Does eWOM influence destination trust and travel intention: a medical tourism perspective

Abstract

Virtual community membership has a strong influence on a tourist's behaviours and the way information is transmitted. Drawing on trust transfer theory as a theoretical framework, this study tests an empirical model that investigates the influence of electronic wordof-mouth (eWOM) on destination trust and travel intention. The study also diagnoses gender differences in the proposed model. Data were obtained from a sample of 216 tourists in Cyprus. The findings from regression analyses suggest that eWOM is positively related to travel intention; eWOM is positively related to destination trust; and destination trust is positively related to travel intention. Additionally, the impact of eWOM on destination trust was significant for both genders but stronger for men, while the impact of destination trust on travel intention was stronger for women. The paper extends the existing literature regarding new response variables associated with eWOM.

Tourists' emotional changes and eWOM behavior on social media and integrated tourism websites

“…At the same time, the development of online tourism services has made eWOM increasingly more important for the tourism industry. EWOM provides abundant information support for tourists' decision‐making and destination marketing (Jacobsen & Munar, ; Sparks & Browning, ), affecting tourists' travel intentions (Doosti et al, ), destination selection (Jalilvand & Samiei, ), and destination impression and trust (Baka, ; Mohammed Abubakar, ). This makes research of eWOM particularly important.…”

“…Research shows that eWOM can provide substantive information support for tourists' decision‐making and destination marketing (Jacobsen & Munar, ; Sparks & Browning, ). For example, eWOM can influence tourists' travel intentions (Doosti, Jalilvand, Asadi, Pool, & Adl, ), the choice of destination (Jalilvand & Samiei, ), and impression and trust towards the destination (Baka, ; Mohammed Abubakar, ). Previous studies have focused on examining the effect of eWOM on tourism, whereas factors motivating tourist involvement in eWOM communication have received few attention (Bronner & de Hoog, ; Munar & Jacobsen, ), especially when comparing eWOM motivations on different types of platform.…”

How do the National Tourism Organizations use the social media?

“…The application of the artifi cial Intelligence, cognitive science as well as information and communication technologies is experiencing a signifi cant increase of importance, both in theory and practice (Zelenka et al, 2014;Zelenka, Pásková, & Husáková, 2015). The social media are used in tourism for a different purpose and in a different context: in the search for tourism related information (Zeng & Gerritsen, 2014;Mukherjee & Nagabhushana, 2016;Felix, Rauschnabel, & Hinsch, 2017), in tourism related knowledge sharing (Nezakati et al, 2015), in strategic marketing (Felix, Rauschnabel, & Hinsch, 2017), and in communication among tourism actors (Alizadeh & Isa, 2014;. In context of process of the tourism transformation to the necessary social needs of the inhabitants in developed countries, Larsen, Urry and Axhausen (2007) emphasize the role of social media in the socialization of tourists.…”

“…The important motivational and informational role plays social media in dissemination of e-WOM (Electronic wordof-mouth), as shown e.g. by Trusov, Bucklin and Pauwels (2008), Litvin, Goldsmith and Pan (2008), Jalilvand, Esfahani and Samiei (2011), Tham, Croy and Mair (2013), Wang (2015) and Abubakar (2016). Sotiriadis and…”

“…In the presented study, both qualitative and quantitative research strategies were implemented to analyse in which way NTOs in the countries with the highest number of international visitors use the social media in their marketing. The secondary research was based on the data extracted from studies published by Hays, Page and Buhalis 2013, Alizadeh and Isa (2015) and others on the use of social media in destination marketing. The primary research was conducted directly in the space of social media (the social media accounts of the selected NTOs).…”