was analyzed using thematic networks that are web-like illustrations of the mainthemes in the qualitative data (Attride-Sterling, 2001). In thematic networks the datais categorized in three steps; (i) Basic themes are lowest-order themes that are evidentin the text; (ii) Organizing themes are the categorization and grouping of basic themesthat summarize more abstract principles; (iii) Global themes are the conclusion of the


6/12

87text that indicate the meaning of the whole text (Attride-Sterling, 2001). The data wasexamined for repeated codes and themes were identified in accordance. This processwas followed by arranging themes in groups and the identified groups were used asbasic themes. Organizing themes were defined by categorizing the basic themes,which all together correspond to the global theme (the core of the concept of thedata).

4 Results and Discussion4.1 Study AreaIn the Thorn Tree online community, communication takes place in threads in whichthe postings about a specific topic are grouped together. In most cases the person whostarts the thread, original poster (OP), has never been to the destination and themembers that respond the OP's question are either residents or travellers that havebeen to that destination. The more detailed the original posting is the better and moresatisfactory answers the original poster gets.4.2 Organizing themesThis study identified 8 organizing themes from the analysis of 81 communicationthreads. Each organizing theme is associated with basic themes represented in Figure1. Them atic netw orks are referred to as topic areas in building the thematic ne two rks.1) Accommodations: Finding a place to stay at destination is an important part oftheir travel decision. This topic has two basic themes including places to stay andtheir prices. Me mbers recom mend the places at which they have stayed.2) Food and beverage recommendations: Dining and drinking is an important partof travel experience and in the Thorn Tree forum this topic is one of the mostdiscussed ones in country forums. It has basic themes including local dishes anddrinks, restaurants, and bar/brewery discussions. The community members 'recommendations are very specific including the full name of the place, whichdistricts it is located and ho w to reach to that place by local transportation or w alking.3) Transportation: This topic includes three basic themes that are transportation atthe destination, transportation to the destination and the cost of transportation.Transpo rtation to the destination is about the discussions of airlines. At the destinationlevel, discussions are about driving at the destination or how to go from one place toanother.4) Safety/Health: This topic is discussed in African country forums mostly andincludes postings about safety at destination, political situation at the destination,police corruption and health issues (i.e. ma laria).


7/12

5) Destination information: The basic themes in this topic are general destinationinformation and includes weather, tourist hassle, what to wear at destination, warningand tips about the destination, and language related questions.6) Money: Monetary issues are a concern for those travelling to foreign countries.Exchanging money, how to carry money (i.e. take cash, travellers check) at thedestination and the availability of ATMs are basic themes for this topic. This kind ofinformation may be hard to find both online and offline in some cases such astravelling to a developing country.

Fig . l . Thematic Networks

7) Itinerary/things to do: Writing a travel itinerary seems like a good way of askingfor advice from those that have been there. This topic includes two basic themes:places to see and things to do.8) Living at destination: This topic was also discussed in the forum as memberscould get their specific questions answ ered by the residents. The basic themes a re visaissues, learning the local lang uage, finding a job , which city to live in, wh at part ofthe city to mo ve to, and living costs. How ever, this topic was not included in the studyas the intention of this study was travel related decisions.4.3 Member profilesThe members are classified as residents, experienced travellers, potential travellersand unknown members that post messages in this online community. Residents are


8/12

89members who indicate that they are Uving at the destination in their postings.Experienced travellers are members who have been to the destination and write abouttheir experienc es in their postings . Un know n me mb ers do not men tion anythingrelated to their knowledge about the destination specifically. These kinds of postingsare seen in general discussion topics like safety of staying in a mixe d dorm. Potentialtravellers are members that point out that they have a desire to visit the destination.Original Poster (OP) is the member that starts the thread. Table 2 represents postingdistribution by topics and members experience level at destination.

Table 2. Postings distribution by topics and membersI Resident I Experienced I Unknown I PotentialTraveller TravellerI Accommodations I 1 I 11 I 15 I 2 IFood and l l 69 10 0Beverages

I Transportation I 3 I 14 I 9 I 1 ISafety 10 49 31 6Money ^ ^^ ^ ^Destination 29 142 96 6InformationItinerary 21 119 18 6I Total I 75 I 430 I 187 | 21 |

In 81 threads there were 713 members that contributed to the total of 1691 postings.The distribution of mem bers by c ountry and topic is included in Table 2.

Table 3. Posting distribution by countryI Resident I Experienced I Unknown [ Potential I TotalTraveller TravellerBelgium 72 92 19 0 183Netherlands 42 123 54 4 223Spain 99 150 105 6 360Germany 20 85 58 6 169Morocco 17 137 31 5 190Ghana ^ ^^ 27 7 124South Africa 30 163 66 3 262I Guinea I 1 I 100 | 22 | 18 | 141 |

4.4 Modes of influenceInfluence is defined as "the act or power of producing an effect without apparentexertion of force or direct exercise of command" (Merriam-Webster). In this study theinfluence of postings on members were identified by reading the threads and finding


9/12

90out if original poster (OP) stated that he/she will include the recommendations in thepostings in his/her travel plans in each identified discussion topic.Out of 81 threads included in the study 23 of them showed a clear evidence ofinfluence. In those that did not, the original poster did not return to post their ideasabout the members' recommendations or even if they did they did not indicate theirfinal decision in their postings. During the analysis of these 23 threads the number ofmembers that answer the OPs question in addition to their classified member type wasidentified and counted until the OP indicated that he/she will include therecommendation in the postings in his/her travel plans. Results were categorizedbased on a traveller being influenced by either residents or experienced travellers intheir travel decisions and are represented in Table 4.

Table 4. The percentage of influential members in conclusive threadsI Resident I ExperiencedTravellerAccomm odations I 4% 5.80% IFood and Beverages 20% 19%Transportation 0% 0.70%Safety 16% 4.38%Money 0% 4.38%Destination Information I 16% 23.35%Itinerary 44% 26.27%

The analysis revealed that residents were more influential in food and beveragerecommendations, discussions about safety issues at the destination and travelitinerary refinements including things to do and places to see at the destination. Theresidents were also influential in accommodation recommendations and destinationinformation as well. These results are in congruence with previous research abouttravel planning. Stewart and Vogt (1999) found that on-site activities are the ones thatare most often changed in plans and the amount of information searched for alsodiffers according to travel products. Most importantly repeat visitors can make betterplans than first-time visitors (Stewart & Vogt, 1999), thus asking travel relatedquestions in an online travel community creates its own advantages by gettinginformation directly from residents and experienced travellers at the destination.Direct and first hand information from travellers can be mo re useful in travel plann ingthan information gathered from marketing based sources. Moreover, experiencedtravellers are expected to use the Internet more in planning their trips (Stewart &Vo gt, 1999). An exam ple of residents being more influential than the experienc edtraveller is in the following excerpt from a thread:

OP: Where in Amsterdam or any nearby environs would one go to have anold-time dutch meal? I 'm seeking the sort of place that the cheese makerswould go to after a day at the market, preferably a smoky mom and popplace where everyone w ould wonder w ho the new guy is as soon as I walk inthe door. All replies gratefully acknow ledged.


10/12

91Resident Member: "Moeders" is one of the restaurants I know that makesDutch food the way our moms make it."OP: "Well Moeders it is then! Thank you both for the tip and the link, I willcertainly give it a try"

On the other hand, experienced travellers were more influential in accommodationrecommendations, transportation, monetary issues, destination information includingtourist hassle at a specific destination, and itinerary advice. When there were noresidents in the thread the experienced travellers influenced decisions aboutdestination information and things to do at the destination. These findings arereasonable since residents do not need accommodations at their hometown andexperienced travelers have the actual knowledge about them. Tourist hassle is an issuespecific to tourists thus the residents would not know much about it either. Safetyissues were taken seriously by both residents and experienced travellers. Since all theresidents indicate that the destination is safe to travel is a normal reaction, thustravellers find experienced travellers postings more influential since they will betourists as well. Moreover, the residents in the forum take pride in their country andtry to help others who want to come and visit as much as they can. An example ofexperienced travellers influence on what kind of clothing to bring to the destination asa result of weather related information is:

OP: Is it going to be too cold....(the cold bit, I am from Los Angeles, CA...Ihave no concept of anything below 35 degrees...so be specific.) If I canbundle up and be fine then that is what I'll do...if no amount of bundling isgoing to work, I'll probably still try but at least I will have been warned ;)"Experienced traveller: It was cold, but not as cold as New York. I wore amedium w inter jacket and jeans most of the time (I'm from Boston though).OP: Thanks for replying so quickly. This is exactly what I needed toknow...I've been to Boston and New York in December, I was FREEZING ;)but it didn't keep me in (of course both trips the locals told me it was 'warm'for the season). I'll make sure I bring my gloves

5 ConclusionsGetting information from online communities reduce the information search time aswell as gives the option of customizing questions in accordance to traveller's needs. Itis easier to find basic destination information online but getting what one isspecifically looking for can be as easy from travel communities. Residents andexperienced travellers have different perspectives on destination as a result of theirmotivations. Thus their influences are on different travel related topics. This studyfound that residents influence on-site travel decisions such as food and beveragerecommendations, safety concerns at the destinations and travel itinerary


11/12

92modifications. Experienced travellers influence general travel related issues such asaccommodations, transportation, monetary issues like exchanging money and howmuch money to carry during the travel, destination information including the weather,tourist hassle and w hat to wear in order not to offend locals and itinerary refineme nts.The authors assumed that all the members and their postings were authentic andindicated their true intentions, but this does not mean that actual behaviours ofmem bers wou ld be in congruence with their postings.This study explored the Thorn Tree travel comm unity and the results may be differenton other travel communities. Thus, it is recommended to replicate the study on otheronline travel communities. While analyzing the postings the researchers assumed thatoriginal posters do not know whether other posting members are residents of thedestination or travellers who have experienced at the destination unless it wasindicated in their postings. However original posters can be followers of the onlinecommunity by accessing it a few times a week even for reading the forums. In thatcase they would be familiar with other members and their level of experience at thedestination and this could influence their travel decisions as we ll.This study looked at the influence of online travel communities from the members'perspective by analyzing the postings. However these forums are open to anyone, thusreaders of these forums can be influenced in their travel decisions. Besides thesedecisions may vary according to their familiarity with the other members and thedestination.By reading an online community, postings individuals get both sides of the travelexperiences - both good and bad. One member explains the usefulness of theseforums as: "Thanks for your post. Forums like this are one of the few places you canread about first hand experiences. I try to read as many forums/stories as possible tohelp me form my opinions and make my decisions. One post bad or good won'tchange my mind much but 100 might." Despite the limitations noted, this type ofanalysis is essential for understanding the influence of online travel communities ontravel decisions. Online travel community research is also essential since the feedbackis coming from experienced travellers that can be used for maintaining service qualityand learning the strengths and weaknesses of a destination from travellers'perspective. All these help marketers to allocate their marketing efforts in neededareas.

ReferencesAndereck, K. L., Valentine, K. M., Knopf, R. C , & Vogt, C. A. (2005). Residents' perceptionsof community tourism impacts. Annals of Tourism Research, 32 (4), 1056-1076.Anderson, E. W. (1998). Customer satisfaction and word of mouth. Journal of ServiceResearch, 1(1), 5-17.Am dt, J. (1967). Role of product-related conversations in the diffusion of a new product.Journal of M arketing Research, 4 (3), 291-296.Attride-Sterling, J. (2001). Thematic Networks: an anal3^ic tool for qualitative research.Qualitative Research, 1 (3), 385-405.


12/12

93Bieger, T., & Laesser, C. (2004). Information Sources for Travel Decisions: Toward a SourceProcess Model, Journal of Travel Research, 42 (4), 357-371.Bone, P. F. (1995). Word-of-Mouth Effects on Short- term and Long-term Product Judgments.Journal of B usiness Research, 32 (3), 213-22 3.Bounie, D., Bourreau, M., Gensollen, M., & Waelbroeck, P. (2005). Do online consumerreviews ma tter? Evidence from the Video G ame Industry. Retrieved February 26, 2007,from http://www.sceco.univ-mQntp 1 .fr/laser/Coiiferences/i'v200510201 .pdfDellaert, B. (1999). The tourist as value creator on the Internet. In Bu halis, D., Schertler, W.(Eds.), Information and comm unication technolog ies in tourism 1999, Vienna:Springer-Verlag., 66-76.Dellarocas, C. (2003). The Digiti l ization of Word-of_mouth: Prom ise and Challenges of OnlineReputation Mechanisms. M anagement Science, 49 (10), 1407-1424.Dellarocas, C , Aw ad, N . F. , &, & Zhang, X. (2004). Exploring the Value of Online Reviews toOrg anizations: Implications for Revenue Forecasting and Planning . Proceedings of theTwenty -Fifth International Conference on Information S ystem s. New York : ACMPress, 2004, pp. 379-386Fodness, D., & Murray, B. (1998). A typology of tourist information search strategies. Journalof Travel Research, 37 (2), 108-119.Gremler, D. D. (1994). Word-of-mouth about service providers: an illustration of theory

developm ent in marketing in Park, C.W ., Sm ith, D. (Ed s), Proceeding s o f AM A(Winter) . Chicago: American Marketing Association, pp. 62-70,Gruen, T. W., Osmonbekov, T., &, & Czaplewski, A. J. (2006). eWOM: The impact ofcustomer-to-customer online know-how exchange on customer value and loyalty.Journal of B usiness Research, 59 (4), 449-456 .Jackson, M. S., & Inbakaran, R. J. (2006). Evaluating residents' attitudes and intentions to acttowards tourism development in regional Victoria, Australia. International Journal ofTourism Research, 8 (5), 355-366.Jeng, J., & , & Fesenmaier, D. R. (2002). Conceptualizing the travel decision-makinghierarchy: A review of recent developments. Tourism Analysis, 7(1) , 15-32.Katz, E., & Lazarfeld, P. F. (1955). Personal Influence. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.Kim , W. G., Lee, C , & Hiem stra, S. J. (2004). Effects of an online vir tual community oncustomer loyalty and travel product purchases. Tourism M anagement, 25 (3), 343-355.Merriam-W ebster.//7wece. Retrieved 10.5, 200 7, from http ://www. merriani-webster.com/dictioiiarv/influenceMorrison, A. (2002). Hospitality and Tourism M arketing (3rd ed.): Delmar.Richins, M. L. (1983). Negative word-of-mouth by dissatisfied consumers: a pilot study.Journal of M arketing, A l (1) , 68-78.Stewart, S. I., & Vogt, C. A. (1999). A case-based approach to understanding vacationplanning. Leisure Sciences, 21 (2), 79-95 .W ang, R. Y. C , & Fesenmaier , D. (2002). M easuring the needs of virtual community members:an empirical study of an online travel community. In Wober, K.W., Frew, A. J., andHitz, M. (Eds.) Information and comm unication technolog ies in tourism 2002: !Proceedings of the International Conference in Innsbruck, Austria, 2002, Vienna:Springer-Verlag. , pp . 105-114.Wang, Y., & Fesenmaier , D. R. (2004). Modeling Participation in an Online TravelCommuni ty . Journal of Travel Research, 42 (3), 261-270.Wang, Y., Yu, Q. & , & Fesenmaier , D. R. (2002). Defining the vir tual tourist community:implications for tourism marketing. Tourism M anagement, 23 (4), 407-41 7.Wa ng, Y. C , & Fesenmaier , D. R. (2004). Tow ards understanding mem bers' generalparticipation in and active contribution to an online travel community. TourismManagement, 25 (6), 709-722.Wu, J., & Chang, Y. (2005). Towards understanding members' interactivity, trust, and flow inonline travel comm unity. Industrial M anagement & Data Systems, 105 (7), 937-954 .
http://www.sceco.univ-mqntp/http://www.sceco.univ-mqntp/http://webster.com/dictioiiarv/influencehttp://webster.com/dictioiiarv/influencehttp://www.sceco.univ-mqntp/

Documents

Main Journal of My Thesis