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ECOCLUB, Issue 90
Impact on tourism supply
It becomes evident that tourism suppliers and destination management organisation pay attention to online weblogs in order to
either exploit their power of e-word-of-mouth, conduct an easy and free online market research investigating the preferences and
profile of tourists, as well as keeping an informal communication with their demand. Many search engines have risen enabling
one to identify and locate the existence of weblogs. The most popular one is technorati.com, which also provides statistics about
the online activity of weblogs. The latter is very important as it indicates how popular a weblog is and what its potential
influence in search engines can be.
On the other hand, many tourism companies have also taken a pro-active by creating and incorporating weblogs on their
websites. For example, Marriott has created its own weblog on its website, while Starwood has created a weblog to
communicate with its Preferred Guests and enhance their loyalty through the website thelobby.com. Company initiated and
moderated weblogs can offer the following benefits: solicit and gather feedback from customers, conduct free online market
research, become recognised as an expert on a specific topic, communicate and update your customers.
Social – collaborative networking
Website enabling users to create their profile and invite others with similar profile to take part in their online community
represent another Web 2.0 technology and model that of social networking. The most popular websites such as myspace.com
and bebo.com reflect the willingness of Internet users to transform websites as a gathering place of people with similar profiles.
Impact on tourism demand
Social networking websites have a tremendous impact on how tourists nowadays create, organise and consume tourism
experiences. Many tourists nowadays are prefer to have the reassurance of other users with similar profile that the trip and
itinerary that they have scheduled is the best one, and other tourists want to use the Internet in order to organise a group trip at
the same time online with their friends. Such tourists’ demands and preferences have given rise to new e-business models for
distributing and producing tourism packages.
Impact on tourism supply
Since sharing travel experiences in a social website can inspire travel, several existing and – or new types of cyberintermediaries
are adopting in their e-business models social networking tools so that their users can collaborate with others and organise
simultaneously a trip with their friends. For example, travelpost.com, realtravel.com, traveltogether.com are new types of travel
cyberintermediaries that provides Internet users with the tool to create an online itinerary, share it and e-mail it to friends
travelling with them, others can edit it and/or provide feedback, achieve a consensus and finally, enable them make the group
booking. Existing cyberintermediaries, such as Yahoo Trip planner has adopted similar collaborative trip organising and
booking tools, while Sheraton has re-organised and re-designed its website (which is nowadays titled as the Sheraton Belong
Neighbourhood) whereby Sheraton guests can subscribe to the website, upload their experiences, comments and files, share
them with others which in turn can use them for organising and booking their holiday on the Sheraton property that better
matches their profile and experiences they wish to live.
Podcasting and online video
Podcasting refers to the uploading of audio and video files by users on websites. The most popular website for doing sharing
such content with others is youtube.com.
Impact on tourism demand
Tourism experiences are intangible. One cannot experience, feel and try a travel experience before he/she buys and before
he/she travels to a destination. As a result, the purchase risk is high and it is difficult to persuade a user for the qualities of a
tourism service. Podcasting helps users take better decisions and experience in someway a travel experience before they decide
to buy and consume, as audio and video files of hotels, destinations etc of other users are considered as more unbiased and not
staged experience produced by the supplier that aims to promote its own product as the best one.
Impact on tourism supply
Many tourism suppliers are using Podcasting as a marketing as well as a communication tool. For example, Jumeirah hotel
uploads podcasts on its website for delivering its potential customers what is happening in its properties at any minutes, and-or
delivering to users the experiences of VIPs that have stayed at their property. Tate Gallery enables their visitors that have
experienced their paintings and exhibition to record themselves, upload their audio-video on the Tate Gallery website, which
other can later download it and use it as a mobile guide into the gallery and-or as a interpretation and marketing information of
the gallery’s exhibits. Orbitz.com provides podcasting of many destinations that travellers can download to their MP3 players
and use them as guides while visiting the destination. In a similar way, MGM Grand Hotel Las Vegas has lauded online video
on its website under the title “Maximum Vegas” in order to better illustrates to its potential guests the experience and services of
its hotel and gaming resort.
Metaverses – Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG)
Metaverses are three dimensional virtual worlds whereby Internet users collaboratively play “online MMORPG games” with
others. However, these platforms are wrongly perceived as “simple games” and “virtual” worlds, since most times they
represent an extension to our physical day-to-day world to which users add new socio-economic and political situations.
MMORPG are games that are played by numerous players (e.g. millions of users) and they could be considered as an
