Proceedings of 7th Asia-Pacific Business Research Conference
25 - 26 August 2014, Bayview Hotel, Singapore ISBN: 978-1-922069-58-0
A Survey of Social Media Use by Travellers Visiting Thailand
Voraphan Raungpaka * and Thanachart Ritbumroong **
Social media offers a platform for travellers to share their information about
experiences and opinions about their vacation trips. This information is, in
turn, used by travellers in organizing and taking vacation trips. This research
provides empirical evidences to test theoretical model explaining the use of
social media by travellers during their vacation trips. Three theoretical
antecedents were identified from previous literature including benefits, costs,
and incentives of using social media that explain use of social media in
organizing and taking vacation trips. A total of 394 questionnaires were
collected from travellers who visited Thailand. Rather asking respondent to
think back about what they did during their trips, a prospective approach of
data collection employed in this research would help increase the degree of
validity. The results showed that benefits and incentives of using social
media were two main significant antecedents of the social media use.
Travelling social media sites need to address benefits of using social media
and offer incentives to users.
1. Introduction
Social media has become a mean for travellers to search for information (Leung et al.,
2013). It plays an important role in influencing how travellers plan their trips such as a
place to stay or a place to visit. In order to enhance the quality of tour, travellers searched
information from sources such as newspaper, magazines, guidebooks, and tourism
agencies (Jacobsen and Munar, 2012). With the advancement of information technology,
travellers have shifted from these traditional sources and pay more attention to information
from social media websites. As Xiang and Gretzel (2010) posited that social media
constituted to the online tourism domain by making travel information largely available,
travellers, the impact of social media on tourism industry is quite apparent. Travellers
share their information about experiences and opinions on social media sites. They also
use this information for planning their trip and evaluate their choices of place to go or stay.
New business models have introduced owing to the popularity of social media in this
industry. Airbnb (https://www.airbnb.com/) has launched the social media site allowing
people to post their place for rent on the website. It utilized the power of social media by
using the consumers’ profiles as part of the product offering (Yannopoulou et al., 2013).
TripAdvisor (http://www.tripadvisor.com/) is a website allowing travellers to connect with
their friends and share their traveling experiences, suggestions, or advices (Miguéns et al.,
2008). Tuominen (2011) conducted a study to investigate the influence of TripAdvisor on
hotel performance. He found that there are correlations between hotel performance and
the number of reviews given and with the ratings of the reviews. The findings imply the
important role of social media websites on influencing travellers’ decisions. Tourism
businesses are now facing challenges resulting from the increasing usage of social media.
Parra-López (2011) argued that understanding the antecedents of traveler’s use of social
media is vital for organization managers and destination policy makers. They proposed a
theoretical model explaining intention to use social media in organizing and taking vacation
trips. Three main antecedents of this intention were hypothesized as benefits of use, costs
of use, and incentives on use and adoption. The results of analysis showed that the
*Dr. Voraphan Raungpaka, College of Management, Mahidol University, Thailand.
Email: voraphan.rau@mahidol.ac.th
**Dr. Thanachart Ritbumroong, Graduate School of Management and Innovation, King Mongkut's University of
Technology Thonburi, Thailand, Email: thanachart.ritbumroong@gmail.com
Proceedings of 7th Asia-Pacific Business Research Conference
25 - 26 August 2014, Bayview Hotel, Singapore ISBN: 978-1-922069-58-0
intention to use was determined only by perceived benefits of use and incentives. This
study attempts to validate this model by testing hypothesized relationships between the
three antecedents and actual use of social media by travellers. Data were collected from
travellers during their trip in Thailand. By using actual usage data, this model can be
verified and revised to reflect travellers’ real behaviors.
2. Literature Review
This study adopted and modified the theoretical model proposed by Parra-López et al.
(2011) explaining the antecedents of intention to use social media in organizing and taking
vacation trips. Three theoretical antecedents were identified from previous literature
including benefits, costs, and incentives of using social media. This research employed
actual use of social media as the dependent variable instead of intention to use social
media in organizing and taking vacation trips. As there are dimensions of each construct in
this model (discussed in the following sections), the research model in this study is
conceptualized as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Research Model
Function
al
Social
Benefits
H1
Hedonic
Effort
H2
Difficulty
Costs
Use
Privacy
H3
Predispositio
n
Trust
Altruism
Access
Environmen
t
Incentive
s
Proceedings of 7th Asia-Pacific Business Research Conference
25 - 26 August 2014, Bayview Hotel, Singapore ISBN: 978-1-922069-58-0
2.1 Use of Social Media in Organizing and Taking Vacation Trips
Fotis et al. (2012) investigated the use of social media by travellers during the holiday
planning process. A total of 346 respondents completed online questionnaire survey. The
results showed that most respondents used at least one social media website during the
last 12 months. They classified the travel planning process into three stages; before,
during, and after the trip. The findings suggested that social media was used mostly after
the trip to share experiences and photos with friends and other travellers. They also found
evidences showing the influence of social media on holiday planning process. The results
of their work provided significant implications regarding the impacts of social media usage
on travel planning. Nevertheless, the study did not provide explanations on what factors
influent the use of social media in planning holiday trips. This study attempted to
understand what influent travellers to use social media in organizing and taking vacation
trips.
2.2 Benefits of Using Social Media
The model proposed by Parra-López et al. (2011) was developed from the work of Wang
and Fesenmaier (2004a) which focused on needs of members to participate in online
travel communities. These needs were identified as functional needs, social needs,
psychological needs, and hedonic needs. Functional needs involve fulfillment of specific
activities such as information seeking, information exchange, and information sharing.
Social needs deal with communication and relationship among members. Psychological
needs are fulfillment related to a sense of belonging, identity expression, and a sense of
affiliation. Hedonic needs cover needs for enjoyment and entertainment purposes. In the
work of Parra-López et al. (2011), these four fundamental needs were conceptualized as
benefits of using social media including functional benefits, social benefits, and
psychological and hedonic benefits.
Functional benefits were operationalized to definitions discussed in previous literature
(Goldsmith and Horowitz, 2006, Gretzel et al., 2007, Hyan Yoo and Gretzel, 2008, Wang
and Fesenmaier, 2004b). These benefits involve with activities related to acquiring and
sharing information specifically to organizing and taking trips. Definitions of social benefits
refer to how travellers use social media to connect with others with similar interests
(Jeong, 2008, Wang and Fesenmaier, 2004b). Parra-López et al. (2011) have combined
psychological and hedonic needs as one common type of benefits dealing with feeling and
psychological effects from using social media. In this regard, the following hypothesis will
be tested.
Hypothesis H1:
Benefits of using social media is positively related to actual use of
social media in organizing and taking vacation trips
2.3 Costs of Using Social Media
Parra-López et al. (2011) included a set of variables related to costs of using social media.
They were hypothesized to have negative effects on usage intention. Three types of costs
were derived from previous literature to be incorporated into costs of using social media;
effort costs, difficulty of use, and loss of privacy. Effort costs were referred from the works
of Miguéns et al. (2008) and Patterson and Smith (2001). These costs refer to personal
effort, time, and monetary spent using social media for organizing and taking trips. Another
type of costs is difficulty of use. It is argued that complexity and difficulty in using social
media would discourage travellers to share their experiences online (Gefen and Straub,
Proceedings of 7th Asia-Pacific Business Research Conference
25 - 26 August 2014, Bayview Hotel, Singapore ISBN: 978-1-922069-58-0
2000, Lee et al., 2003). In addition to effort costs and difficulty of use, loss of privacy is
another concern of travellers in using social media. Risk of losing privacy would undermine
social media use of travellers (Gross and Acquisti, 2005). It can be presumed that costs of
using media could discourage travellers to use social media in planning their trips. Hence,
the following hypothesis will be tested.
Hypothesis H2:
Costs of using social media is positively related to actual use of social
media in organizing and taking vacation trips
2.4 Incentives of Using Social Media
Parra-López et al. (2011) included incentives of using social media as one of main
constructs influencing the use of social media in organizing and taking vacation trips. The
incentives include predisposition, trust, altruism, access, socio-technical environment subconstructs. Predisposition incentives refer to the level of knowledge and skills of travellers
allowing them to use social media sites to organize and take their trips easily (Lee et al.,
2009). Trust has been largely discussed in previous studies to affect social media usage
(Chen, 2006). It was argued to influence social media in the tourism context. Altruism
incentives are associated to the needs to contribute to online society (Batson et al., 2002).
Accessibility is one of factors important to encourage people to share online (Wasko and
Faraj, 2005). It is also included as one of the incentives of using social media in the
travelling context. Lastly, socio-technical environment was also considered as incentives to
encourage travellers in using social media in organizing and taking vacation trips. The
technological level would contribute to the use of social media. (Chung and Buhalis, 2008).
Thus, the influential role of these incentives will be hypothesized as following.
Hypothesis H3:
Incentives of using social media is positively related to actual use of
social media in organizing and taking vacation trips
3. The Methodology
This research is part of a group assignment in Statistics and Business Research
Methodology at Srinakharinwirot University, Thailand (One of the authors taught this
course). Students were assigned to collect real data from the same set of questionnaires
and present the findings by using statistics techniques which they learned in the class.
They collected data from travellers who visited Thailand by explaining the questionnaire
and asking them to provide their answers. A total of 394 complete questionnaires were
acquired. Data collected by students in the class were consolidated and used to test the
research framework proposed in this paper. Survey instruments were developed based on
previous studies. Items measuring use of social media were adopted from Fotis et al.
(2012). Items for the three antecedents were from Parra-López et al. (2011).
4. The Findings
A PLS approach to Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with the use of smartPLS was
employed to test the proposed research framework. The data analysis followed the
guidelines recommended by Henseler et al. (2009). All measurement models were
assessed for their reliability. Composite reliability and AVE used to assess the reliability
and validity of scales in path models from the three cases. Composite reliability and AVE
are suggested not to be lower than 0.6 and 0.5, respectively. Details of the reliability
assessment will be furnished upon request. Properties of all constructs are reported in
Proceedings of 7th Asia-Pacific Business Research Conference
25 - 26 August 2014, Bayview Hotel, Singapore ISBN: 978-1-922069-58-0
Table 1 and Table 2. Although the sub-constructs passed the criteria suggested, AVE of
second-order constructs did not meet the threshold. This suggests a problem with
instruments. Some questions may need to be refined to develop a more robust
measurement model.
The results of data analysis show that COSTS is found not to be significantly related to
USAGE (p-value = 0.018). Benefits and Incentives appear to be two significant
determinant of social media usage of travellers visiting Thailand (p-value = 0.00 and 0.00,
respectively).
Table 1: Properties of the first order constructs
Construct
Item
Loading
Functional benefit
BFUNC1
BFUNC2
BFUNC3
BSOC1
BSOC2
BSOC3
BHED1
BHED2
CEFF1
CEFF2
CEFF3
CDIFF
CPRIV1
CPRIV2
CPRIV3
IPRD1
IPRD2
IPRD3
CDIFF
ITRS1
ITRS2
IALT1
IALT2
IALT3
IACC1
IACC2
IACC3
IENV1
IENV2
Usage1
Usage2
Usage3
0.89
0.88
0.86
0.84
080
0.44
0.90
0.85
0.82
0.82
0.79
1.00
0.78
0.74
0.79
0.85
0.86
0.80
1.00
0.90
0.88
0.43
0.82
0.82
0.79
0.51
0.80
0.90
0.90
0.81
0.74
0.65
Social benefit
Psychological and hedonic
benefit
Effort costs
Difficulty costs
Privacy costs
Predisposition incentives
Difficulty costs
Trust incentives
Altruism incentives
Access incentives
Environment incentives
Usage
Composite
Reliability
0.907
0.765
0.745
0.510
0.865
0.763
0.852
0.658
1.00
0.805
1.00
0.579
0.874
0.698
1.00
0.884
1.00
0.792
0.746
0.513
0.749
0.507
0.892
0.805
0.779
0.542
AVE
Proceedings of 7th Asia-Pacific Business Research Conference
25 - 26 August 2014, Bayview Hotel, Singapore ISBN: 978-1-922069-58-0
Table 2: Second order constructs
Item
CR
AVE
BFUNC
BSOC
BHED
CEFF
CDIFF
CPRIV
IPRD1
ITRS1
IALT3
IACC3
IENV2
BENEF
0.871
0.469
0.86
0.79
0.85
COSTS
0.844
0.438
INCENT
0.857
0.361
0.86
0.58
0.86
0.74
0.64
0.75
0.82
0.77
Figure 2: Results of model testing
Benefit
Costs
Incentive
0.253**
-0.046 ns
Usage
0.453**
* p < 0.01, ** p < 0.05, ns : non-significant at the 0.05 level
5. Summary and Conclusions
This research attempted to continue the work of Parra-López et al. (2011) by testing their
proposed model using actual use of social media in organizing and planning vacation trips.
With the actual use as the dependent variable, the research model is re-tested and verified
to be more robust in explaining and predicting use of social media in travel planning. Data
were collected from travellers while they were travelling in Thailand. SEM was employed to
test the research model. The results were similar to the findings in the work of Parra-López
et al. (2011). Only benefits and incentives of using social media were found to be
significant determinants of social media use in vacation planning.
The results suggest that travellers found social media to be beneficial in organizing their
trips. Incentives to use social media also play an important role in encourage travellers to
utilize benefits of social media to help them better plan their trips. It is interesting to see
that costs were not significantly associated to social media use. This probably owe to the
fact that social media use is quite ubiquitous. Costs of using social media may be
immaterial to travellers.
Proceedings of 7th Asia-Pacific Business Research Conference
25 - 26 August 2014, Bayview Hotel, Singapore ISBN: 978-1-922069-58-0
The findings offer some managerial implications. Business needs to consider three
fundamental needs including functional needs, social needs, and psychological and
hedonic needs by providing user with experiences to address all these needs. Moreover,
travelling social media sites need to enable users to easily share their experiences and
photos online during their trip planning process. This would address the perspective of
social benefits and altruism incentives which will encourage the level of social media use.
Two limitations of this study should be noted. Firstly, respondents were only travellers who
visited Thailand. This may limit generalizability. Future research should conduct a study to
cover a broader scope of travellers in terms of a geographical context. Secondly, only
questionnaire survey was employed to collect data. A qualitative research method may be
considered to gain deeper understanding how travellers use social media for their vacation
trips. This research provides empirical evidences to validate the theoretical model
explaining use of social media in organizing and planning vacation trips. Future research
may include other factors to the model in order to enhance the robustness of this model.
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