Resumen de Travel experience sharing on social media: opinion and behavior of tourists
Nguyen Thi Van Hanh, Tran Van Tuyen
When social media is one of the fastest growing communication technologies in the Internet environment as well as tourism marketing. In the era of information communication technology, sharing travel experiences on social media is one of the most important aspects of tourist behaviors for consumers as well as travel and tourism organizations. Given the prominence of information sharing effects on tourist behavior and tourism development, it becomes vital to understand the role of social media in reshaping and influencing how people organize and enjoy travel. Previous research has found that people tend to use social media in travel consumption for functional, social and physiological benefits. Shared experiences on social media have been proved to strongly influence future travel intentions and choices. In recent tourism research, the role social media plays in tourism consumption has gained considerable attention. However, past literature seemed to focus on the impact of social media on the tourism industry, whilst relatively little attention has been paid to tourists’ behaviors of sharing their travel experiences as well as their opinion on sharing behavior. This paper seeks to address this research gap by investigating the opinion and behavior of tourists on travel experience sharing on social media. Data from the survey of 500 tourists who live, work or study in Ho Chi Minh City showed dthat the respondents highly evaluate the importance and impacts of travel experience sharing on social media as well as tend to do this kind of sharing often. The result also revealed that personal social media account is considered a more reliable source of travel information than the official websites.
