The purpose of this study is to investigate the use of social media by ecotourism management agencies and how this potentially changes the relationship between the ecotourist and the natural environment. It examines the meaning of ecotourism and the way that social media shapes visitor perceptions and meaning through an examination of the content of 775 Sina microblog postings from five leading ecotourism site management agencies in China. In order to gain a deeper understanding of the social media postings, a series of semi-structured interviews was also conducted with followers and management agencies. The findings provide an enhanced understanding of ecotourism marketing and its impacts on the ecotourist while also creating a framework for the use of social media to market ecotourism. The framework outlines the importance of the meanings associated with this form of communication through its promotional appeal to tourists and the outcomes for both the ecotourist and site management.

/pdf/ecotourism-social-media-initiatives-in-china-2u449dytxw.pdf

Ecotourism social media initiatives in China

The purpose of this study is to evaluate hotel companies’ social media marketing efforts using the “6Is” social media monitoring framework. More specifically, in this study we set out to understand how hotels disseminate information, engage with consumers, and distribute products through social media. We investigate the presence of the top 133 hotel brands in China on the top domestic Chinese social media sites in order to identify to what extent the hotel industry in China recognizes the potential of this marketing tool. The findings indicate that the majority of the hotels actively and consistently use the Sina Weibo and Wechat platforms for their social media marketing.

An Examination of Social Media Marketing in China: How do the Top 133 Hotel Brands Perform on the Top Four Chinese Social Media Sites?

Direct communication with customers in order to increase sales has become one of the most important marketing methods used by small, medium and large hotels alike. With the rapid development of ICT technologies, including the Internet, Web, and recently Web 2.0 and 3.0, the number of channels in which hotels can interact directly with customers has grown even larger. Being visible on all these channels and using these technologies has now become a requirement if effective marketing and massive direct sales are to be achieved. In this chapter, we perform a rigorous empirical analysis of the advances towards the employment of Web 2.0 and 3.0 technologies in the tourism domain. We begin by presenting our methodology, including criteria and evaluation metrics, and follow by analysing the uptake of Web 2.0 and 3.0 technologies for Austrian hotels. As this chapter demonstrates, despite the benefits of new Web technology for online marketing, the hotels in Austria are not using these technologies and do not follow the online developments. Since employing their use is a relatively cheap undertaking, a severe competence gap seems to emerge either directly in the touristic service industry, or in the industry providing them with their on-line presence.

/pdf/hotel-websites-web-2-0-web-3-0-and-online-direct-marketing-2n11pbw343.pdf

Hotel Websites, Web 2.0, Web 3.0 and Online Direct Marketing: The Case of Austria

Online travel booking has been adopted by an increasing number of tourists. The paper reviews the literature from the three stages of online booking and summarizes the research findings in online information search, determinants of online booking and online booking loyalty. Based on the literature review, the paper consequently proposes a new research agenda for tourist behaviors in online booking, and recommends empirical methods for future research. The study not only provides a comprehensive understanding of consumer behaviors for the tourism marketers, but also sheds light on the future research in online booking.

Tourist Behaviors in Online Booking: A New Research Agenda

This study analyses the relationship between corporate hotel websites and corporate hotel booking engines. These two systems are critical in the hospitality sector: the hotel website is an important means for online hospitality marketing, while the hotel booking engine represents the possibility of conversion without intermediation fees for the hoteliers. In light of a case study of one of the major Italian hotel chains, this paper explores a possible way to analyze the activities performed on the two systems by exploring different possible correlations to assess the importance of inter-system communication. The case study shows, on one hand, that the more visits a hotel website receive, the more bookings are made on the corporate booking engine. Conversely, the time spent on the website does not have any influence on actual bookings.

Hotel Websites and Booking Engines: A Challenging Relationship

Riding the social media wave: strategies of DMOs who successfully engage in social media marketing

Chinese small and medium travel agencies are increasingly focusing on online business, and understanding the transactional patterns of their Website visitors is very important to them. Clickstream sequence analysis can provide the needed insights into booking processes. This study applied an adaptable algorithm to explore how Chinese online travel agency visitors book hotel products. The findings reveal that a high percentage of abandonment occurs after searching for a hotel room and before submitting the final order confirmation. Recommendations are proposed for identified key events in the online hotel booking process.

Looking Does not Automatically Lead to Booking: Analysis of Clickstreams on a Chinese Travel Agency Website

Media-induced tourism as well as voluntourism are topics increasingly investigated in the tourism literature. However, a discussion of the intersection of these two forms of tourism (i.e., media-induced voluntourism) is currently missing from the literature. Using the example of two Chinese TV dramas, this article seeks to shed light on motivations and activities of media-induced voluntourists to the Chinese province of Yunnan. Based on a thematic analysis of online postings of the fans of these Chinese TV dramas, the article finds empirical evidence for media-induced voluntourism. The findings reveal that fans travel to Yunnan not only to engage in altruistic behavior, but also to inspect the volunteer work of other fans, as well as to receive recognition from the community. General tourism activities also play a role in their travels. The results indicate that fan voluntourism was strongly motivated by their empathy for the TV dramas' characters and their desire to live the values promoted in these dramas.

/pdf/media-induced-voluntourism-in-yunnan-china-3s84jvqcye.pdf

Media-induced voluntourism in Yunnan, China

Neither the connection between film tourism and voluntourism nor the differences between Chinese and American film-induced voluntourists have been studied enough despite the potential importance of film-induced voluntourists for destinations. This research explores the phenomenon of voluntourism among fans of two very popular TV dramas in China and the US, Soldier Sortie and Lost, respectively, by conducting a qualitative ‘netnographic’ study on fans’ online conversations. The study aims at investigating both the motivations and specific behaviours of film-induced voluntourists in different cultures. The study finds that Soldier Sortie fans in China act more like a virtual charity organisation, while Lost fans engage with an existing charity organisation. Volunteering programs initiated by Soldier Sortie fans have taken on an important role in propelling the development of some tourist destinations in rural areas of the province where the series was shot. Moreover, Soldier Sortie fans act not only as donors but also as organisers and auditors, choosing and determining which school to help. This reflects the much stronger level of connectivity and activism among Chinese fans.

Power of Dramas: A Comparison of Voluntourism Between Chinese and American Film Tourists

Handle everyday research tasks with reliable, citation-backed results

Your personal Research Agent to handle research tasks with citation-backed results

Popular Tasks used by Researchers

How can I help with your research?

Meet SciSpace

Get more enhanced response by uploading the PDFs you want me to reference.

No relevant PDFs in your library

SciSpace is the AI research assistant for academics. Run systematic literature reviews on 280M+ papers, and write papers with cited sources. Trusted by 1M+ students, PhDs & researchers.

SciSpace | AI for Research

Analyze PDFs

Code & Manuscripts

Funding & Grants

Literature & Patents

Medical & Clinical Data

Systematic Review

Visualize & Present

Web & Data

Build a Google Scholar-like website for your research.

Build a website

Create charts and images for your research

Create a Chart

Write a paper for submission to a journal

Draft a manuscript

Patent Search

Design eye-catching scientific posters in minutes.

Scientific Poster Generation

Systematic Literature Review

One task is running at the moment. Your messages will be shown right after.

Drag and drop or click here to browse

Loved by <highlight>1 million+</highlight> researchers

Extract a list of specific topics and their sources from unstructured text

Topics

Compare and analyze relevant papers that matches with your search

Papers

Get insights from PDFs and bookmarked papers from your library

My library

Recent searches

Try searching for:

Catch AI-generated content in scholarly and non-scholarly content

{ai} Detector

Ai Writer

Get PDF Summaries, highlighted text explanations 

Chat with PDF

Effortlessly create in-text citations and bibliographies in APA and 2,500 other formats

Citation generator

Get explanations, summaries, and answers on academic papers

Ease up your research workflow with {scispace}'s cohort of exciting AI tools

Elevate your academic writing skills and convey your ideas the way you want

Paraphraser

Explore our range of reading and writing tools

Your file is being prepared and should be ready in a few minutes. If it's a large file, it might take a bit longer. You can close this window, and we'll email you the file when it's done.

You have reached a maximum limit of <strong>{limit}</strong> columns in the table. Remove at least <strong>1</strong> column to add or create another one.

Jun Shao

Author Tools

Chat about Author

Papers

Riding the social media wave: strategies of DMOs who successfully engage in social media marketing

Looking Does not Automatically Lead to Booking: Analysis of Clickstreams on a Chinese Travel Agency Website

Media-induced voluntourism in Yunnan, China

Power of Dramas: A Comparison of Voluntourism Between Chinese and American Film Tourists