The Case of Tripadvisor in Crowdsourcing - Research Paper Example

CROWDSOURCING: THE CASE OF TRIPADVISOR Replace this with your full s School of Computing, UK Replace this with Email addresses and your University IDs AAA5815, Friday 2 Nov 2012 @ Dr. ABSTRACT This present paper is a research essay with three subsections that generally highlight on how travelers can use crowdsourcing technology in the form of TripAdvisor.com in order to learn more about their new destinations and make worthwhile choices on the hotels, resorts, or vacation rentals to stay in. Secondly, the restaurants to visit and thirdly, the airline companies to use. Keywords: Traveler; Destination; Contact person; Crowdsourcing and TripAdvisor. Introduction This present paper is a research essay that highlights on a real-life scenario that can utilise crowdsourcing to make a significant difference in that scenario. The paper will first commence with the reasons as to why travelers require information and advice about new destinations. Secondly, the paper will highlight on how crowdsourcing can assist travelers to get information and reviews concerning new destinations. Thirdly, the research essay will propose the use of TripAdvisor, which is an online platform where members share information and reviews about hotels, resorts, flights, restaurants, and vacation rentals among others. THE NEED FOR TRAVEL INFORMATION AND REVIEWS Pritchard and Simmonds (1982) lamented that many travelers rely on an ‘inside man’ or locals whenever they are visiting a new destination, thereby limiting their experiences and opportunities to the knowledge of the locals. This not only limits what the travelers might have learnt about the new place but it also makes them prone to exploitation by the locals who might take advantage of them because of their limited knowledge about the new destination. Russell and Cohn (2012) further lament that the locals or contact person usually give information and reviews to the travelers from their own perspective, and it might be biased or false information. Morrell (2008) in his studies suggested that, it is far much better for travelers to learn about new destinations from others who were also new to the destination and shared their first hand experience of the destination. This enables the traveler to learn about the new destination from the perspective of someone who also once new at the same destination. Conclusively, it is effective and less costly for travelers to learn about new destinations by sharing information and reviews amongst themselves. OVERVIEW OF CROWDSOURCING According to Estellés and González (2012), crowdsourcing provides an online platform whereby a user can pose a question or problem and then other users or members of the site also known as the crowd can contribute their answers or solutions to the problem. Figure 1 below demonstrates this, whereby the crowd surrounds the red image. The user will have the advantage of obtaining numerous feedbacks that are, worthwhile. Brabham (2008) and Sloane (2011) in their studies describe crowdsourcing as the process whereby tasks are outsourced to external parties either through the online or offline platform. Heiko (1996) stated that among the greatest accomplishment achieved through crowdsourcing was the development of Linux software, whose development is because of the collaboration of numerous programmers across the globe, whose combined efforts lead to the creation of the software program. Moreover, in respect to sharing of information and reviews, Safko and Brake (2009) stated that social sites have greatly enabled this, because users have a wide pool of social friends who can post valuable information and reviews. Sites such as LinkedIn allow professionals to share information and reviews about their respective professions. However, Brabham (2008) lament that, social sites do not provide a platform where users can get substantial answers on questions or problems that he or she might have. TOWARDS CROWDSOURCING BY TRAVELERS TripAdvisor enables users to share their information and reviews of new destinations they visit, users can get guidance and even counseling about travel from tripadvisor’s professionals. Table 1 shows the number of information and reviews that are available in the destinations covered by tripadvisor. These information and reviews usually pertain to hotels, resorts, vocational rentals, and restaurants that members have visited, including fight experiences of different airline companies (Russell and Cohn, 2012). Morrell (2008) states that through the sharing of such information and reviews, members can be able to know much more about what they can expect at their new destination. Members can also use the information and reviews posted by others to determine which destinations to visit, hotels, resorts, or vocational rentals to stay in, which restaurants to eat in and the airlines to book. Travelers can also get trip guidance and even counseling from numerous professionals in the field who have knowledge of numerous destinations. Travelers, can rely on the knowledge of these professionals to tackle any hurdle they come by, thus, ensuring that they have a perfect trip (Yang et al. 2008). CONCLUSION Travelling to a new destination is always a challenging affair because of the unknown, because of this many travelers traditionally use contact person who will guide them in their new destination. However, having a contact person could be a costly affair and it may limit the traveler in exploring the new destination personally (Morrell, 2008). Through crowdsourcing, travelers are able to obtain vital information that can assist them to maneuver easily in new destination with minimal assistance. TripAdvisor is a crowdsourcing online platform where numerous travelers share their information and reviews about hotels, resorts, restaurants, vacation rentals, and flights at new destinations (Doan et al. 2011). In addition, TripAdvisor, offer to members professional trip guide or consultancy, and even counseling for travelers. This further enables members to benefit from a wide crowd that offers them valuable information, guidance and reviews that eliminate unnecessary hurdles that the traveler might face while on the trip. Conclusively, it is significant to acknowledge that TripAdvisor offers vital information to travelers at no cost. For each destination covered by TripAdvisor there is a minimum of 300,000 posts as noted in table 1, on these destinations and the travelers can utilise further trip guide or consultancy services from the crowd/ members and TripAdvisor to further improve their travelling experience. Figure 1: Demonstration of crowdsourcing Source: blonde20.com Table 1: Number of posts (information & reviews) on destinations covered in tripadvisor Destination Posts United States +10 million Europe +8million Canada +300,000 Asia +4million Central America +450,000 Africa +1.3million Caribbean +4million Mexico +3.5million South Pacific +700,000 South America +400,000 Middle East +380,000 Source: tripadvisor.com REFERENCES Brabham, D. (2008), "Crowdsourcing as a Model for Problem Solving: An Introduction and Cases", Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technological Studies 14 (1): 75–90 Doan, A; Ramarkrishnan, R. and Halevy, A. (2011), "Crowdsourcing Systems on the World Wide Web", Communications of the ACM 54 (4): 86–96 Estellés, E. and González, F. (2012). Towards an integrated crowdsourcing definition. Journal of Information Science 4(12), 23-27 Heiko, E. (1996). "Certifying Linux". Linux Journal. 1 (2)- 3-4 Morrell, R. (2008). Travelling Magically: How to Turn Your Journey into a Life-Changing Experience. London, UK; Piatkus Books Pritchard, J. and Simmonds, J. (1982). Travelling Along. Harrisburg, PA. U.S Trinity Press International Russell, J. and Cohn, R. (2012). TripAdvisor. Stoughton, WI. USA; Book on Demand Limited Safko, L. and Brake, D. (2009). The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools, and Strategies for Business Success. Hoboken, NJ, U.S: Wiley Publishers Sloane, P. (2011). A Guide to Open Innovation and Crowdsourcing: Advice From Leading Experts. London. UK. Kogan Page Yang, J. Adamic, L. and Ackerman, M. (2008). "Crowdsourcing and Knowledge Sharing: Strategic User Behavior on Taskcn", Proceedings of the 9th ACM Conference on Electronic Commerce Read More