Influence of an Online Travel Community on Travel Decisions

Influence of online community member’s postings on travel decisions were analyzed using thematic networks. Tremapper was used to discover which country postings to be analyzed and resulted in analysis of 8 countries. This study identified 8 organizing themes from an analysis of 81 communication threads that consisted of 713 members and 1691 postings. Out of the 81 threads included in the study, 23 showed a clear evidence of influence. The members’ decisions were categorized by the information sources experience at destination such as residents and experienced travellers The analysis of the chosen countries and topics indicate that residents were more influential in food and beverage recommendations, safety concerns at the destination, and travel itinerary refinements (including things to do and places to see) whereas experienced travellers were more influential in accommodation recommendations, transportation, monetary issues like exchanging money and how much money to carry during the travel, destination information including tourist hassle at a specific destination, and itinerary advice.

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