An Evaluation of the Impact of Social Networking on Travel Websites - Thesis Proposal Example

 Project Justification: The courses undertaken have provided an adequate foundation for examining and analysing issues in social networking on travel sites. During the coursework and preliminary review of literature, I have developed an interest in the subject and am looking forward to put my knowledge and skills into practice and contribute to the existing body of knowledge. The study would provide an opportunity to understand the emergence of social networks in the travel businesses, and the impact of social networks on their websites. Keywords: Courses Taken: An Evaluation of the Impact of Social Networking on Travel Websites 1. Overview As a response to changing business environments, and the aim of improving organisational performance and remaining competitive, businesses have made investments in IT projects (Gunasekaran et al. (2001). Travel businesses need to invest in Information Technology (IT) to remain competitive and increasingly sophisticated. For example, ‘fitfortravel’ is a website that has been developed by the National Health Service, Scotland for the provision of travel health information for people travelling abroad from the UK. The site has gained immense popularity as travellers find the information provided highly valuable (NHS Scotland, 2009). Illum et al. (2009) suggested the potential of virtual communities in tourism research. Enhancing value creation and creation of brand identity were pre-requisites in the creation of social networks in tourism (Lemmetyinen & Go, 2009). Internet usage is driven by normative pressure and such coercive power could have detrimental effect on trust. Perceived reciprocity is a perquisite for committed relationships and avoiding negative consequences (Andreu et al., 2009). The advent of “Web 2.0” has led to a series of new web services. Social networking has benefitted from new internet technologies and new user behaviour to become the poster child of web services. Questions on social sites include how they create value for users and how users capture it. Studies have examined revenue generation on social network sites through advertising, subscription, and transaction models. Key value drivers include user volume, willingness to pay, trust in peers and the platform (Enders et al., 2008). Research efforts have been directed towards understanding behaviour of online customers. Bai et al. (2008) studied the impact of the quality of a website on customer satisfaction and intentions to purchase. They found that the quality of a website had a direct and positive impact on purchase intentions of customers. However, customer satisfaction has a mediating effect. There has been an increase in the number of people using travel websites to plan their itineraries and acquiring travel information. Travel websites provide diverse services such as travel information and products through the internet. A strong competitive environment has led travel websites to improve the electronic service quality (e-SQ) of their sites in order to profit from customer transactions on their websites. Evaluation of e-SQ could be treated as a multiple-criteria decision making problem. An approach to this problem is the determination of degrees of importance or criteria, and identification of critical criteria to evaluate service quality (Hu, 2009). Components of e-travel service quality are information quality, security, website functionality, customer relationships and responsiveness. These factors were found to have strong predictive capability with regard to customer satisfaction and loyalty (Ho & Lee, 2007). The effect of website information could be classified as substitution and enhancement. Lu et al. (2009) determined that enhancement occurs later than function, but develops faster and with greater force. Blake et al. (2005) determined that form and substantive discriminate between the level of innovativeness, and the level of internet experience. Users with more internet experience display stronger preference for substantive features, but the level of experience does not differ with regard to form feature preferences. However, innovative shoppers revealed strong preference for form features. As travellers have been increasingly planning and booking trips online. Attributes of online travel agencies that customers find important were finding low fares followed by security. Web features, user friendliness, security, and low fares influenced traveller’s perceptions (Kim et al., 2007). Usability, reputation, and satisfaction had a significant influence on customer satisfaction. Users with lower levels of familiarity were influenced by usability. However, users with higher levels of familiarity had direct influence on satisfaction from usability and loyalty (Casaló, 2008). The role of social media has been increasing as an important source of information for travellers. Xiang and Gretzel (2009) investigated the extent to which social media appeared in search engine results within the context of travel-related searches. Travellers’ use of search engine was simulated by using a set of keywords. Social media constituted a significant part of search results, and indicated that search engines were likely to direct travellers to social media sites. The researchers concluded that social media has been growing in importance in the domain of online tourism. Features that determine website qualities are accessibility, speed, navigability, content and Web Assessment Index. Popularity on the internet and positioning in searches by search engine facilitate entry to markets. Users feel comfortable and secure in websites with good navigability increasing the probability of completing a transaction. Users feel that information on a website must be accurate, innovative, updated and relevant to their requirements (Hernández et al., 2009). Internet based social media has enabled people to communicate with millions of people about products and services and companies that provide them. The impact of consumer communications has been greatly magnified in the marketplace. Social media has been considered a hybrid as it enables companies to talk to their customers, and simultaneously it enables customers to communicate directly with one another. This is in contrast to traditional marketing communications that is integrated with a high degree of control. Manager should learn to shape discussions of consumers in a manner that is conducive to the mission and performance goals of the organization. Methods include provision of networking platforms, user blogs, social media tools, and other promotional tools to engage visitors and customers (Mangold, G. & Faulds, 2009). Highly innovative travellers are influenced by their positive attitudes, while less innovative travellers relied on attitude and referral’s opinions for reducing uncertainty during online transactions. Lee et al. (2007) concluded that the propensity to shop for travel related products showed a decrease with increasing the referent’s social influence among highly innovative travellers. Cyr et al. (2007) suggested that perceived usefulness, trust and enjoyment influenced loyalty among consumers in e-Service environments. Representations of tourist destinations could be analyzed for narrative and visual information to determine variations in information from various sources such as tour operators, travel agents, magazines and guides online. Variations could be caused by communication objectives and targeted audiences of information sources (Choi et. al., 2007). Objectives a. Investigate influence of IT and developments in social networking in the travel businesses. b. Identify trends and approaches in social networking for travel business. c. Study cases of popular travel websites to determine techniques and approaches. d. Determine search engine optimization techniques used by travel websites, and user perception of top ranked website attributes based on a survey. e. Recommend good practices for social networking practices for travel websites. 2. How I intend to accomplish the objectives a. Investigate various sources of information in the internet and library. A list of journals are: i. Journal of Tourism Management ii. Tourism Management iii. European Management Journal iv. Interacting with Computers v. Information Technology and People vi. Industrial Management and Data Systems vii. Journal of Engineering and Technology Management viii. Business Process Management Journal b. Conduct a review of literature of journals, and other sources of information such as conference proceedings and white papers. c. Conduct case studies of select travel web sites. d. The results obtained from the review of literature and case studies would be analysed and summarized to identify social networking techniques and approaches used by travel websites. e. Recommendations based on good practices identified in the study would be included. 3. Reasons for selecting this project and how my prior skills/knowledge plus the topics currently being studied will enable me to complete the project. a. The courses undertaken have provided a foundation to investigate and analyze issues that exist in social networking within a specific industry. b. The study would provide an opportunity to understand techniques and the approaches for social networking within the travel industry. c. During the coursework and the preliminary review of literature, I have developed an interest in the subject and am looking forward to put my skills and knowledge into practice and contribute to the existing body of knowledge. d. The number of social networking projects that would be undertaken by travel businesses in the future is likely to increase, and this study would provide adequate preparation to undertake the challenges. 4. Resources The following resources would be required for completion of the project: a. Software: MS Windows with MS Office b. Hardware: PC with internet connection c. Data: Journals, Case Studies, White Papers, Conference Proceedings d. Other: Printing, copying, and binding facilities. The resources available in the University library and computer laboratories have been considered adequate for the study. 5. References Andreu, L., Aldás, J., Bigné, E. *Mattila, A. (2009). An analysis of e-business adoption and its impact on relational quality in travel agency–supplier relationships. Tourism Management. Available online Bai, B., Law, R. & Wen, I. (2008). The impact of website quality on customer satisfaction and purchase intentions: Evidence from Chinese online visitors. International Journal of Hospitality Management. 27 (3), 391-402. Blake, B., Neuendorf, K. & Valdiserri, C. (2005). Tailoring new websites to appeal to those most likely to shop online. Technovation. 25 (10), 1205-1214. Buhalis, D. & Law, R. (2008). Progress in information technology and tourism management: 20 years on and 10 years after the Internet—The state of eTourism research. Tourism Management. 29 (4), 609-623. Casaló, L., Flavián, C. & Guinalíu, M. (2008). The role of perceived usability, reputation, satisfaction and consumer familiarity on the website loyalty formation process. Computers in Human Behavior. 24 (2), 325-345. Choi, S., Lehto, X. & Morrison, A. (2007). Destination image representation on the web: Content analysis of Macau travel related websites. Tourism Management. 28 (1), 118-129. Cyr, D., Hassanein, K., Head, M. & Ivanov, A. (2007). The role of social presence in establishing loyalty in e-Service environments. Interacting with Computers. 19 (1), 43-56. Enders, A., Hungenberg, H., Denker, H. & Mauch, S. (2008). The long tail of social networking.: Revenue models of social networking sites. European Management Journal. 26 (3), 199-211. Gunasekaran, A., Love, P., Rahimi, F. & Miele, R. . (2001). A model for investment justification in information technology projects. International Journal of Information Management. 21 (5), 349-364. Hernández, B., Jiménez, J. & Martín, M. (2009). Key website factors in e-business strategy. International Journal of Information Management. 29 (5), 362-371. Illum, S., Ivanov, S. & Liang, Y. (2009). Using virtual communities in tourism research. Tourism Management. Available online. Ho, C. & Lee, Y. (2007). The development of an e-travel service quality scale. Tourism Management. 28 (6), 1434-1449. Hu, Y. (2009). Fuzzy multiple-criteria decision making in the determination of critical criteria for assessing service quality of travel websites. Expert Systems with Applications. 36 (3), 6439-6445. Kim, D., Kim, W. & Han, J. (2007). A perceptual mapping of online travel agencies and preference attributes. Tourism Management. 28 (2), 591-603. Lee, H., Qu, H. & Kim, Y. (2007). A study of the impact of personal innovativeness on online travel shopping behavior—A case study of Korean travelers. Tourism Management. 28 (3), 886-897. Lemmetyinen, A. & Go, F. (2009). The key capabilities required for managing tourism business networks. Tourism Management. 30 (1), 31-40. Lu, Z., Han,R. & Duan, J. (2009). Analyzing the effect of website information flow on realistic human flow using intelligent decision models. Knowledge-Based Systems . Available online. Mangold, G. & Faulds, D. (2009). Social media: The new hybrid element of the promotion mix. Business Horizons. 52 (4), 357-365. NHS Scotland. (2009). fitfortravel. Available: http://www.fitfortravel.scot.nhs.uk/home.aspx. Last accessed 27 October 2009. Xiang, Z. & Gretzel, U. (2009). Role of social media in online travel information search. Tourism Management . Available online Read More