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Travel Opinion Leaders and Seekers

  • Conference paper
Book cover Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2011

Abstract

While opinion leadership has been recognized as important in tourism, there has been very little empirical research investigating the phenomenon. Given new developments in social media technologies, it is especially important to understand whether travel opinion leadership and seeking are drivers of specific social media perceptions and behaviours. Based on an online survey of US online travellers, this paper seeks to identify travel opinion leaders and seekers and their characteristics. Further, the research conducted investigated linkages between travel opinion leadership/ seeking and travel social media use. The findings suggest that travel opinion leadership and seeking are distinct but connected. Both opinion leaders and seekers are technology savvy, young, educated, involved in travel planning and engaged in social media use for travel. What distinguishes opinion leaders is their greater travel experience and greater trust in official sources of travel information.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Communication, William Paterson University, USA

    Kyung-Hyan Yoo

  2. Laboratory for Intelligent Systems in Tourism, Texas A&M University, USA

    Ulrike Gretzel

  3. National Laboratory for Tourism and eCommerce, Temple University, USA

    Florian Zach

Authors
  1. Kyung-Hyan Yoo
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  2. Ulrike Gretzel
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  3. Florian Zach
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Hotel & Tourism Management, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China

    Rob Law

  2. European Tourism Research Inst. (ETOUR), Mid Sweden University, Östersund, Sweden

    Matthias Fuchs

  3. Faculty of Computer Science, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Bozen-Bolzano, Italy

    Francesco Ricci

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© 2011 Springer-Verlag/Wien

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Yoo, KH., Gretzel, U., Zach, F. (2011). Travel Opinion Leaders and Seekers. In: Law, R., Fuchs, M., Ricci, F. (eds) Information and Communication Technologies in Tourism 2011. Springer, Vienna. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7091-0503-0_42

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7091-0503-0_42

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Vienna

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-7091-0502-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-7091-0503-0

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