When Climate-Induced Change Reaches Social Media: How Realistic Travel Expectations Shape Consumers’ Attitudes toward the Destination

Abstract

The Web 2.0 has significantly changed how consumers plan for and book trips. For example, online content showing climate-induced, unfavorable conditions at a destination might influence overall attitudes toward that destination. Two experimental studies confirm that when consumers learn of unfavorable conditions in a destination (e.g., snow deficiency) through online content, they develop more realistic travel expectations and ultimately more positive attitudes toward the destination, compared with when they review online content that ignores the unfavorable conditions. In addition, user-generated content influences the mediating effect of realistic expectations on the relationship between climate-induced, unfavorable conditions at a destination and attitudes toward the destination, whereas DMO-generated content does not. Implications underline the importance of realistic destination marketing communication strategies. The study contributes to the understanding of consumer response to realistic social media content in tourism.

Web 2.0 and Destination Marketing: Current Trends and Future Directions

“…(2) the measurement of engagement with DMOs/NTOs' SNSs [9,21]; (3) the analysis of the drivers of travelers' engagement with and contribution to DMOs/NTOs' SNSs [42,43]; (4) new methodologies to measure travelers' attitudes towards destinations and attractions by means of SNSs' content analysis [20,22,30,44]; (5) tourists' destination experiences with DMOs' SNSs [45][46][47][48][49]; and (6) the impact of DMOs' SNSs on online travelers' attitudes, visit and recommendation intentions, reactions to marketing and advertising messages, and bookings [29,31,33,[50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58]. Overall, and regardless of the topic covered, there is a prevalence of studies on Facebook (31 studies), Twitter (21 studies), YouTube (15 studies) and TripAdvisor (10 studies).…”

“…The outcomes of the use of Web 2.0 on destinations' potential, current, and past tourists and visitors have been examined in relation to several factors: tourists' sentiment about a destination [20,30]; tourists' attitudes towards a destination [31]; tourists' destination image formation [22,29,57]; users' intentions to visit and recommend a destination [28,33,55]; engagement with DMOs' Web 2.0 platforms [9,21,27]; and intention to develop positive word of mouth and to share travel experiences online [18,55].…”

“…Last, the impacts of DMOs' SNSs on destination performance and firms operating within destinations have been very rarely examined empirically [31,50]. More research is needed in the area as the effectiveness of the use of web 2.0 technologies to improve the attractiveness and economic, social and environmental performance of a tourism destination is still largely underexplored and measures of return on investment on Web 2.0 activities are extremely rare and rudimentary [68].…”

Exploring the crowding-satisfaction relationship of skiers: the role of social behavior and experiences

“…Third, since the ski market is consolidating (Vanat, 2019), ski areas need to better manage the dissemination of destinationrelated information such as e.g. snow conditions or the crowding status to secure satisfaction (Scholl-Grissemann et al, 2019). In the long run, it might be more promising to supplement the quantitative crowding measures with management recommendations for tourist-to-tourist encounters, not only in ski areas, but also beyond.…”

“…Further work is required to establish the effects of distribution mechanisms, which aim to reduce crowding. Additionally, research needs to consider the potential of upstream processes such as skiers' information-seeking behavior (Scholl-Grissemann et al, 2019) and downstream processes such as social media interactions. Future research can use a sequential mixed design (Onwuegbuzie & Leech, 2005) and crossvalidate the findings with objective data such as sold tickets, waiting times at ski lifts or available parking lots.…”