Evaluating Research Methods on Travel Blogs

Abstract

The increase of online diaries, or blogs, has not only affected communication channels, but also the way tourism destinations are being promoted and consumed. To date, few studies have focused on the content of travel blogs as a rich source of destination marketing information. A review of the current research on travel blogs revealed that the two most popular research methods used to analyze the content of online diaries are content analysis and narrative analysis. This paper provides a discussion of the strengths, weaknesses and implications of using content analysis and narrative analysis on travel blogs. After a presentation of alternative research methods on travel blogs, the authors present industry and methodological implications related to the nature of online diaries.

The Battle For Open How openness won and why it doesn’t feel like victory

“…He investigated how influential spending data was on local council decisions (Hirst 2013), or who was tweeting links relating to a BBC television programme and how they were connected (Hirst 2012). Another approach is to use public writing as a textual source; for instance, travel blogs have proved to be a rich seam of research data, producing articles on identity (Kane 2012), marketing (Schmallegger and Carson 2008) and methodology (Banyai and Glover 2012).…”

Traveller-Generated Contents for Destination Image Formation: Mainland China Travellers to Taiwan as a Case Study

“…However, limited studies have focused on the tourism content of TGC as a source for analysing the DI of travellers (Banyai & Glover, 2012;Weaver & Lawton, 2013). Although many studies have focused on the importance of cognitive and affective images that affect DI formation, few studies have utilized travel blogs to analyse post-travel behaviour and positive/negative image formation based on travellers' experiences.…”

“…Although many studies have focused on the importance of cognitive and affective images that affect DI formation, few studies have utilized travel blogs to analyse post-travel behaviour and positive/negative image formation based on travellers' experiences. In general, travel blogs provide an opportunity for readers to interpret travellers' experiences and journeys (Banyai & Glover, 2012), and these interpretations can affect other travellers' activities at a certain destination. Therefore, the objectives of this study are threefold: (1) analyse the DI of Taiwan based on travellers' blogs from Mainland China, (2) examine the images of attractions and activities in Taiwan and (3) investigate travellers'DI formation based on positive/negative images.…”

Soft Power of Seoul City - The Perceived Image of Seoul by Chinese Visitors

“…The increasing number of blogs not only has an effect on communication channels but also represents a new way of promoting destinations. With economic development and technological progress, tourism researchers are increasingly realizing the value of blogs as a tool for collecting data (Banyai & Glover, 2012). However, the majority of these studies are based on the researcher's own country or research on another country without using that country's native language (Sun, Ryan & Pan, 2015).…”