Tourist information search and destination choice in a digital age

Tourism Management Perspectives 1 (2012) 39–47

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Tourist information search and destination choice in a digital age Jens Kr. Steen Jacobsen a,⁎, Ana María Munar b, 1 a b

Norwegian School of Hotel Management, University of Stavanger, Norway Department of International Economics and Management, Copenhagen Business School, Porcelænshaven 24A 3.54, DK 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 17 August 2011 Accepted 30 November 2011 Keywords: Information search Destination choice Internet use Electronic social network Independent tourist

a b s t r a c t This study provides empirical evidence of self-reported impacts of selected electronic and other information sources on international tourists' destination choices regarding a popular, mature and mainstream summer holiday location. It is shown that traditional information provisions such as direct word-of-mouth, Web 1.0 sources and own experience are highly resilient and influential when tourists to a well-known destination area decide where to spend their summer holiday. Moreover, results indicate a complementary nature of Web 1.0 and Web 2.0. In this context of destination decision-making, utilitarian information values seem more relevant than socialisation opportunities. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Information search is considered crucial to tourists' destination choices. Sources of information can be both external and internal, the latter gathered from the latent cognitive system (e.g., Hansen, 1972). Characteristically, repeat visitors to a place may not always wish to collect additional information from external sources as they can rely much on past experiences, while external information search seems typical for newcomers to a destination (e.g., Fodness & Murray, 1997). External search consists not only of collecting information from the marketplace but also from a variety of more or less independent or unbiased sources such as news media, guidebooks, and acquaintances. It is also maintained that information and communication technologies (ICT) may have a considerable and increasing impact on several tourism aspects. From supply of products to information search processes and consumption patterns, tourism experiences and their preparations are assumed to be progressively transformed by advances of ICT (e.g., Buhalis, 1998; Buhalis & Law, 2008). Expansion of computer use, developments of the Web and increased ICT skills in the population at large have helped tourists in the Western world to reach higher levels of self-organisation. Gradually, numerous tourists have also become more independent of intermediaries such as traditional travel agencies and tour operators. The direct sale of travel products has increased for various reasons, including a general appeal of independent travel, often

⁎ Corresponding author at: University of Stavanger, NO 4036 Stavanger, Norway. Tel.: + 47 2257 3800; fax: + 47 2260 9200. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (J.K.S. Jacobsen), [email protected] (A.M. Munar). 1 Tel.: + 45 3815 2538; fax: + 45 3815 2500. 2211-9736/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.tmp.2011.12.005

lower costs due to supply and price transparency through the Internet, and easier on-line booking. Direct selling accounted for 64% of online travel sales in the European market in 2008, while intermediaries accounted for only 36% (Marcussen, 2010). One may say that the information age has resulted in the advancement of a new type of empowered individual: the ICT-skilled tourist. ICT and the Internet are partly employed for practical predeparture purposes such as travel planning, booking, and payment of tourism products (Hyde, 2008). In addition to accounts from acquaintances and in print media, ICT and the Internet are among sources utilised for the pleasure of anticipating impending holidays (e.g., Parrinello, 1993). Also second generation websites based on participatory and interactive software solutions – the Web 2.0 phenomenon – have possible impacts on tourist information search behaviour (Musser et al., 2007). Earlier research has found that many tourists wisely combine various available information sources (Fodness & Murray, 1998). In addition to long-established and commonly recognised tourism information sources such as guidebooks and other destination specific material, news media, travel companies, knowledge passed on directly from acquaintances/family and own experience, this study encompasses information from electronic social networks and blogs, two main types of social media considered increasingly relevant (e.g., Huang et al., 2010; Volo, 2010; Wenger, 2008), and examines their relationship to destination choice. Although several studies of tourists' information search for destination choices have been conducted, there is still a deficiency of empirical studies that include tourist assessments of possible impacts of Web 2.0 and selected electronic social media on tourist information search and acquisition (e.g., Xiang & Gretzel, 2010) for destination choice in the context of well-known, mature and mainstream holiday locations with large numbers of international summer vacationers. Consequently, this article examines tourists' information searches – including

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J.K.S. Jacobsen, A.M. Munar / Tourism Management Perspectives 1 (2012) 39–47

the relationship to some electronic social media – among peak season Scandinavian holidaymakers in Mallorca, Spain. The study measures tourists' subjective knowledge and has three main objectives: 1. Provide empirical evidence of the self-reported impact of certain information sources including some Web 1.0 and 2.0 platforms on tourists' destination decision-making. 2. Discuss central variables such as first-timers versus repeaters and tourists' level of independency in relation to selected information source impacts on their holiday location selection. 3. Contribute to expanding the knowledge-base on information search in a digital age. 2. Literature review Information search is in many ways a well-established field of research, and the idea that people undertake an explicit, external information search preceding consumption decisions has been presented in various marketing and consumer studies (e.g., Gursoy & McCleary, 2004; Hyde, 2008). Destination information originates not only from people returning from their trips. Newspapers and magazines regularly include tourism supplements and travelogues, and travel reports are increasingly shown on television. Additionally, guidebooks are commonly used for destination decision-making and have been an extensive part of the publishing industry (e.g., Steinecke, 1988). Also, most tourism enterprises, national tourism organisations and local destination marketing organisations disseminate considerable amounts of information, increasingly through the Internet. The phenomenon of social electronic media such as Facebook and their possible tourism influences have resulted in numerous and diverse scholarly contributions, which are still predominantly of an exploratory character. For instance, it is indicated that there has been increased use of electronic word-of-mouth and other Internet sources in tourist decision-making processes and travel purchase intentions in the first decade of the twenty-first century (Huang et al., 2010; Litvin et al., 2008). Research has shown that people who book travel services online are inclined to maintaining positive attitudes to Web sources as well as utilising them more intensively (Morrison et al., 2001), and they have access to and make use of the immense amount of tourism information available through the Internet. Particularly younger tourists make intensive use of Internet-based networks and they have thus been called the Net generation (Tapscott, 2009) and digital natives (Prensky, 2001). McIntosh and Goeldner (1990) have argued that a primary motive for undertaking an information search is to enhance the quality of the tour. In consumer behaviour literature it is commonly also maintained that people engage in information searches prior to purchase decisions in order to minimise risks (e.g., Gursoy & McCleary, 2004; McCleary & Whitney, 1994). Risk reduction is considered particularly crucial to non-routinised and extensive decisions regarding acquirement of expensive and complex products (such as certain holiday tours), when people often are strongly involved in decisionmaking processes. Such risks might be monetary (wasting money), functional (not meeting requirements), physical (causing personal illness or injury), social (unfashionable or lower status), and psychological (damaging self-esteem or engendering guilt) (Solomon, 1992). For instance, Roehl and Fesenmaier (1992) found financial, psychological, satisfaction and time risks to be the most frequent risks associated with pleasure travel. Typically, people do not want to spend some of the most precious days of the year in the wrong place, and risks may thus be related also to visits to mainstream destinations, as fellow vacationers obviously influence destination atmosphere (e.g., Jacobsen, 2002; Morrison, 1989, pp. 37–38). A typical assertion is that people will expand search efforts as long as alleged benefits exceed perceived costs (Fodness & Murray, 1999, p. 225). Earlier consumer literature maintains that experts engage

less in pre-purchase external search than do novices, partly because expertise regularly leads to faster solutions and partly because experts are able to rely on information acquired on previous occasions (e.g., Alba & Hutchinson, 1987, pp. 418–421, 427). Correspondingly, studies have suggested that electronic social media such as Facebook may be beneficial as a risk-reduction and virtual selection mechanism, as consumers then assist each other in effectively making sense of information available on the Web (Brogan & Smith, 2009; Qualman, 2009). Social network sites such as Facebook or microblogging sites like Twitter are therefore increasingly employed as information channels by tourism organisations (e.g., Munar, 2011). In an overview of research on tourist information use, Kerstetter and Cho (2004) revealed inconsistency in findings: Some studies have shown that as experience with a destination increases, search for external information decreases, while other studies have indicated the opposite. Baloglu (2001) uncovered that first-timers tend to use commercial information sources, while repeaters often use both commercial and noncommercial sources. Contrary to much of the consumer behaviour literature, Shanka and Taylor (2004) found that repeat visitors employed a wider variety of information sources than did first-timers. Further, a study conducted by Lehto et al. (2004) indicates that tourists' information search endeavours are not necessarily reduced as experience with a destination increases. However, previous research varies in measurement methods applied to information search. Some studies comprise tourists' self-reported assessments of information sources in relation to the entirety of a journey (e.g., Fodness & Murray, 1997), while other studies concentrate on specific decisions, such as destination choice (e.g., Gursoy & McCleary, 2004). For some people the information search will continue also in situations when there is no obvious functional benefit, as it is perceived to be of interest in its own right. For instance, Parrinello (1993) has focused on anticipation as a pivotal aspect of holiday travel. Besides relying on the recollection of earlier enjoyment, anticipation is typically based on various types of mediated information (Parrinello, 1993, p. 244). A somewhat similar feature to consider is the aesthetic pleasure that people might take in travel-related information (e.g., Vogt et al., 1993), including photographs transmitted by mobile phones and travel blogs and holiday photographs posted by friends on their profile on Facebook, the dominant social networking site in Scandinavia and in other parts of Western Europe at the time of this study. Information may be acquired purposely for dissemination to others (e.g., Hirschman & Wallendorf, 1982, pp. 25–31), for instance in order to act as opinion leaders (e.g., Lazarsfeld et al., 1944) or as attempt to build or strengthen cultural capital, that is, wealth in the form of knowledge or ideas, which legitimate continuation of status and superiority (Bourdieu, 1984). Drawing on the reasoning of Douglas and Isherwood (1980, p. 57), it is likely that tourist information search and acquisition cannot be understood independently of activities such as seeing the sights, enjoying the beaches of a destination, and savouring local food. Enjoyment of travel itself is only a part of the benefits gained; the other part is enjoyment of knowing and sharing names (cf. Douglas & Isherwood, 1980, p. 75). To a proportion of tourists, it seems imperative to have ample knowledge of, for instance, renowned or previously ‘secret’ qualities of their destinations, partly in order to establish their own travel narratives, partly in order to fulfil holiday dreams. An aspect that is sometimes overlooked in traditional marketing models is the credibility of information sources (Dann, 1996, p. 138). For instance, Gunn (1972) has distinguished between ‘induced’ sources originating from efforts of destination promoters, and ‘organic’ sources derived from more or less unbiased informers, independent of destinations and their collaborators (Gartner, 1993, p. 210). The success of tourism information sources often depends on how trustworthy they become as vehicles of information exchange and social interactivity (Brogan & Smith, 2009).

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Additionally, some tourist information sources might be termed personal, while others are considered impersonal. In relation to holiday tours that may be interpreted as primarily connected to social interests, it seems likely that vacationers might acquire information from other individuals rather than from impersonal sources (e.g., Midgley, 1983). For instance, Murray found that for services, personal sources are regularly preferred over impersonal sources of information (1991, p. 19), and this is also relevant to tourist destination choices (Prebensen et al., 2010). Social media sites include both personal and impersonal sources. Web 2.0 sites may differ considerably depending on their size, conditions of use, variety of activities and whether they are open or require membership. The most popular include wikis (e.g., Wikitravel), blogs (e.g., Travelblog) and microblogs (e.g., Twitter), social networks (e.g., Facebook), media sharing sites (e.g., Flickr, YouTube), review sites (e.g., TripAdvisor), and voting sites (e.g., Digg) (Zarrella, 2010). In the case of social electronic networks such as Facebook, much information is accessible only to network members and sharing of personal profiles is an essential feature. Use of the Internet and levels of e-literacy vary greatly throughout the world (e.g., Castells, 2001; Gursoy & Umbreit, 2004; International Telecommunication Union, 2009). As stated earlier, this paper examines self-reported destination decision-making aspects of Danish and Norwegian holidaymakers to the well-known island of Mallorca, Spain. Tourists from these countries were selected as respondents because of high levels of ICT access and use in Scandinavia. According to the ICT Development Index, which compares ICT use in 154 countries, Denmark and Norway were among the six most advanced countries in ICT in 2009 (International Telecommunication Union, 2009). At the middle of the first decade of the twenty-first century, Norway's individual ICT use was among the highest in the world and Denmark had the second largest number of fixed broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants among member countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, Working Party on the Information Economy (2004) and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Working Party on the Information Economy (2005). Besides their high level of ICT use, Denmark and Norway have large proportions of frequent air travellers and a high propensity for spending summer holidays abroad, including the European Mediterranean. Prevalent English proficiency in these countries is also vital, as English has become the lingua franca of international Internetbased travel commerce and tourist information in most of Europe. Norway and Denmark ranked among the top three countries in the world in English proficiency in 2009, among countries where English is not the national language (EF Education, 2011). Furthermore, both Denmark and Norway have long had broad distribution of income and thus large middle class populations (Statistics Denmark, 2010; Statistics Norway, 2010). 3. Background to Mallorca as a tourism destination The island of Mallorca in Mediterranean Spain was chosen as case destination because it is internationally well-known and muchvisited, assumingly implying greater possibility for prospective holidaymakers for receiving a wide variety of advice on destination choice from many types of sources. As a mature holiday destination area, Mallorca is visited by people from numerous European countries and various social strata. From the 1960s onwards, Mallorca embraced what is commonly entitled ‘the sun and sand tourism model’ (e.g., Claver-Cortés et al., 2007; Knowles & Curtis, 1999), although Nordic tourist interests in Mallorca and coastal Spain seem more multifaceted (e.g., Jacobsen, 2002; Jacobsen & Dann, 2009). In 2009, Mallorca received more than 8.5 million tourists, over 7 million of which were international arrivals (Conselleria de Turisme, 2009). The vast growth of the tourism industry in the Balearic Islands was made possible not only owing to hundreds of Spanish

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entrepreneurs. Development also resulted from relationships with foreign tour operators, providing necessary promotion and sales in European markets (Amer i Fernàndez, 2006). Holiday packages supplied by tour operators have been the typical option for Mallorca's international holidaymakers. At the millennium, however, Mallorca has seen a considerable increase in independent tourists, which in 2009 accounted for 50% of all arrivals (Conselleria de Turisme, 2009). This is partly owing to expansion of scheduled air services to the island. Scheduled flights are the most common form of air transport to Mallorca, as these flights accounted for 75% of the total in 2009 (Conselleria de Turisme, 2009). Moreover, Mallorca has experienced diversification among accommodation suppliers, an increased variety of tourism products and also expansion of second home ownership. 4. Methodology 4.1. Sample Participants in this study comprise Danish- and Norwegianspeaking leisure tourists who were passengers on selected international direct scheduled (non-charter) flights of the airlines Air Berlin, Cimber Air and Norwegian Air Shuttle returning from Mallorca to airports in Denmark and Norway. The survey was accomplished on six selected days, mixing different days of the week, from 10 July to 7 August 2010. Averagely, each survey day included three flights. The study thus covers the peak summer holiday season for Scandinavians, from the end of June until early August. A screening question was first asked in order to identify passengers in the target category. Prospective respondents were then requested to complete a self-instructing questionnaire, which was returned to the administrative staff. The questionnaire was available in Danish and Norwegian. It was translated from an English original by the research team and its assistants, which encompassed speakers of a range of languages. Due to financial limitations, tourists from other Nordic countries were not included in the survey. The questionnaire items were partly selected on the basis of personal interviews with people of various ages, most of them with experience from summer holidaymaking in the European part of the Mediterranean. Also, three drafts of questionnaire formulations were tested on a small number of people from Denmark and Norway and discussed within the multilingual and multi-national research team and with other travel survey experts. The exact response rate among those who were asked to fill in the questionnaire is not known, for several reasons. Firstly, numbers of passengers on the selected flights and their distribution in terms of travel parties were not known. Additionally, children were excluded from the sample but numbers of children on the flights were not known. The reply percentage was also influenced by the fact that couples mostly filled in one questionnaire. Some 23 questionnaires were rejected because they were incompletely filled in. Based on notes from the survey staff, the response rate is roughly stipulated to be just over 45%. This is considered satisfactory since airport surveys typically have response rates between 40% and 70% (Rideng & Christensen, 2004). The effective sample size is 405. Non-charter tourists were chosen partly because they represent a majority of arrivals in Mallorca and partly because they are assumingly more independent and organise their own holiday journeys to a greater degree than fellow holidaymakers going for charter package tours. The choice of only direct flights was related to resources, as it would have been prohibitively expensive to cover all departures from Mallorca to relevant major airline hubs such as Barcelona, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Munich and Zurich. Also, it was known that most Nordic holidaymakers in Mallorca during the peak summer season have relatively short stays and thus favour direct flights. As the study relies on self-reporting of a destination choice that for many respondents was made well ahead of the interview occasion, there is a potential recall bias or memory effect, that is, under-reporting and

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over-reporting. However, it is likely that possible under-reporting and over-reporting would be evenly distributed between various information sources for destination choice. Then again, possible under-reporting for reasons of social desirability might have occurred (May, 2001). For instance, tourists with individualistic mind-sets may possibly underestimate the importance of commercial sources of information (e.g., airlines, tour operators/travel agencies and hotels), as they might dislike looking upon their travel decisions as result of commercial persuasion. The chosen procedure, including a limited number of scheduled flights on selected dates, represents sampling error (Hurst, 1994). Sampling error is encountered in such en route surveys because the sample is not a perfect representation of the test population. However, by distributing data collection over a period of four weeks and varying the days, sampling error is reduced. Table 1 provides key characteristics of the sample. Some 41% of the respondents were first time visitors to Mallorca, and 49% had stayed more than one week in the island. Some 55% were women, reflecting an actual female majority on such tours (e.g., Jacobsen, 2002). Half of the tourists have a higher education, while quite a few were too young to have started at university/college. Half of the sample had bought only air ticket while the other half had purchased some kind of tour package including air ticket and accommodation. Some 75% stayed in hotels or similar, 17% resided in a holiday home, 4% stayed with relatives or friends, while 4% made use of other types of overnight lodgings. Moreover, three out of four tourists have a Facebook profile (Table 1), indicating a regular computer and Internet use. Mean travel party size was 4.2 persons, and mean age was 35.

Table 1 Selected respondent characteristics (percentages) (N = 344–405). Gender Female Male Educational level Primary school Secondary education University/college Age, years Up to 20 21 to 35 36 to 50 51 or older Country of residence Denmark Norway Duration of stay in case area Up to one week 8–14 days More than two weeks Experience with case area First visit Once before Twice or more before Type of journey organisation Bought only air ticket Bought air ticket and accommodation, etc. Use of information from social media for present holiday tour Yes No Facebook profile Yes No Use of Internet during present holiday Yes No Activities undertaken during visit (multiple answers possible) Self-organised excursion/outing Organised sightseeing

55 45 21 30 50 25 25 34 14

4.2. Measurement The overall purpose of the study is to provide empirical evidence of self-reported impacts of selected electronic and other information sources on destination choice. Subjective responses on the importance of various information sources for the decision to go to Mallorca were given on a five-point Likert scale ranging from zero (‘unimportant’) to four (‘very important’). The 10 elements considered were ‘own experience’, ‘information through Facebook’, ‘other information from acquaintances/family’, ‘hotel/apartment websites’, ‘reports in newspapers, magazines, radio, television’, ‘airline websites’, ‘tour operator/travel agency websites’, ‘guidebooks’, ‘websites of tourism organisations in Spain’, and ‘tourist blogs (not acquaintances)’. The items encompass Internet information sources that are commonly regarded as being among the most important for destination decision-making and include several Web 2.0 platforms. Respondents were also asked to answer a generic question on possible importance of information from electronic social media for certain holiday decision aspects other than destination choice and rate their answers on a five-point Likert scale ranging from zero (‘unimportant’) to four (‘very important’). The elements were ‘choice of accommodation (hotel etc.)’, ‘choice of activities at destination’, ‘choice of eating places’ and ‘choice of tour operator/travel agency (if package tour)’. The holidaymakers were also asked about their possible affiliation with the social networking site Facebook, the foremost electronic social networking site in Scandinavia at the time of the survey. Other questions included use of electronic social media for the present tour, use of Internet during the holiday stay, whether or not they had bought a tour package, and Internet purchases of parts of the holiday tour. They were also asked about their familiarity with the destination area. Moreover, the inquiry included customary demographic variables such as gender, year of birth, and education. The simplicity that characterises most of the survey instrument resulted from interview time constraints and research focus on destination decision-making. The chi-square statistic (χ 2) was used to test statistical significance of observed association in cross-tabulations, and t-test was employed to see possible associations between continuous outcome variables (mean scores) and categorical determining variables. Only differences that were statistically significant at the 0.05% level (p b 0.05) are reported. Moreover, principal component (factor) analysis was employed in order to identify patterns of information source emphasis in relation to destination decision-making. 5. Empirical results

61 39 51 46 3 41 26 33 49 51 24 76 75 25 60 40 79 7

Some 95% of the total sample had purchased the whole or part of the holiday arrangements on the Internet, indicating a very high level of ICT use. At the same time, there were differences in relation to the respondents' age. The youngest half of the sample, tourists up to 35 years of age, to a larger extent than their older fellow tourists, had a Facebook profile (91% versus 62%) (χ 2 = 46.25, d.f.= 1, p b 0.001). The youngest half of the sample had also to a larger extent employed social media for the present tour (32% versus 16%) (χ 2 = 14.08, d.f. = 1, p b 0.001) and they had also to a larger degree used the Internet during the present stay (67% versus 54%) (χ2 = 6.80, d.f. = 1, p b 0.009). 5.1. Importance of tourist information sources for destination choice In order to explore importance of various information sources for the decision to travel to Mallorca, 10 items were included in the questionnaire, with an emphasis on websites and social media (Table 2). The most important sources for the destination decision were information from acquaintances/family (other than through Facebook), hotel/apartment websites, and own experience. More than half of the respondents found these sources to be important (Table 2). Of

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somewhat lesser importance were tour operator/travel agency websites, guidebooks, airline websites, and reports in newspapers, magazines, radio, and television. The least important sources were tourist blogs (not acquaintances), websites of tourism organisations in Spain, and information through Facebook. Principal component analysis was employed in order to reveal patterns of information source accentuation in relation to destination choice. Two items had low communality (b0.5), own experience and information from acquaintances/family (other than through Facebook), and were excluded from data reduction analysis, as suggested by Hair et al. (2006). Principal component analysis was thus performed on the remaining eight items (Table 3). Three distinct principal components (factors) were extracted, with Eigenvalues 3.4, 1.1, and 1.0 respectively, accounting for 69% of the variance, a level generally regarded as satisfactory. The rotated solution (employing Varimax) is presented in Table 3. In the interpretation, the weight was placed on variables with loadings 0.45 or higher, emphasised with italics in Table 3. The principal component analysis demonstrates that a dimension associated with Web 1.0 enterprise sources had the largest proportion of the variance. Table 3 shows that principal component 1 accounted for most of the variance in the data set (42%). This pattern was labelled ‘Web 1.0 enterprise sources’ and was associated with holidaymakers' emphasis on airline websites, tour operator/travel agency websites, and hotel/apartment websites. A second component entitled ‘independent media search’ correlated with a tendency to rely on non-corporate sources; websites of tourism organisations in Spain, guidebooks, and reports in newspapers, magazines, radio, and/or television. This principal component accounted for 14% of the variance. Some of these sources, the news media and guidebooks, are regularly perceived as independent. A third component was associated with emphasis on information procured through Facebook and tourist blogs (not acquaintances), accounting for 13% of the variance. This was called ‘social media and user-generated content’ (Table 3). In relation to customary background variables, there were relatively few differences in the tourists' assessments of importance of information sources for their decision to travel to Mallorca, as measured by mean scores. It was found that women placed more emphasis on hotel/apartment websites: Some 35% of the female tourists rated them as very important, versus 21% of the male tourists. Despite different intensities in social media employment, there were differences between the oldest and the youngest part of the sample only relative to importance of own experience for destination choice. Own experience was found to be very important to 16% of tourists up to 35 years of age, compared to 31% of the older ones. There were no statistically significant differences in self-reported emphasis on information

Table 3 Pattern of tourist information use for decision to travel to Mallorca (N = 383–391).

Information through Facebook Tourist blogs (not acquaintances) Airline websites Tour operator/travel agency websites Hotel/apartment websites Websites of tourism organisations in Spain Guidebooks Reports in newspapers, magazines, radio, TV Eigenvalue Variance (%) Cumulative variance (%)

Own experience Information through Facebook Other information from acquaintances/family Hotel/apartment websites Reports in newspapers, magazines, radio, TV Airline websites Tour operator/travel agency websites Guidebooks Websites of tourism organisations in Spain Tourist blogs (not acquaintances)

Mean score

Source important or very important (3–4)

N

2.1 0.5

46 6

391 385

2.4

58

398

2.4 1.8

57 31

389 389

1.7 1.7

33 34

388 385

1.7 1.0

34 11

389 384

0.9

12

383

PC 1

PC 2

PC 3

0.00 0.35 0.84 0.80 0.76 0.27 0.15 0.18 3.4 42 42

0.09 0.16 0.18 0.18 0.24 0.73 0.87 0.72 1.1 14 56

0.89 0.66 0.15 0.16 0.05 0.23 − 0.04 0.16 1.0 13 69

h2 0.80 0.59 0.76 0.70 0.63 0.66 0.79 0.58

sources for destination decision-making between those tourists who had a Facebook profile and the other holidaymakers. There was some variance related to educational level: Tourists with higher education relied less on Facebook, tour operator/travel agency websites and airline websites than their less-educated fellow passengers. The most striking differences in tourists' ratings of information source importance as measured by mean scores were found between those tourists who had used information from social media for the present tour, and those who had not used such information. Those persons who had employed social media, found a number of information sources more important than did their fellow holidaymakers: information through Facebook, other information from acquaintances/family, reports in news media, airline websites, websites of tourism organisations in Spain, and tourist blogs (not acquaintances) (Table 4). In relation to the tourists' first-hand experience with the destination area, there were significant mean score differences for three information items (Table 4). Unsurprisingly, those tourists who had been to Mallorca before emphasised own experience much more than did the first-timers. The question was phrased so that own experience did not necessarily relate to the actual destination but might include general travel experience, for instance from similar destination areas. More than returning holidaymakers, first-timers in Mallorca emphasised non-Facebook information passed on directly from acquaintances/family and tour operator/travel agency websites.

Table 4 Importance of tourist information sources for decision to travel to Mallorca, mean scores (scale 0–4) (N = 377–396).

Table 2 Importance of tourist information sources for decision to travel to Mallorca, visitors who found source to be important or very important (percentages) and mean scores (scale 0–4) (N = 383–398). Information source

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Own experience Information through Facebook Other information from acquaintances/family Hotel/apartment websites Reports in newspapers, magazines, radio, TV Airline websites Tour operator/travel agency websites Guidebooks Websites of tourism organisations in Spain Tourist blogs (not acquaintances)

Use of social media for tour

Experience with Mallorca

Yes

No

First time

Been before

2.2 1.0

2.1 0.4⁎

1.2 0.6

2.8⁎ 0.5

385–389 379–383

2.7

2.4⁎

2.6

2.3⁎

392–396

2.5 2.1

2.4 1.7⁎

2.4 1.9

2.4 1.8

383–387 383–387

2.1 1.9

1.5⁎ 1.6

1.7 1.9

1.7 1.5⁎

382–386 379–383

1.8 1.2

1.7 0.9⁎

1.8 1.0

1.6 1.0

383–387 378–382

1.2

0.8⁎

1.0

0.8

377–381

⁎ Statistically significant difference, calculated by t-test (p b 0.05).

N

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5.2. Importance of information from social media for aspects other than destination choice It was stated earlier that some 24% of the respondents used information from social networks such as Facebook for the actual holiday tour. Nevertheless, as Table 5 indicates, only 5% of the tourists found knowledge passed by social media to be important for holiday aspects such as choices of accommodation, eating places, and activities. Even fewer found information spread through social media to be important for choice of tour operator/travel agency (if package tour). At this point, there were some differences in relation to age. The youngest half of the sample, up to 35 years of age, to a larger extent than their older fellow passengers, emphasised information from social media in relation to choice of tour operator/agency and activities at the destination. 6. Discussion and conclusion The present study confirms a high level of computer and Internet utilisation among international Scandinavian summer holidaymakers in a mature, well-known and popular destination in the European Mediterranean. A majority of these peak season tourists employed online communication not only during vacation planning stages, as 60% also used the Internet throughout their stay in Mallorca. Moreover, the study clearly corroborates a tendency towards direct sales via Internet of tourism services, as 95% of the respondents had bought some aspect of their tour on-line, compared to 75% of all travellers to Mallorca in 2009 (Conselleria de Turisme, 2009). Also several other studies point towards such intensive use of online booking and ecommerce in tourism (Fesenmaier & Cook, 2009). Most of these tourists are quite experienced users of some electronic social media as 75% of the respondents have a Facebook profile. Since it opened to the general public in 2006 (Zarrella, 2010), Nordic people have extensively adopted Facebook's social network possibilities. Differences in electronic media adoption are suggested in the literature, indicating a generational divide (Prensky, 2001; Tapscott, 2009). Here, some age differences were documented: While 91% of the youngest half of the sample (up to 35 years of age) had a Facebook profile, the same was the case for 62% of the older holidaymakers. Even though 24% of the respondents had made use of some information from social media like Facebook for their present tour, it has been shown here that such electronic social media are not generally important for these tourists' destination choice. Advancement of electronic social media has resulted in a generally larger presence of tourism businesses and organisations on such sites. Nevertheless, results here indicate that these types of promotional efforts have not resulted in much relevant direct impact on destination decision-making in the context of the current study. Social media presence does not necessarily entail a higher number of high season Nordic tourists for a mainstream and generally renowned destination area like Mallorca. However, destination choice is not the only reason why tourists turn to the Web for information. Tourist information search also relates

Table 5 Importance of information from social media for holiday decision aspects other than destination, visitors who found source to be important or very important, percentages and mean scores (scale 0–4) (N = 80–84).

Choice of accommodation (hotel etc.) Choice of activities at destination Choice of eating places Choice of tour operator/agency (if package tour)

Mean score

Source important or very important (3–4)

N

1.5

19

83

1.4

21

81

1.3 1.2

18 11

82 80

to sociability and social rewards in sharing of travel information (cf. Douglas & Isherwood, 1980; Hirschman & Wallendorf, 1982). However, although Facebook helps to create interpersonal ties and increases people's network capacity (Shih, 2009), its relevance for destination decision-making is quite weak in the present context. User-generated content in social media sites is regarded as organic (Gunn, 1972) and personal information. Here, such web-published ‘eorganic’ content is not regarded as relevant to the same degree as traditional ‘organic’ sources like direct communication with friends and family. Word-of-mouth and Web 1.0 sources, such as hotel/apartment websites, turned out to be most significant for destination decision-making, followed by own experience. Information passed on directly from friends and family and tourists' personal experiences have customarily been decidedly pertinent (e.g., Fodness & Murray, 1997) and these traditional sources are highly resilient among the holidaymakers in the present survey. Despite high levels of Internet use and participation in Facebook and similar types of information, the conventional word-of-mouth, combined with internal information (from people's minds), are still decisive factors for destination choice relative to such a widely known and mainstream location with high numbers of international summer holidaymakers. Results here are in line with Murray (1991), who points towards the importance of internal sources to service consumers. Findings from the Mallorca survey also contribute to question the previously assumed high relevance of electronic word-of-mouth (e.g., Litvin et al., 2008) in relation to destination choice when it comes to such a popular and much-visited area for summer holidaymaking. It is also important to consider possible differences in social media adoption and patterns of use in specific national markets (Gretzel et al., 2008). There were considerable differences in self-reported assessments of importance of information sources between those tourists who had made use of electronic social media for their tour and their fellow holidaymakers. It has been shown that social media users to a larger extent than other tourists emphasised several information sources for their decision to travel to Mallorca; reports in news media, airline websites, websites of tourism organisations in Spain, tourist blogs, information through Facebook and other information passed directly from acquaintances or family. The present study thus confirms the assumption of Morrison et al. (2001), that persons interconnected through electronic social media make more intense use of the Web. This is further underlined by a common impression of Facebook as a ‘sticky’ site, where users spend quite a lot of their time. Looking at importance of information sources in relation to visitors' previous experience with Mallorca, the only statistically significant differences were that repeaters found their own experience more important and information from acquaintances/family and tour operator/travel agency websites less important than did first-timers. The few differences in emphasis on information sources for destination choice between firsttimers and those tourists who had been to Mallorca before seem more or less in line with Lehto et al. (2004), who found that tourists' information search endeavours are not necessarily reduced as first-hand experience with a destination increases. The quite similar emphasis on several information sources by first-timers and repeaters may also be related to general cultural acquaintance of Nordic tourists with famous destinations like Mallorca, from organic sources. Still, as Mallorca is so well-known and much-visited by Scandinavians, this opens the possibility that a large proportion of prospective Nordic visitors can receive advice on this destination both through face-to-face conversations within trusted networks and through electronic social networks such as Facebook. In the global media age, it has been suggested that tourists form a sense of place owing to intensive cultural information (Campbell, 2005). Perceptions and knowledge of a destination are not conceived only in the course of actual visits but also through media. Due to present-day media proliferation and saturation, distinctions between first-timers and repeaters may turn out to be blurred in contexts of generally famous and muchvisited destinations.

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It has been shown that only 12% of the respondents here found tourist blogs to be important for destination decision-making. Compared to other types of social media such as micro-blogging sites and media sharing sites, blogging has received much attention in tourism research during the noughties (e.g., Enoch & Grossman, 2010; Volo, 2010; Wenger, 2008). There has been a documented expansion of travel blogs and tourism blogging sites on the Internet. However, poor quality of content and low credibility may possibly be among the reasons why only very few Mallorca tourists from Denmark and Norway found blogs important for their destination decision-making (cf. Mack et al., 2008; Volo, 2010; Wenger, 2008). In relation to previous publications (e.g., O'Connor, 2010), it may seem surprising that hotel/apartment enterprise websites were considered important for destination choice to more than half of the respondents. In social media literature, it is a common assumption that Web 2.0 is surpassing Web 1.0 (Qualman, 2009). Some authors have pointed out how traditional tourism suppliers need to change their websites and Web strategies and embrace social media to a much larger extent if they do not want to risk becoming irrelevant (Xiang & Gretzel, 2010). The study shows that the Web 1.0 is still crucial to destination decision-making in this situation of a renowned location. Results indicate that the two types of Web are not substituting each other; they are rather complementary in this type of context. Furthermore, online information provided by business enterprises seems to have large impact on choices of holiday location for Mallorca visitors. This indicates that marketer-dominated sources (e.g., Engel et al., 1986) that originate from efforts of tourism firms may have a predominant position in tourists' destination decision-making in the national markets analysed in this study. That the principal component entitled ‘Web 1.0 enterprise sources’ accounted for most of the variance, indicates that Web 1.0 sources prevail in the more interactive digital era. This finding stands in contrast to some popular discourses about electronic social media, which consider evolution of the Web as a threat to the power of organisations (e.g., Shih, 2009). Particularly, results of the present study point to high relevance of accommodation for destination choice, in this case of a mature and well-known destination. Many experienced and independent holidaymakers seem to be more oriented towards accommodation than destination areas as such. For proportions of tourists, hotels and resorts increasingly appear as ‘destinations’ in their own right, the advance of cruise tourism being a prime example of this development (e.g., Wood, 2000). For the international Scandinavian holidaymakers in the present context, information intensity and utilitarian values (Cho & Jang, 2008) seem more relevant than socialisation opportunities for destination choice when it comes to such a generally well-known and much-visited area. While social media platforms are characterised by ‘techspressive’ features and provide pleasure, emotional experiences and social affirmation (Kozinets, 2008), traditional industry websites are mainly providers of product information. Hedonic and aesthetic aspects have previously been identified as vital to tourism information search (e.g., Parrinello, 1993; Vogt et al., 1993). Before heavily devoting themselves to social media initiatives, tourism suppliers in this and similar contexts might thus consider the diverse degrees of relevance of information versus social interactivity for Web strategies. Focusing on Web 1.0 platforms seems to increase sales in relation to such a widely popular and mature destination area, while electronic social media such as Facebook may be more useful to addressing public relations, awareness and the good reputation of enterprises in this type of context. As mentioned previously, an unexpected result of this study is the low importance of destination marketing organisations' websites (tourism organisations in Spain) for destination decision-making. These organisations were on the same low level as tourist blogs (not acquaintances), as only 11% found them important. Their relevance is thus much lower than that of business sources. Previous tourism literature has taken for granted a crucial role for destination organisations in coordination of

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marketing and promotion activities (e.g., Cai et al., 2009; Morgan et al., 2009). Tourist behaviour revealed here challenges the assumed influence of these organisations on present-day individual tourism to such generally familiar holiday destination areas. Results thus indicate that social media and evolution of the Web may contribute to the reshaping of not only technological mediation (Jansson, 2002) but also the positions of e-tourism intermediaries (Buhalis & Licata, 2002). There were few differences in use of information sources in relation to customary background variables. It has been shown that women find hotel/apartment websites more important than men. Also, tourists with higher education rely less on information acquired through Facebook, tour operator/travel agency websites and airline websites than do their less-educated fellow passengers. This indicates mostly quite similar patterns of international tourists' on-line information behaviour across educational levels and gender differences for this study's destination area. It is also a further indication that ICT skills are widely and quite evenly distributed among such international holidaymakers from Norway and Denmark even though information passed through Facebook is more emphasised by younger people in relation to destination choice in the present context. A principal component correlated with a tendency to emphasise independent and mainly non-enterprise sources underscores the importance of information independency to some tourists (cf. Dann, 1996; Gartner, 1993). Independence from corporate interests and an open and participatory culture are considered to be main characteristics of social media platforms (e.g., Qualman, 2009; Zarrella, 2010). The principal component entitled ‘social media and consumer generated content’ was associated with emphasis on information procured through Facebook and tourist blogs (not acquaintances). Even if this component accounted for only 13% of the variance, it clearly indicates the advance of social media in relation to tourism practises. It also supports some previous studies by showing that social media are increasingly shaping emerging tourism online cultures (Tussyadiah & Fesenmaier, 2009). Those holidaymakers who had employed information from electronic social media for some holiday decisions other than destination choice, were also asked how they rated importance of social media in these contexts. Only 5% of the sample found that knowledge passed by social media was important for aspects such as accommodation, eating places, and holiday activities. These findings underline the fact that a large proportion of the respondents are indeed independent tourists. 6.1. Limitations and future research Due to the high diversity and wide span of the Web 2.0, a methodological approach often adopted in tourism research is to focus on some specific type of electronic social media (e.g., Bronner & de Hoog, 2011; Tussyadiah & Fesenmaier, 2009). This is also the case of this study. Here, social networks and blogs were prioritised. Therefore, a limitation is that some other popular social media types such as review sites like TripAdvisor, media-sharing sites like YouTube, or microblogging sites like Twitter were not included as particular survey items for destination choice. Since the study measures tourists' subjective knowledge, some restriction also lies with retrospective self-report measures of information sources and potential recall bias or memory effect. It is important to keep in mind that the relatively low relevance of destination marketing organisations' sites and social media revealed here applies to the case of a destination area that is well-known and popular in the tourists' home countries. Moreover, one should take into consideration that many destination websites have poor performance in search engine results and they also have on-line competition from unofficial travel sites promoting specific destinations. Furthermore, Mallorca may be considered by Scandinavians as a summer holiday location with relatively low risk and uncertainty levels, which are variables that also have been found to impact on information search patterns (McCleary &

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