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Trust and Involvement in Tourism Social Media and Web-Based Travel Information Sources

“…In this study, review sites such as TripAdvisor, a type of social media with weak social cues, appears as the most trustworthy type of social media platform. Reviewers are very often anonymous and social cues in review sites are much weaker than in, for example, social networks (Munar, 2010). In the case of sites such as TripAdvisor and Hotels.com, trust perception may be related to successful corporate branding of these social media sites (Gefen, 2000).…”

“…Digitisation and sharing of feelings has been called "broadcasting culture" (Buss & Strauss, 2009) or "culture of exposure" (Munar, 2010). Although socio-emotional communication may be easier face to face, it is as well common and successful in digital media as well (Baym, 2010).…”

“…Electronic social networks usually provide social cues that are richer than in other types of platforms such as review sites or media-sharing sites. These networks differ from other interactive media such as wikis also because they augment the making of relationships among their users (Buss & Strauss, 2009) and invite to diverse self-biographical expressions (Munar, 2010). Often, communication about travel experiences on a social network is contextualised by personal information.…”

“…However, blogs seem not to be as credible as direct word-of-mouth (Mack et al, 2008) and the quality of tourists' contributions on this medium has been questioned (Volo, 2010;Wenger, 2008). Also, microblogging is a popular form of social media communication and news broadcast, enhancing immediate and real-time communication (Munar, 2010;Zarrella, 2010).…”

“…As digitised content can be widely available, it may additionally transform what previously were mainly private social experiences of knowledge sharing into global databases of consumer information that can be managed and analysed by tourism firms and organisations. Finally, Webbased platforms allow for "real-time" recording and sharing of tourism experiences and they are also part of the development of personal virtual identities (Munar, 2010).…”