Abstract
This article examines the phenomenon of user-generated content and particularly the influence of nationality both on the motivation to post (or not) and on where and what type of content consumers share in the context of a recent trip. The method used was an online survey of 568 respondents located in Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and Spain. By design, a plurality of respondents was less than thirty years old. The preliminary results reveal differences in national attitudes and motivations for posting on different types of user-generated content site (i.e., social media sites, hotel- or destination-operated sites, commercial review sites, video or picture sharing sites). For example, respondents in Switzerland and the United Kingdom were more likely to post photos or travelogues on Facebook or another social media site to share with friends or relive the vacation experience. Respondents from Spain preferred to post on TripAdvisor or the travel purveyors’ websites, with the goal of making recommendations to other travelers. A chief implication for travel and hospitality managers is that in fact people from different countries have diverse reasons for posting, and the hospitality industry must take into account the differences in posting behaviors. This article was originally presented at QUIS 12, the international Quality in Service Conference.
Keywords
User-generated content (UGC), the online comments, profiles, and photographs produced by consumers, particularly travelers, is “a mixture of fact and opinion, impression and sentiment, founded and unfounded titbits, experiences, and even rumor” (Blackshaw and Nazzaro 2006, 4). The willingness to express oneself in public via the internet seems to mark a generational shift in attitudes to privacy and sharing, with those who have grown up with computers having fewer qualms about revealing their habits, purchases, and opinions online. This willingness to share opinions raises particular issues for hotels and travel firms, as consumers resort to instantly available, online, unmanaged information to fulfil information requirements, read product reviews, and overcome any risk they perceive in making a purchase. The scale and wide-ranging impact of online word of mouth has increased the need for organizations to understand and harness customer opinion and feedback, particularly given research that shows that consumers perceive peer reviews as one of the most important sources of information during the travel decision-making process (Gretzel, Yoo, and Purifoy 2007) and that favorable reviews increase the probability of the online user booking a room in a reviewed hotel (Vermeulen and Seegers 2009). Furthermore, as media become more mobile with high-quality digital recording and imagery, it becomes easier for customers to visually report and record service incidents or failures and expect service delivery and recovery in real time.
This article examines the nature and implications of online shared content and particularly investigates why consumers share such information, using the context of a recent trip. In particular, we address the following research questions; what motivates people to post or not post? Where and what do they post? Do different nationalities behave differently when posting content? A survey of 568 people undertaken in Switzerland, Spain, and the United Kingdom addresses these questions and provides a cross-national focus to this study that highlights national differences regarding why, where, and how they interact with UGC.
Research Background
To place these research questions into context, we examine the role of word of mouth, electronic word of mouth, the multiplicity of UGC platforms, motivations to post or not, and the role of nationality in consumption in order to examine further the relationship between these constructs.
Word of Mouth
Long considered to be one of the most important sources of information during a purchase (Solomon et al. 2010), word of mouth is found to be extremely persuasive, particularly in the hospitality and travel industry. Li (2009) finds that people are more willing to accept and trust information from people who are similar to themselves and are looking for referrals from a “person like me” (Brown and Hayes 2008). Word-of-mouth conversations can now be easily conducted online, allowing these conversations to reach a vast audience (Brown and Hayes 2008).
Electronic Word-of- Mouth and UGC Channels
Electronic word of mouth is now propagated by the numerous online platforms that share hotel- and travel-related content. These are many and varied in form and format, mostly “unclassified” and, in some cases, unmanaged. Munar (2011) proposed that tourists themselves create categories of digitalized content, whether narrative, visual, or audio. There are several other categorizations proposed in the literature, (e.g., by volume, monetization, or media type) (Kasavana, Nusair, and Teodosic 2010). Xiang and Gretzel (2010) in their exploratory research on key words and social domains identify the following five clusters of UGC: review sites, photo and video sharing, social networks, virtual communities, and blogs. Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) classify content by social presence, media richness, self-presentation, and self-disclosure. From these groups, we examine the following four clusters of UGC most relevant (by volume and presence) to our study;
Online social networks (OSNs), Facebook and MySpace, create a preestablished network of friends and acquaintances who can be an audience for hospitality-related information (Boyd and Ellison 2007; Kasavana, Nusair, and Teodosic 2010; Mintel 2008). Commercial review sites include the widely used TripAdvisor, which also includes bookingbuddy.com, cruiscritic.com, and onetime.com (TripAdvisor Factsheet 2010). Specific supplier travel sites are websites of destinations (e.g., visitscotland, myswitzerland), hotels (e.g., Starwood preferred guest programme-share-a story), and airlines (e.g., KLM), where access is given to share experiences particularly related to their product or service. Content communities include graphics-related sites, such as YouTube, Picasa, and Flickr, as well as sites with text and commentaries (e.g., travelpod.com, blog.realtravel.com, forum.virtualtourist.com). The blogs and forums in particular are text based and interactive (Pan, MacLaurin, and Crotts 2007). Twitter, which is effectively a type of blog, has erupted in recent years (Zarrella 2010).
Xiang and Gretzel (2010) indicate in their exploratory research that where social media content is posted is critical, both for the travel company and consumer, as some social media platforms rank more highly in search returns and therefore their visibility to the consumer is superior. What users post will to some extent determine where they post their content. Therefore what and where are intrinsically linked. Based on this discussion and the multiplicity of UGC platforms, we expect that certain UGC platforms are preferred for certain types of content.
Motivation to Share and Post
An assumption of disinterested honesty underlies the persuasive power of postpurchase word of mouth. Critical to the success of word of mouth is the belief that the communicator is not perceived to be commercially motivated. Precourt (2009) found that individuals often perceive honesty from social media and review sites and biased views from corporate or branded sites.
Despite the assumption of sincere honesty, readers know little about web communicators and their motivations. Sundaram, Mitra, and Webster (1998) propose specific motivations for sending either positive or negative word of mouth. For positive word of mouth, they list altruism, product involvement, self-enhancement, and helping the company. For negative word of mouth, they also cite altruism, anxiety reduction, vengeance, and advice seeking. Balasubramanian and Mahajan (2001) state that social interaction utility is the most important motivation for participating in online forums, whether favorable or negative. They defined three specific utility subcategories: (1) focus-related utility, which is motivated by adding value to the community through the word-of-mouth contribution; (2) consumption utility, which is motivated by obtaining value through direct consumption of the contributions of other community members; and (3) approval utility, which is motivated by obtaining satisfaction when others consume and approve of one’s contributions. Hennig-Thurau et al. (2004) add another utility to this list, which they refer to as (4) homeostase utility, and which they explain as a desire for balance in life by purporting that word of mouth mainly arises when the consumer’s pre-purchase expectations are disconfirmed either positively or negatively and “venting” addresses this imbalance.
Some of the more recent research studies propose such motivations for posting online comments as narcissism (Buffardi and Campbell 2008), pursuit of personal identity as a gratification (Papacharissi and Rubin 2000), status seeking (Park, Kee, and Valenzuela 2009; Leung 2009), and internal self-concept motivation (Yang and Lai 2010). Grace-Farfaglia et al. (2006) also identify social support, fame, and respect as motivations, and Hess, Rohrmeier, and Stoeckl (2007) found in a study comparing text with video content that video bloggers are mostly “having fun and passing time,” while text bloggers are keen to “spread the information.”
Other research reveals reasons for not posting, including a desire to remain anonymous because of privacy, security time constraints, and anxiety (Yoo and Gretzel 2011), whereas other explanations for not posting are time, laziness, and shyness over public, no need to post, vengeance, and anxiety (Nonnecke and Preece 2001; Gretzel, Yoo, and Purifoy 2007).
Leung (2009) proposes that web posting involves a “complex mixture of social, cognitive, and entertainment needs that motivate users” who essentially seek “gratification.” Yang and Lai (2010) postulate that “internal self-concept-based motivation is a better predictor of individual knowledge sharing behavior,” whereas Parra-López et al. (2011) suggest social and hedonic factors as strong motivations. Wang and Fesenmaier (2004) put forward a desire for recognition and altruistic contributions as motivations, whereas Daugherty, Eastin, and Bright (2008) emphasize ego-defensive and social motivations. Though a range of motivations in the travel and hospitality sector is more recently observed (Hsu, Cai, and Li 2010; Kim, Mattila, and Baloglu 2011; Yoo and Gretzel 2011; Munar 2011), little research has addressed the fundamental impact of nationality on motivation and UGC channel selection.
Nationality and Consumption
Pre-UGC studies, such as those undertaken by McPherson, Smith-Lovin, and Cook (2001), emphasized the phenomenon of homophily, where consumers are more likely to have contact with and trust in those who are geographically closer than with those who are distant. With the emergence of the “global, mobile citizen,” we question whether this element of nationality is a determinant to online consumption behavior.
Castells (2001) points out that country of residence and related unequal distributions of wealth, education, and technological infrastructure characterize the use of the internet, and influence user-generated content and social media engagement. More recently, Pfeil, Zaphiris, and Ang (2006) compare the nationalities and uploading behavior of Dutch, French, German, and Japanese participants in Wikipedia and report that virtual behavior mimics national behavioral characteristics. They acknowledge, however, that a wider rigorous, academic study of nationality and UGC behavior is absent. Grace-Farfaglia et al. (2006) investigate national differences between users in the United States, Korea, and the Netherlands and report that particular uses and gratifications are specific to each national culture. Nielsenwire (2010) recently published an analysis of national social media usage (Exhibit 1) that depicts distinct differences, by nationality, in the proportion of the population that engage with these sites and the time they spend on them.
Social Media Usage
Source: Neilsenwire, 2010
UGC and the Travel and Hotel Sector
It is clear that the many motivations for posting content depend on the person and the context. Recent reports from the Cornell Hospitality Research (CHR) emphasize the influence of these channels, “the most powerful tool is word of mouth from a friend, and social media are an extension of this” (McCarthy, Stock, and Verma 2010, 7). Particularly, online reviews are a critical source of information for prospective travelers during the planning process (Pan and Fesenmaier 2006; Xiang and Fesenmaier 2006; Xiang and Gretzel 2010) where the hotel room is a core item in the travel package (Litvin, Goldsmith, and Pan 2008). The WTM reports (WTM 2010) that in a survey of 1,000 UK holidaymakers in 2010, 58 percent of those who consulted online reviews, many change at least one component of their holiday purchasing plans, with 33 percent changing their choice of hotel, 15 percent changing their chosen airline, and 12 percent changing their destination country. All of this evidence clearly points to a clear shift in the way that consumers source travel and hospitality information (Dev, Buschman, and Bowen 2010; Withiam 2011). As the posting of information on review sites and social networks is so influential on consumer decision making, it is important to understand why, where, and what type of content consumers post and share online. This article aims to explore these motivations to post or not post on UGC platforms and will thus address the following key research questions:
What motivates people to share online UGC in the context of a recent trip?
What platforms do people use to share online UGC?
Do the motivations and platforms used vary with the nationality of the user?
Methodology and Research Design
The research was undertaken using an online survey and sample of 568 young travelers in Switzerland, Spain, and the United Kingdom, as shown in Exhibit 2. All of the respondents had been on at least one holiday or trip in the prior twelve months. More than 90 percent of the respondents in each country were younger than age 30, and the gender split was similar in all three countries, with slightly more females (56%) than males (44%). All respondents were users of the internet, with 85 percent of the respondents spending more than five hours online per week.
Nationality of Respondents
As we know of no reliable e-mail listing suitable for use as a sample frame in the three countries where the study was undertaken, we placed a web link to the survey on a number of social media sites, blogs, and bulletin boards in each of the countries. These sites included travel sites, student sites, and other sites targeting the under-thirty age range. Recipients who chose to participate in the survey simply clicked on the web link and responded to the survey questions online. Given that one of the limitations of using online surveys can be the difficulty of getting an acceptable response rate (Evans and Mathur 2005), we asked respondents to forward the link to other likely participants. In considering the representativeness of this approach, we took into account the work of Hwang and Fesenmaier (2004) relating to the coverage error embedded in self-selected online surveys. Their analysis found that the probability of being included in a self-selected internet based survey varied significantly by age and internet usage, with younger travelers who actively use the internet to plan trips being overrepresented. As the focus of this study was primarily aimed at surveying people with characteristics similar to those who could potentially be overrepresented, the limitations normally associated with self-selected online samples were considered to be less detrimental. However, the limitations of this sample should be noted when considering the overall generalizability of this study.
The descriptive demographic items of age, gender, and nationality (adapted from Kasavana, Nusair, and Teodosic 2010; Taylor, Lewin, and Strutton 2011; Grace-Farfaglia et al. 2006; Pfeil, Zaphiris, and Ang 2006) were collected in a multiple-choice format. The survey divided UGC into four broad categories (adapted from Xiang and Gretzel 2010; and Kasavana, Nusair, and Teodosic 2010). These were online social networks (OSNs), supplier travel sites (e.g., destinations, hotels, and airlines), commercial review sites (e.g., TripAdvisor), and content communities websites. The items to measure motivations to post or not to post content were adapted from a number of previous studies (Balasubramanian and Mahajan 2001; Hennig-Thurau et al. 2004; Grace-Farfaglia et al. 2006; Pfeil, Zaphiris, and Ang 2006; Parra-López et al. 2011; Hsu, Cai, and Li 2010; Nonnecke and Preece 2001; Gretzel, Yoo, and Purifoy 2007; Yoo and Gretzel 2011). Items were tested and developed in an earlier stage of qualitative and quantitative research study undertaken by Wilson et al. (2008) and only the significant items of motivation to post or not are reported in this article (see Exhibits 6 to 8). Motivation is measured using Likert-type scales of 1 to 5 (where 1 is totally agree and 5 is totally disagree). The content validity of the questions and items were assessed and refined by circulating them around a group of academic and industry experts, obtaining feedback, and implementing necessary adjustments.
For all statistical testing (i.e., analyses of variance [ANOVAs] and correlations), a significance level of 0.01 was applied.
Results
Descriptive statistics are presented in Exhibits 2 and 3 setting out the nationality and demographics of the respondents.
Demographics of Respondents
Across the whole sample, OSNs were the most popular locations for posting information and comments on trips, followed by picture and content communities’ picture and video sharing websites, supplier travel sites, and commercial travel review sites. However, usage of UGC sites varied significantly over the three nationalities, as shown in Exhibit 4. The UK and Swiss respondents more commonly used social media sites such as Facebook, StudiVZ, and Tuenti to comment on their trips. Thus, these respondents are only sharing these comments among friends, rather than the wider public. This stands in contrast to the Spanish respondents, who post on content communities’ picture and video sharing websites, and supplier travel sites of airlines, destinations, and hotels. Although TripAdvisor and Holidaycheck are viewed as influential on trip purchasing decisions, they were not the only commercial review sites used.
Where (UGC Platform) Posted
Note: UGC, user-generated content.
The type of content posted reflects the sites being used, as is evident from the ANOVA results in Exhibit 5, with more pictures, 3D content, and videos being posted in the United Kingdom and more text content posted by the Spanish.
Nature of Content Posted and Nationality
Note: Scale: 1 = totally agree and 5 = totally disagree.
Exhibit 6 highlights the key reasons for posting on specific sites. It shows the positive and negative correlations between the frequencies of using a site for posting with a range of motivations for posting. Those posting more frequently to OSNs are less concerned about demonstrating that they are an expert or wanting to influence others’ buying behavior than they are about sharing their experiences with others and promoting the positive experience they have had. Those that post on supplier travel sites are less concerned about sharing experiences, in contrast, and are more concerned about being seen as an expert and being associated with the brand. They also wish to advise others on their purchasing decisions. Commercial review websites seem to be used to promote experiences or warn others about bad experiences. Content communities’ picture and video sharing websites are less to do with sharing experiences than with seeking status, being seen as an expert, or seeking revenge.
Significant Correlations between Motivation to Post and UGC Platform
Note: OSN, online social network; UGC, user-generated content.
Exhibit 7 sets out the average ratings by nationality for each of the motivations to post. The UK and Swiss respondents seem to be more concerned with sharing their experiences with others and telling others about their satisfaction with the trip. On the other hand, the Spanish want to demonstrate their knowledge and expertise, provide advice to others, and to be seen as being associated with the brand.
Reasons for Posting by Country and ANOVAs
Note: Scale: 1= totally agree and 5 = totally disagree.
Exhibit 8 presents the reasons that people do not post content regarding their trips. The UK and Swiss nonposters give a lack of time and a view that no one else would be interested as the main reasons for not posting. The Spanish think others would be interested in their views, but don’t post because they want to keep the destination secret or fear retribution.
Reasons for Not Posting by Country and ANOVAs
Note: Scale: 1 = totally agree and 5 = totally disagree.
Discussion
Overall, OSNs such as Facebook appear to be used for construction of personal identities through sharing and reliving travel experiences. Sites operated by hotels and destinations are used by individuals to demonstrate their expertise and seek status or brand association. Commercial review sites such as TripAdvisor are more to do with passing on positive or negative information to others. Video and photo sites such as YouTube and Flickr appear to be more about showing expertise, seeking status, and in certain cases, seeking revenge.
As hospitality and travel organizations place more emphasis on social media for communication and feedback from customers and potential customers, it is important to note the national differences that exist in relation to the use of social media for sharing of service experiences. The findings suggest that the Spanish respondents in this study make more use of text and comments when reporting on their trip experiences, whereas the British and Swiss prefer pictures and video. Members of the Spanish sample were more concerned about being seen as experts who provide guidance and advice to others in comparison with the other nationalities, who seem more self-centered and narcissist when sharing their experiences. The Spanish sample also saw more importance in being associated with the brand.
Conclusions and Managerial Implications
This study highlights actionable insights into the nature of user-generated content on social media channels (UGC), particularly with regard to nationality. It also reveals that although UGC channels have mass reach they are not necessarily a mass market communication channel. Members and participants of social media share explicit information about themselves, which they, increasingly, expect others to process and use appropriately.
For a company in the hospitality and travel sector, there are benefits to understanding how your customer interacts with UGC channels in terms of channel choice and format of the message. Though monitoring UGC is not expensive compared to traditional marketing tactics, the time involved has an opportunity cost. You may find yourself addressing trivial complaints from low-value customers or rebutting content that is unfavorable or untrue! A large amount of time can also be wasted by loading, monitoring, or typing content into UGC channels that are never visited by your customer. The strength of relationships (i.e., “tie strength”) on UGC can be weak, and much marketing effort may be wasted on building content and community only to find they decline in popularity.
Individually and collectively, UGC will heavily influence future consumers. This impact will increase as consumers spend more time on UGC sites and less on visiting commercial web pages, and particularly as OSNs become the first “port of call” for web visitors, challenging the major search engines in terms of traffic and visibility. Also, the growth of all user-generated content will make managing the service experiences more difficult in the long term, particularly if companies do not engage in the specific UGC space where their customers spend increasing amounts of time (Exhibits 4 and 5). They run the risk of their information and marketing function being performed by peer groups who ask for or offer advice to customers, bypassing the company and depriving the firm of the opportunity to either improve services or recover from service failures. This may interfere with brand value as users revert to user-generated sources on social media and networks to ensure credibility, trustworthiness, and expertise. Nonetheless, the supplier travel sites (“Brand.com”) should not be neglected as it is clear for some nationalities that this source is important.
In general, posting content may not only “tangiblize” an experience but also reduce postpurchase dissonance. It is clear that there are different drivers that motivate people to share experiences on social media sites (Facebook, etc.) as compared to those who use TripAdvisor and supplier sites. The motivations expressed (for commercial sites) are more explicit and functional in terms of “warning, comparing and sharing, promoting, and expressing satisfaction.” This may be because these commercial sites limit the scope of feedback (via scoring or ranking, categories, text limitation, or censoring) and consumers conform to the norms of accepted practice there. These UGC platforms are more difficult for marketers to manage (notwithstanding claims of fraudulent reviews) and, at best, a swift reaction and service recovery plan is needed.
Channel choice can be managed and directed by marketers to a certain extent, through such approaches as events and exclusive offers available only on social media platforms. However, it is difficult for an operator to change customers’ media consumption. Other UGC channels may be more manageable, or at least accessible, to hospitality and travel companies, particularly the travel supplier “branded” sites and OSNs.
What is clear from this research is that different channels and formats are required for different markets, messages, and nationalities of customers. For short-term service issues, micro blogging real-time sites such as Twitter may be the tool of choice to instantly respond to customers, whereas an ongoing longer term service dispute or an exchange may be executed via Facebook, attracting attention over a period of time. There may be a need for travel organizations to encourage, facilitate, and remind customers to share their experiences, particularly where a service encounter has been positive. Giving customers a choice of feedback mechanism could be useful at the postpurchase stage, for example, a quick scoring or ranking, which is a key feature of sites such as TripAdvisor, plus more personalized content such as that encouraged on Facebook. In addition, the preferences of different nationalities in the type of content they prefer to post (e.g., the Spanish preferring text) should be incorporated into the “touchpoints” of a communications and social media strategy that addresses their needs.
In summary, to further exploit user-generated content, travel companies need to actively encourage customers to engage in a trustworthy electronic word-of-mouth system that may help both their potential customers reduce the perceived risk of purchase and extend the positive purchase experience for recent, satisfied customers. Furthermore, they need to facilitate relevant content generation before, during, and after the service experience (e.g., narrative discussion, picture taking or video-logging via competitions, incentives, providing photo opportunities and settings). This would, at least, ensure that desired content is generated for later postpurchase sharing. Managing the volume of content that is now available in this user-generated space will be the main challenge. Even though there are software tools that will “scrape” and analyze the content as it appears and translate it into dashboards that visualize the current discussion, the voice, tone, and channel that the company adopts in this new marketing meritocracy will be critical.
Limitations and Future Research
This field of investigation is at an iterative stage where empirical models and frameworks are just emerging. This study contributes an understanding of the differences in nationality and user-generated content channels and addresses an academic gap in the literature in examining UGC channels and nationality. It provides managerial guidance on nationality-related differences that can be used in selecting communication channels.
Though this research provides insight into users’ preferences, it is by design limited to a population and sample of relatively young travelers who may not be representative of the entire traveling population, although we believe they reasonably represent young social media users. There is an emphasis here on national differences. Nonetheless, nationality is only one demographic determinant, and age and gender also shape receptivity to marketing channels (Taylor, Lewin, and Strutton 2011) and so deserve further examination. In addition, further examination and analysis of this data set is still to be completed and qualitative work instigated that will examine and probe further into the factors underlying the sharing of content online, particularly the “emotional” drivers.
However, in the context of travel where there continues to be a growth in online consumption, and given the relentless growth and influence of user-generated content, both the pragmatic implications and wider contexts merit further investigation, particularly in terms of assessing UGC and social media strategies of hotel and travel companies and customer perceptions of what is essentially a social space.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Roland Schegg of the University of Applied Sciences of Western Switzerland Valais for his contribution to the data design and collection.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.