Strategies for Adopting Consumer‐generated Media in Small‐sized to Medium‐sized Tourism Enterprises

Abstract

Consumer-generated media (CGM) are created when consumers submit, review or respond to online content. The bulk of research into CGM has focussed upon its use by consumers, with less research examining the use of CGM by small businesses. This article discusses small business sector use of online technologies such as CGM, concentrating on tourism small businesses as a key industry sector affected by CGM activities. A CGM 'strategy' framework, developed from an existing small business strategy framework, is proposed. This serves as a practical tool for developing CGM strategies and as a theoretical foundation for conducting research into the use of CGM.

Ownership structure and firm performance of listed tourism firms

“…In a changing market, tourism firms face changing customer demands. To appropriately meet changing customer demands, both controlling owners and managers of tourism firms need to constantly inspect this change and accordingly take appropriate strategies (Bowie et al, ; Burgess, Sellitto, Cox, & Buultjens, ; Roper, ; C. M. Yeh & Trejos, ). When facing an uncertain market, firms are limited in their abilities to collect and analyze all information for decision making.…”

Social Media Marketing in Tourism and Hospitality

“…Generally speaking, suppliers-particularly small-medium companies-are more and more aware of the impact of new technologies on customer purchasing behavior and have adjusted their strategies (Burgess et al 2014), investing a larger part of their communication budgets in electronic channels, the Internet and mobile technologies (Caroli and Pratesi 2011).…”

The lone digital tourism entrepreneur: Knowledge acquisition and collaborative transfer

“…Digital technologies have inexorably altered the marketing environment of small tourism businesses (Elliott & Boshoff, 2007), and while there are case studies of SMTBs that have adopted digital technologies, especially social media and user generated content, in their business models (e.g. Burgess et al, 2015;Sigala & Gretzel, 2017), consumer behaviour online (Xiang & Gretzel, 2010) and online destination marketing (Hays, Page, & Buhalis, 2013;Pan & Li, 2011) remain dominant themes in the tourism literature pertaining to DM. A recent paper by Navío-Marco, Ruiz-G� omez, and Sevilla-Sevilla (2018) provides a ten year review of e-tourism research and there is no mention of DM in respect of lone entrepreneurs.…”