The shifting advertising environment for the travel industry

Recent data from a Frommer’s Unlimited report indicate that online sources are considered the most influential in travel planning among respondents.  This information is not necessarily surprising considering the rise of online consumer recommendation sites and the amount of practical advice offered for a countless number of products.  Though not surprising, it is important to look into the aspects that lead users to adopt this information and discover how these reviews affect the marketing of travel destinations, services, and activities.  This essay explores the current media environment in the travel industry, looking for answers about where people are getting their travel information, how much people interact with others regarding travel, and what may lie ahead for traditional forms of media like travel guide book and advertising. Using media credibility and source credibility models as a guide, this essay looks at the online opinion sites to understand the mechanisms that affect how people evaluate sources of information (and then use that information to make purchase decisions).  The study poses five main research questions dealing with the concepts of “expertise,” comfort with social media, personal identification with unknown others online, advertising displacement and demographic preferences that try to help illustrate the number of aspects present in this shifting media environment.  Though more research is suggested to arrive at more conclusive answers for these questions, the results of the study provide an interesting direction for future research and suggest a media trajectory for the travel advertising and marketing industry. smith_713_fa09_essay

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