Editorial

Citation

Teare, R., Baloglu, S. and Bowen, J. (2015), "Editorial", Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes, Vol. 7 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/WHATT-03-2015-0019

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes, Volume 7, Issue 3

The General Manager of an All-Inclusive resort on the Caribbean island of St. Maarten recently told me about the role that social media now plays in his daily operations. I asked him why his resort had won so many awards during the past year and he said that, in part, it is because his guest satisfaction system is highly responsive to TripAdvisor feedback. Given the growing influence of social media, this timely theme issue explores its current and likely impact on hospitality and tourism. I would like to thank Seyhmus Baloglu, John Bowen and their team for evaluating the role of social media based on some innovative research and trends analysis. It is a particular pleasure to welcome John back as a Theme Editor, as he has played a very supportive role in the development of this journal since its inception.

Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes (WHATT) aims to make a practical and theoretical contribution to hospitality and tourism development, and we seek to do this by using a key question to focus attention on an industry issue. If you would like to contribute to our work by serving as a WHATT Theme Editor, do please contact me.

Teare Richard - Managing Editor, WHATT

What is the current and future impact of social media on hospitality and tourism?

This Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes (WHATT) issue investigates the ways in which social media is currently impacting and will likely continue to affect the tourism and hospitality industry. The expansion of social media means that geography no longer isolates customers from other customers. User-generated content on TripAdvisor is a powerful tool. Travellers use it to choose hotels or restaurants based on reviews by past customers. Employee communities are bringing employees of multinational companies together. Team members share best practices on sites like Hilton’s H360, and Hilton builds a strong culture among its team members. Team members also participate in worldwide contests, showing their outcomes through photos and videos posted on the site. Social media is changing how people communicate, participate and collaborate. This issue provides a glimpse into how social media is used, should be used and will be used by travellers and travel-related companies across the globe.

In the first article, Bowen provides an industry overview of the trends related to the consumer use of social media by looking at industry-related research and findings. He then examines the implications of social media for the industry through the identification of five major forces on social media. This article synthesizes current thought by industry leaders and academic research to provide a pragmatic view of how social media is currently affecting the travel industry, and how it will do so in the future.

In the second article, Özgen and Kozak examine TripAdvisor practices of select hotel businesses operating in Istanbul, Turkey. They have found that TripAdvisor practices show some variations due to hotel class – five-star, three-star and municipality-licensed properties. For example, five-star properties respond to guest comments by either a general manager or dedicated personnel in shorter time as compared to other properties. Municipality-licensed properties use TripAdvisor more like a promotional tool to deal with seasonality. The main concern of the hotels interviewed in the study was fake reviews and how to deal with them.

In the third article, Lee and Blum conducted research to better understand and interpret guests’ comments on TripAdvisor and managers’ responses. The data for this study consisted of publicly available information from the TripAdvisor Web site. The study looked at responses provided by managers across different star ratings of hotels. One interesting finding of the study was consumers provided nine positive reviews for every two negative reviews. The study found that managers often did not respond to negative postings and their responses were not customized but tended to be just a thank you.

In the fourth article, Ghiselli and Ma investigate the use of social media by restaurants in China. The study provides insight into how consumers use and want to use social media, and a comparison of how Chinese companies and multinational companies use social media. The study found that the set of social media platforms used by the Chinese consumer is very different than those used by consumers in North America. The authors revealed that multinational companies’ use of social media suffered because of a lack of understanding of the social media preferences of the Chinese consumer. This study gives insight into how to effectively use social media in this rapidly growing market.

In the fifth article, Leung and Baloglu propose and test a model to examine the impact of three different processes of social influence – compliance, identification and internalization – on consumer attitudes and behavior on hotel Facebook pages. Their findings suggest the attitude toward a hotel’s Facebook page is influenced by the page’s congruency with consumers’ value systems and personal identity with other users, rather than external rewards. If potential customers see a match between their values and a hotel brand, as well as hotel Facebook group, their attitude toward the Web site will be strengthened. Hotels should have very interactive sites for users and create a community with a clear identity, so users can relate to group members and establish and maintain satisfying relationships with them.

In the sixth article, Kwok et al. document a descriptive study as to how restaurants’ B2C communication strategies evolved on Facebook over time and how customers’ reactions to a variety of Facebook messages changed over time. The authors conclude that, for effective customer engagement, restaurants should consistently post messages, use high-quality visuals and connect Facebook with other photo-based social media tools such as Instagram and Pinterest.

In the seventh article, Atwood and Morosan provide a deeper understanding of the effective use of Facebook within the hotel industry. The authors used the Elaboration Likelihood Model as a theoretical foundation for their research. They explored current Facebook practices within the hotel industry. The research found that consumer attitudes are affected by the source credibility, but not by the level of elaboration.

The summary article by the theme editors takes a look at common themes that can be found in the articles in this collection. In addition to identifying the common themes, the article also looks for unique contributions that could indicate future trends related to social media.

These studies represent research conducted in Asia, Europe and North America. They provide both implications for managers and ideas for future research. If you are a manager, you will find ideas to improve your operation, without sacrificing your budget. For researchers, we are confident that the findings in these articles along with suggestions for future research will spawn future research.

Seyhmus Baloglu and John Bowen - Theme Editors

About the Theme Editors

Seyhmus Baloglu is a Professor and Harrah Distinguished Chair in the William F. Harrah Hotel College at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). His research interests and scholarly activities revolve around branding, customer loyalty, data mining, online consumer behaviour, self-service technology and green and sustainable practices in the hospitality industry. He has published extensively on these and other topics and received grants, contracts and consulting projects from tourism destinations, gaming resorts, hotels, airports, nightclubs and supply chain organizations. He has often been included in article citation reports as one of the significant contributors to the hospitality and tourism literature, and his work has been cited extensively across multiple disciplines and fields. Dr Baloglu is the recipient of numerous research, teaching and service awards.

John Bowen began his career in food and beverage working in hotels, restaurants and as the corporate F&B manager for a hotel management company. He is the Dean of the Conrad N. Hilton College at the University of Houston and is the co-author with Philip Kotler and James Makens of Marketing for Hospitality and Tourism, the bestselling hospitality marketing textbook in the world, published in nine languages. His academic publications have been recognized three times as the best article in hospitality and tourism in the year they were published and are among the most widely cited in their area. He is a recipient of the prestigious John Wiley and Sons Award that recognizes lifetime research achievements and has been recognized as one of the five most influential professors in hospitality management. He holds a BS in Hotel Administration from Cornell University, an MS and MBA from Corpus Christi State University and a PhD in Marketing from Texas A&M University.