Customer satisfaction is a concept that can be influenced by many variables apart from tourists’ Country of Origin (COO). Research in tourism focuses more and more on topics in the social sciences; more into the subjective influences; mostly on decision making, attitude and perception, to name a few.

There are little to no existing literature which focuses on the study of the influence of the economic development of tourists’ COO on customer satisfaction in the hospitality industry. It is the level of this influence that propel customers to respond to the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of their experiences by writing online reviews.

We focused specifically on guests who stayed at 2-5-star hotels in the city of Salzburg and retrieved over 30,000 reviews from guests originating from countries across the globe. It is here that we acknowledge that tourist’s COO’s economic status does significantly influence customer satisfaction – revealed by the study.

Additionally, we found that high levels of Global Competitive Index (GDI) and Human Development Index (HDI) do have a positive association with the levels of customer satisfaction. The most notable finding is that the results show that tourists from countries with a high economic level often show high levels of satisfaction, though many researchers argue the negative association.

During our review of literature, evidence arose where customers who purchased consumer goods are very much affected or influenced by the COO of the product, for instance: a customer would prefer to by a German brand car instead of a Japanese. We ultimately deduce that if the products’ COO influences consumers’ satisfaction, then the same COO factor may have some level of influence on their satisfaction level when they travel – hence our research topic. It is this underlying factor of influence that drives this research, where the need is necessary for hoteliers and tourism professionals to be aware of this fact and address it in a way to optimize the customer satisfaction level of their guests. Our research therefore, provides a legitimate discussion about our conceptual framework: the influence of the economic development of tourists’ COO on customer satisfaction.

The findings can be used by hotel management and tourism marketeers as a tool by which relevant strategies can be employed to better understand customers’ expected behaviour during the customer journey which relates to predefined satisfaction criteria on service expectations. We also hope to motivate tourism research students to expand the scope of research in the realm of social sciences that affects the customer satisfaction and experience.

Feel free to view our YouTube video:

OR read our full article in the ISCONTOUR 2018 publications.

Travelers have a never-ending amount of choices where to  go on holiday – which makes the decision hard and popular  destinations have the advantage of already existing awareness. For less well-known destinations (or tourists activities), VR marketing simplifies the decision-making process by giving a “try before you buy” experience in providing trials.

An important question pops up:

How to design the VR experience? How to leave an impressive trial, so the potential customers would positively remember the product and become actual customers? 

Certain settings in VR or 360° videos can create a more memorable experience because the virtual environment is seen as a place rather than a sequence of images. When people decide which destination  to visit, they tend to choose the place they like over another. And here, visual and auditory settings help  to sharpen and improve the experience of that place. If the settings are optimized, it would make the VR experience more appealing to potential customers, as a result, they like the destination more, despite not having been there physically.

As for tourism businesses, VR is an increasingly important marketing tool to spread product messages and pre-visit images of the destination to motivate people to travel to there, they need to know how to best create such a video in order to gain the attention of the possible travelers and make them remember  the destination (i.e., learning effect).

In a latest research, it was found out that only auditory or auditory/visual guidance supplementing the VR video content makes no difference in the learning  outcome. Also, it points out that the use of auditory guidance only lead to a higher overall satisfaction of the viewers because the users perceive a higher understandability and usefulness of information. Moreover, it leads to an easier finding of desired points of interest.

Thus, you need to consider if a personal guide in the video is even needed – Maybe the personal guide captures all the  viewers’ attention and it is harder for them to concentrate    on the content.

And that is exactly what you as tourism business want – to have to most effective outcome of the VR video and the highest memory value of the customers for your product or destination.

Mix of personal guide and auditory-only guidance:

Watch our making-of on YouTube:

In the digital age, online photography has been reshaping the travel experiences. Particularly, the selfie phenomenon, considered as the self-portrait photography, gained a predominant role in the tourism photography and on social media platforms.

Nowadays, photographs are not only cheaper, but are also instant and easy to share within few clicks; therefore, it is clear that this phenomenon is exploded into a trend called the ‘​culture of selfies’.

A popular way for an individual to document her activities for social updates is to share the pictures. Eating a meal in a restaurant became less important than having to take a picture of that meal and let people know what we are eating, where we are eating and probably, with whom we are eating. Photographs are basically evidences for an experience. Yet, they are not about memorabilia anymore, but rather a confirmation, saying that it is exactly us who went through that experience, stressing the “been there, done that” mantra. Same goes when people travel and take selfies with tourist attractions that are usually representative of a destination.

A lot of academics discuss travel selfies as ways of self-representation and impression management. Nonetheless, very few out there put a focus on selfies with tourist attractions and more importantly, what other motives, besides the pure self-interest, could be behind those selfies. This study aims to put these two contexts – selfies and tourist attractions- together to delve into the existing literature gap.

Using a quantitative approach through a use of a survey, two main results can be signified. ​First, tourists take and post selfies because their essential desire is to establish a personal image and to gain self-esteem. In particular, selfies, which were taken at tourist attractions enhance the public image of the selfie-takers. ​

Second, it is a concern from destinations’ perspective. Namely, tourists do not intentionally promote a destination, but rather happen to do it while sharing their travel selfies on social networking platforms, which signals destinations to proactively co-create with tourists to boost their image in an authentic and creative way!

Watch us on YouTube!

Why Do We Take Selfies at Tourist Attractions  and Post Them on Socials?

An eye tracking study on TripAdvisor hotel reviews

During the first semester of our master programme, we were divided into groups and assigned each a relevant topic about e-tourism. My group, represented by Erminio, Stanislava and I, Serena, chose the topic eye tracking and tourism marketing as we strongly believed that a deep research in this field would have been fascinating and could have brought answers to significant questions concerning the area.

By means of several meetings and profound thinking we developed the final idea: we decided to focus on the investigation of what catches the user’s attention while visiting a website. More precisely, we wanted to analyse whether people are more attracted by the pictures or the reviews as well as whether people were more influenced by negative or positive review prior booking.

Since our general topic was eye tracking applied in the tourism marketing, we selected a hotel page as a website, particularly on TripAdvisor. For those who are not yet familiar with the term eye tracking, an eye tracker is a device that allows to measure both eye positions and eye movement.

Based on the literature review, the research question was formulated as follows:

Is there any difference between the impact of positive and negative comments on the final consumer while accompanied by a picture of a hotel?

 

In order to answer the above research question, we formulated the following hypotheses:

H1: People pay more attention to the reviews than to the pictures.

H2: People remember more information from negative reviews than from positive ones.

H3: People are more influenced by reviews than pictures when booking a hotel room.

We implemented the usage of the eye tracking device together with a brief questionnaire. In such manner, we aimed to gather more consistent data since we were able to compare the results of what people were claiming to look at while visiting the webpage (questionnaire) with the results of what they were actually looking at (eye tracking). Also, looking at the answers given in the questionnaire, we managed to observe whether the participants would have booked or not booked the hotel and for what reasons.

We settled two pre -tests to improve the questionnaire and the scenario introducing the eye tracking test. Having two conferences held at the Salzburg University of Applied Sciences, we had the opportunity to test numerous participants, all selected randomly.

Finally, for the purpose of our research, we managed to have 39 relevant eye tracking records and related questionnaires. In order to analyse the data, we employed two statistical programs, namely Excel and Gretl.

Our final conclusions are the following:

people pay more attention to the pictures than to the reviews (H1 rejected);

people remember more information from positive reviews than negative ones (H2 rejected);

people are more influenced by pictures than reviews when booking a hotel room (H3 rejected).

The results of this study underline the importance of the user generated content (any form of content created by the users) in shaping the consumer’s decision. Hoteliers should keep in mind that both pictures and reviews are important to obtain a positive online reputation.

You can watch us on YouTube too:

Eye-Tracking and Marketing Group

designed and conducted in cooperation with Booking.com and Expedia we offer the following elective course for our students!

Why to apply?

Tourism is considered to be one of the largest industries worldwide and has witnessed a dramatic change since the emergence of the internet. According to a survey undertaken by TripAdvisor in October 2015, 65% of users (across generations) book their accommodations online. Travel intermediaries have seen disintermediation, followed by reintermediation and new market players have entered the “agora”. Huge mergers & acquisitions are happening on a daily basis and the interconnections are hardly comprehensible.

New circumstances require a new set of skills and give room to new perspectives to all those seeking an international career in eTourism, where analytical thinking, foreign language proficiency as well as sales and negotiation skills are a great asset.

The aim of the Online Travel Distribution elective course is to bring light into this highly complex and fast changing topic, by inviting industry experts giving students the chance to
learn from leading professionals and hear which insights they share with us! The course is designed in close cooperation with our official partners Expedia and Booking.com which are as such also listed on the final certificate that the participants will obtain. Three of the trainers from the mentioned companies will provide a transfer of knowledge straight from practice. Not only does the course offer an in-depth content complementary to the  existing curriculum on the BA and MA level, but can also be seen as a sort of assessment center of two of the largest players in the field of online booking.

What can you expect?

Diverse content with a focus on market structure, analytical skills as well as a sales and communication training which are directly related to the requirements of OTAs.

With the following teachers and trainers:

• Corinna Dullnig: Hotels Senior Account Manager, booking.com
• Fritz Oberhumer: Strategic Account Director, expedia
• Wolfgang Pagl: Director of Market Management Eastern Europe, expedia
• Dominik Sobotka: further information available at: http://onmari.com/ueber-uns/ 

 Component 1: Market Structure

Market structure: Supply – Intermediaries – Demand, benefits of  intermediaries for facility owners and hotels  as well as guests.

Component 2: Analytical Skills

Business case exercise

Session1:                                                                                                                                  

• Business case introduction
• Sharing of techniques on how to build the case & build a strategy
• Research and outline of the case structure (group work)

Session2:

• Checkpoint on the progress of individual groups
• Pitch formalizing

Session3:  Pitch presentation and feedback

Component 3: Sales Training & Communication

• Theory behind sales vs. consulting
• Techniques of starting a conversation (Communication cycle) – group work with practical exercises
• Techniques of handling objections including role plays

Who can apply and how?

Bachelor level: 6th semester students (imtb/imte)

Master level: 2nd and 4th semester students

Admission requirements: GPA 2,2 or more

Please apply by submitting a letter of motivation to office.imte@fh-salzburg.ac.at

by February 28^th, 2017

Online_Travel_Distribution
For further information do not hesitate to contact us at office.imte@fh.salzburg.ac.at

This year, 5 masterstudents presented their papers at the ENTER-Conference in Rome. Here a short video why you should put effort in writing your research paper (2nd Semester – eTourism Theories and 3rd Semester eTourism Research)