Travel Opinion Leaders and Seekers
开心的英语单词
Kyung-Hyan Yoo a, Ulrike Gretzel b and Florian Zach c
a Department of Communication
William Paterson University, USA
yook2@wpunj.edu
b Laboratory for Intelligent Systems in Tourism
Texas A&M University, USA
ugretzel@tamu.edu
c National Laboratory for Tourism an
d eCommerce
Temple University, USA
fzach@temple.edu
联结的近义词
Abstract
While opinion leadership has been recognized as important in tourism, there has been very little empirical rearch investigating the phenomenon. Given new developments in social media technologies, it is especially important to understand whether travel opinion leadership and eking are drivers of specific social media perceptions and behaviours. Bad on an online survey of US online travellers, this paper eks to identify travel opinion leaders and ekers and their characteristics. Further, the rearch conducted investigated linkages between travel opinion leadership/eking and travel social media u. The findings suggest that travel opinion leadership and eking are distinct but connected. Both opinion leaders and ekers are technology savvy, young, educated, involved in travel planning and engaged in social media u for travel. What distinguishes opinion leaders is their greater travel experience and greater trust in official sources of travel information.
Keywords: opinion leader; opinion eker; travel; social media; online contents creation.
1Introduction
Recent developments in social media technologies enable travelers to more easily advocate and share their opinions online. Travelers today can actively create and distribute travel information through the Internet (O'Connor, 2008; Sigala, 2008). Litvin, Goldsmith and Pan (2008) identified studying both originators as well as listeners as central to rearching electronic travel word-of-mouth (eWOM) process. Clearly, not everyone is a travel opinion leader online. Yoo and Gretzel (2008) found that tho who passively consume travel e-WOM outnumber by far tho who actively contribute and also differ from them in terms of demographics and travel
involvement. Understanding who eks travel opinions and who is asked for travel advice is crucial in understanding the dynamics of eWOM through social media. Despite the increasing significance of online opinion leadership and eking, only limited studies have investigated the role and characteristics of opinion leaders and ekers. Especially in the tourism literature opinion leadership has been mentioned but not extensively rearched. An exception is the study by Jamrozy, Backman and Backman (1996) that finds opinion leaders in nature-tourism to be more involved in travel and travel information arch. An investigation in the context of travel is necessary as opinion leadership has been identified to be domain-specific (Goldsmith & Flynn, 1993). Given the growing importance of social media activities among travelers, it is vital to understand online opinion leadersh
ip from a conceptual point of view. In addition, it is of great practical relevance to know who the travel opinion leaders are and what characteristics their counterparts, the travel opinion ekers, have. Conquently, this study sought to test a scale to measure opinion leadership and eking in the travel context. Further, it sought to investigate how opinion leaders differ from non-opinion leaders and opinion-ekers from non-ekers and whether opinion leadership and eking could be connected to social media u.
2Background
2.1Social Media in Travel
While various definitions of social media are available (e.g., Safko, 2010), social media are generally understood as a group of Internet-bad applications that carry consumer-generated contents such as blogs, social networks, virtual communities, wikis, collaborative tagging, and media files shared on sites like YouTube and Flicker (Xiang & Gretzel, 2009). With the growing importance of social media in travel, many travel industry players are eking ways to incorporate social media connectivity into their offerings (eMarketer, 2010a). According to a Nielson report (2009), US social network advertising spending for the travel industry jumped 364% from 2008 to 2009 and it is expect
ed to continue to grow since many travel industry practitioners indicate that they plan to expand their Web 2.0 activities (HeBS, 2010). As increasing numbers of travel providers as well as travellers engage in social media activities, social media have become an important information source for trip planning. According to recent reports by eMarketer (2010b), three out of the top ten online travel information sources ud by US adults were social media sites. Further, 23% of US Internet urs said their travel and vacation decisions were influenced by social media (eMarketer, 2010a). Clearly, social media are taking on an important role in travellers' information arch and decision-making behaviours and provide a fertile保护地球英语
venue for travellers to engage in e-WOM. While traditional WOM is pre-dominantly triggered by receivers who ask for opinions (Mangold, Miller & Brockway, 1999), eWOM through social media is asynchronous, very often unsolicited, and exchanged in many cas with unknown others. Thus, it is important to examine whether opinion leadership actually plays a role in social media.
2.2Opinion Leadership
Flynn, Goldsmith and Eastman (1996) define opinion leaders as tho individuals who influence the purchasing behavior of others in a specific product domain. According to the two-step flow communic
ation model (Lazarsfeld, Berelson, & Gaudet, 1944), an opinion leader is an active media ur who interprets the meaning of media messages or content for other media urs. Since opinion leaders were found to play an important role in consumer's decision making, the topic of opinion leadership has long been of interest in consumer rearch. A good number of previous studies have investigated the motives of opinion leadership (Dichter, 1966), measurement (Childers, 1986; Flynn et al., 1996; Tsang & Zhou, 2005) and the outcomes (Bloch, 1986). Previous studies have also identified the characteristics of opinion leaders. Although the findings vary depending on the type of product and context, opinion leaders were often found to be more innovative (Gatignon & Robertson, 1985; Hirschman, 1980), heavy consumers of the mass media (Chan & Misra, 1990; Summers, 1970), socially active (Baumgarten, 1975; Venkatraman, 1989), lf-centered (Baumgarten, 1975; Summers, 1970), and to display higher levels of product involvement and familiarity (Allen, 2001; Bloch & Richins, 1983; Goldsmith, Flynn & Goldsmith, 2003; Richins & Root-Shaffer, 1988). In terms of their demographic characteristics, previous studies show that opinion leaders tend to be younger, with a higher level of education and income, and often exhibit greater social mobility (Gatignon & Robertson, 1985; Midgley & Dowling, 1978; Myers & Robertson, 1972; Piirto, 1992). Jamrozy et al. (1996) found that nature-tourism opinion leaders travel more, are more involved in nature-tourism, u more information sources and perceive less risk in making travel-related decisions. Litvin (2000) also found a relationship between frequent travel and opinion leadership.
As Internet technologies enable interpersonal communication online, some recent studies have examined opinion leadership in the online context. Lyons and Henderson (2005) found that the characteristics of online opinion leaders are similar to the characteristics of opinion leaders in an offline tting. Their findings show that online opinion leaders posss significantly higher levels of enduring involvement, innovativeness, exploratory behavior and lf-perceived knowledge than non-leaders. In addition, online opinion leaders posss greater computer skills and have ud the Internet for longer periods of time and more frequently. Sohn (2005) also found
consistent patterns of opinion leadership and eking behaviors across online and offline environments.
2.3Opinion Seeking
Opinion ekers were defined by existing literature as "individuals who sought information or opinions from interpersonal sources in order to find out about and evaluate products, rvices, current affairs, or other areas of interest" (Feick, Price & Higie, 1986, p. 302). The topic of opinion eking has received less rearch attention and rearchers often e opinion eking as a co-phenomenon of opinion leadership (Flynn et al., 1996; Shoham & Ruvio, 2008). From the perspectiv
e of the two-step flow communication theory (Lazarsfeld, Berelson, & Gaudet, 1944), opinion ekers are viewed as the message receivers who get the information through opinion leaders. Beatty and Smith (1987) suggested that a person who has little knowledge or who is worried about a purcha is highly likely to ek advice from someone they know. Similarly, Alba and Hutchinson (1987) found that younger, less-experienced consumers rely more heavily on the experti of others. Opinion ekers also tend to regard word-of-mouth recommendations from friends and relatives as more credible than information from commercial sources (Assael, 1992).
As far as the relationship between opinion leading and eking is concerned, Piirto (1992) suggested that opinion leaders and ekers can be differentiated by the level of their activities in a social network. Flynn et al. (1996) discusd that the two concepts are related and that there may be some overlap between them but noted that they are nevertheless two distinct constructs. In contrast, the findings of Feick et al. (1986) suggested that there is a high overlap between opinion giving and eking and the profile of opinion ekers is similar to the profile of opinion leaders.
3Methodology
创意名片
3.1Data Collection
An online survey was conducted in January 2010 to investigate whether online travellers could successfully be classified into opinion leaders and ekers, and whether they fundamentally differed in terms of personal characteristics, travel behaviour, and social media engagement. The survey was nt to members of a commercial online rearch panel residing in the United States. No additional incentives beyond the rewards provided by the panel company were offered. A total of 2,046 panellists responded to the survey invitation but only 1,810 indicated they were active Internet urs. Further, of tho Internet urs, 1,221 had travelled for
pleasure within 12 months prior to the study. The online travellers form the actual sample for the study.
3.2Measures
Opinion leadership and eking were measured bad on two scales adapted from Flynn et al. (1996), who conceptualized them as people’s perceptions of their own influence over others vs. others’ influence on them. Both constructs were measured with four positively worded items that had been adjusted to fit the travel context. Respondents were asked to indicate their agreement/disagreement with the items on a 5point scale ranging from Strongly Disagree (1) to Stro
ngly Agree (5). The survey also included measures gauging socio-demographic characteristics, travel behaviour, Internet u and skills, and social media perceptions and engagement in general and in the context of travel. Innovativeness was measured with three items on a 5point scale adapted from Goldsmith and Hofacker (1991).
Table 1. Properties of Measurement Scales
Construct Name & Items Mean
Factor
最美物理公式表白Loadings
Eigen
Value
% of
Variance
Opinion Leading 3.03 3.362 42.0 .94 When they choo travel, other people
turn to me for advice.
2.96 .890
People that I know pick travel products
bad on what I have told them.
企业用车
2.98 .890
My opinion on travel ems to count
with other people.
3.15 .880
I often influence people’s opinions about
travel.
3.03 .878
Opinion Seeking 3.18 3.318 41.5 .93 travel products.
3.19 .908
I feel more comfortable buying travel
枸杞叶孕妇能吃吗食盐有保质期吗when I have gotten other p eople’s
opinion on it.
3.18 .899
When choosing travel products, other
people’s opinions are important to me. 3.17 .864
When I consider buying travel products,
I ask other people for advice
3.19 .837
3.3Analysis
An exploratory factor analysis with principal components extraction and Varimax rotation showed that the opinion leading and opinion eking constructs were indeed
