Tourists’ Recommendations: WOM Becomes Digital

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. AbstractTourism is a sector in which consumers -tourists widely share their opinions, experiences and recommendations. Due to the fact that tourist services cannot be evaluated before the purchase, word-of-mouth has been recognized as an influential factor and a significant resource of information transmission in the tourism market. Word-of-mouth has an important role in tourists' decision-making processes, in which consumerstourists rely on the suggestions from those who have experienced the service. With the increasing use of the Internet, a large number of consumers -tourists have begun to share their recommendations online. Electronic word-of-mouth refers to any positive or negative statement made by a consumer -tourist about a tourist service, which is available on the Internet. The digitalization of word-of-mouth has created numerous possibilities and challenges for hospitality and tourism marketers. This paper aims to examine the influence of traditional word-of-mouth and electronic word-of-mouth on tourists' decision-making processes. Specifically, the purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of virtual interactions among consumers -tourists as a part of tourism promotion. This paper has provided a theoretical framework of word-of-mouth (WOM) and electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) showing that electronic word-ofmouth plays an important role in the tourists' decision-making process.interactive platforms while travelling) and the post-travel phase (in this phase tourists share their opinions and experiences).According to Torres et al. (2015), electronic word-of-mouth has introduced a new way of capturing, analyzing, interpreting and managing interpersonal influence and communication among tourists. As Jeong & Jang (2011) stated, the potential impact of electronic word-of-mouth on consumers' -tourists' decision-making can be more powerful in comparison with the impact of traditional word-of-mouth. Thus, the primary source of information that is used to plan a holiday is electronic word-of-mouth (Marine-Roig, 2017). In this sense, hospitality and tourism marketers should be aware of the fact that, in future, almost all tourists' decision-making processes will be strongly affected by online reviews. ENTRENOVA 12-14, September2019Rovinj, Croatia A limitation of this study is that it has provided only a theoretical framework of wordof-mouth and electronic word-of-mouth. Further research into this topic should provide some practical answers to the ...

E-WOM through the prism of socio-demographic analysis of users of tourist services

“…Although marketing managers in tourism strive to create a positive and attractive image of a destination, there are factors which are outside their control. One of those factors is manifested in the fact that consumers -users of tourist services interact with one another (Grubor, Leković, Tomić, 2019). In this process, which is called interpersonal communication, consumers exchange their opinions, experiences, and recommendations related to tourist destinations they have visited.…”

“…The development of the Internet has led to the expansion of possibilities of collecting information -consumers can view comments made by other consumers as well as post their own comments, and thus participate actively in the e-WOM process (Bronner, de Hoog, 2011). In this way, the Internet supports all phases of the purchasing process -the pre-travel phase (the phase in which all activities relating to search for information and the purchase can be undertaken online), the on-travel phase (the phase in which consumers can use various interactive platforms during the travel), and the post-travel phase (the phase in which consumers "share" their experinces, opinions, and advice online) (Chung, Buhalis, 2008;Grubor, Leković, Tomić, 2019).…”