Mobile Social Media Marketing in Tourism

Social Media Marketing in Tourism and Hospitality

“…Since its foundation in 2001, Wikipedia has acquired a total of 923,879 users and the content is now available in more than 280 different languages. 5 A similar experience in the travel sector is that of "Wikitravel" whose aim is the creation of a free, up-to-date, and reliable travel guide with the contribution of travelers/users (Wiki-travelers) who can add, remove, and change the information offered in the website. Over the years, the quality of information (accuracy, completeness, comprehensibility) of Wikipedia has generated serious concerns (Fallis 2008).…”

“…4 These actions are the base of viral marketing campaigns in which a company develops online marketing messages and stimulates customers to forward these messages to other members of their social network (van der Lans et al 2010). 5 Even though, as mentioned before, WOM is different from advertising, the act of rewarding customers in several ways for the action of spreading reviews can generate a credibility bias especially in the online environment where the source of the message is unknown.…”

“…Travel suppliers awareness about IT tools, along with the increasing adoption of social media by travelers during the purchase decision process, produces a growth of direct bookings (Travel Weekly 2012). 5 On the other hand, new operators enter the travel distribution system. They can be called "mediators" because they do not sell the products but generally the transaction is completed on another website (of the travel supplier or of intermediaries) or offline.…”

“…4 For major insight on Augmented Reality applications to Urban heritage tourism see Han et al (2013) and Jung and Han (2014). 5 A QR code is a two-dimensional barcode readable by mobile phones after having downloaded a specific application. It allows to access additional information about the object/product where is located.…”

“…This topic will be dealt with in-depth in the next sections.4 The word "wiki" comes from the Hawaiian word "quick," WikiWiki (www.wikipedia.com) 5. See www.wikipedia.com consulted October 2013.1.3 Social Media Classification…”