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The purpose of this paper is to call for a scrutiny of the dualist approach to business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-customer (B2C) marketing in industries driven by consumer-generated content. It posits that individual consumer-centric factors are influential for B2B marketing as well in sectors such as the travel industry and investigates the determinants of tourists’ intention to use social media websites for travel planning.

Integrating constructs from IS and marketing literature, the paper proposes information quality and perceived enjoyment as antecedents of perceived usefulness, attitude and intention to use. The research model is tested using data from social media users with experience in travel planning.

Results show that perceived usefulness and information quality are stronger predictors of attitude and behavioral intention than perceived enjoyment. Enjoyment was not found to be strongly influential. Relevancy and reliability of information and its usefulness concerning travel-planning needs were found more influential.

Data were collected from social media users, raising possible issues of representativeness.

The paper offers clarity regarding antecedents of downstream user behavior which can be of significant value. Demarcations in B2B and B2C perspectives blur in the context of social media, enabling more effective integration.

The paper brings in and validates the roles of information quality and enjoyment as influencers of behavior. Identifying the travel industry as a sector having greater likelihood of B2BC convergence, the paper extends IS adoption research to user-interactive sites in the travel-planning context, which can benefit the consumer as well as the supply side.

This paper investigates the usage and trust of Chinese social media in the travel planning process (pre-trip, during-trip and post-trip) of Chinese tourists.

Through a combination of structured online survey (n = 406) and follow-up interviews, the research identifies the diversification of the demand-and-supply patterns of social media users in China, as well as the allocation of functions of social media as tools before, during and after travel.

Social media users are diverse in terms of their adoption of social media, use behaviour and scope; the levels of trust and influence; and their ultimate travel decisions and actions. Correlations between the level of trust, influence of social media and the intended changes in travel decisions are observed. Destination marketers and tourism industries should observe and adapt to the needs of social media users and potential tourist markets by understanding more about user segmentation between platforms or apps and conducting marketing campaigns on social media platforms to attract a higher number of visitors.

This paper demonstrated the case of social media usage in mainland China, which has been regarded as one of the fastest growing and influential tourist-generating markets and social media expansions in the world. This study further addressed the knowledge gap by correlating social media usage and travel planning process of Chinese tourists. The research findings suggested diversification of the demand-and-supply pattern of social media users in China, as well as the use of social media as tools before, during and after travel. Users were diversified in terms of their adoption of social media, use behaviour, scope, the levels of trust, influence and the ultimate travel decisions.

Destination marketing organizations should note that some overseas social media platforms that are not accessible in China like TripAdvisor, Yelp, Facebook and Instagram are still valued by some Chinese tourists, especially during-trip period in journeys to Western countries. Some tactics for specific user segments should be carefully observed. When promoting specific tourism products to Chinese tourists, it is necessary to understand the user segmentation between platforms or apps.

Social media is a powerful tool for tourism development and sustainability in creating smart tourists and destinations worldwide. In China, the use of social media has stimulated the development of both information and communication technology and tourism.

This paper aims to introduce a structuring and processing model (SPM) as a framework for tourism decision making research.

The study employs McCracken's long interview to collect data in field settings. The study introduces advances in Mintzberg et al.'s approach to structuring seemingly unstructured decision making to explain travelers' decision‐making processes.

SPM enables mapping and comparing visitors' plans, motivations, choices, and consequences. The results demonstrate nuanced decision‐behavior dynamics and complexities of visitors' travel‐related unconscious/conscious thinking and behavior.

SPM does not attempt to generalize findings to large survey samples.

Travel planning and execution dynamics dictate that a decision‐making funnel metaphor in consumer research does not capture such trip complexity because additional decisions are made when the traveler arrives at the destination.

SPM is dynamic and inclusive explaining simultaneous planning elements as well as considering sub‐decisions occurring before and after different phases in the process. This model includes both conscious and unconscious internal retrievals as well as contextual influences relating to current planning affect the decision‐making process.

Social media has fundamentally changed the leisure travel behavior of Singapore residents. The purpose of this paper is to focus on Facebook and its impact on travel behavior. The study focuses on Singapore residents.

A total of 16 input and five output variables were tested, with a sample of 203 Facebook users residing in Singapore. Primary data modeling was done using ADANCO, a structural equation modeling tool that uses composite modeling approach for hypothesis testing. The analysis performed an estimated structural model and then determined the best model fit by measuring reliability, validity and path analysis and estimating model parameters.

Research findings indicate that Facebook has had a strong behavioral influence on the frequency of travel, itinerary planning and social sharing, while it had no impact during the destination-selection stage of travel planning.

Facebook’s influence on leisure travel behavior confirms the theory of planned behavior proposed by Icek Ajzen. From Facebook’s perspective, the outcome of this study is helpful in recommending the best use of the platform for destination providers.

Destination recommender systems need to become truly human‐centric in their design and functionality. This requires a profound understanding of human interactions with technology as well as human behavior related to information search and decision‐making in the context of travel and tourism. This paper seeks to review relevant theories that can support the development and evaluation of destination recommender systems and to discuss how quantitative research can inform such theory building and testing.

Based on a review of information search and decision‐making literatures, a framework for the development of destination recommender systems is proposed and the implications for the design and evaluation of human‐centric recommender systems are discussed.

A variety of factors that influence the information search and processing strategies that influence interactions with a destination recommender system are identified. This reveals a great need for data‐driven models to inform recommender system processes.

The proposed framework provides a basis for future research and development in the area of destination recommender systems. The paper concludes that the success of a specific destination recommender system will depend largely on its ability to anticipate and respond creatively to transformations in the personal and situational needs of its users. Such system intelligence needs to be based on empirical data analyzed with sophisticated quantitative methods. The importance of recommender systems in tourism marketing is also discussed.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship between consumer self‐confidence, product expertise, and travel experience in the context of travel information search during vacation planning.

The research design is based on a panel study to monitor trip planning processes of Austrian travelers. A structural model is used to assess to what degree consumer self‐confidence, product expertise, and travel experience affect travel information search and to examine the influence of consumer self‐confidence on product expertise.

Findings from the study show that consumer self‐confidence significantly affects product expertise. Travel experience, on the other hand, positively influences product expertise that again is positively related to travel information search. No significant relationship is established between travel experience and travel information search.

While most of the previous studies investigated information search using cross‐sectional data, this study addresses the need for more accurate research on information search adopting a panel design. One major limitation of the study is the small sample size. Results from a larger sample might be different in regards to the magnitude of the relationships.

This study contributes to the overall understanding of how knowledge and ability‐related factors impact travel information sourcing. The tourism literature reveals no other study that has simultaneously quantified consumer self‐confidence and product expertise during trip planning.

Collaborative information searching is common for people when planning their group trip. However, little research has explored how tourists collaborate during information search. Existing tourism Web portals or search engines rarely support tourists’ collaborative information search activities. Taking advantage of previous studies of collaborative tourism information search behavior, in the current paper the purpose of this paper is to propose the design of a collaborative search system collaborative tourism information search (ColTIS) to support online information search and travel planning.

ColTIS was evaluated and compared with Google Talk-embedded Tripadvisor.com through a user study involving 18 pairs of participants. The data included pre- and post-search questionnaires, web search logs and chat history. For quantitative measurement, statistical analysis was performed using SPSS; for log data and the qualitative feedback from participants, the content analysis was employed.

Results suggest that collaborative query formulation, division of search tasks, chatting and results sharing are important means to facilitate tourists’ collaborative search. ColTIS was found to outperform Tripadvisor significantly regarding the ease of use, collaborative support and system usefulness.

The innovation of the study lies in the development of an integrated real-time collaborative tourism information search system with unique features. These features include collaborative query reformulation, travel planner and automatic result and query sharing that assist multiple people search for holiday information together. For system designers and tourism practitioners, implications are provided.

The purpose of this study is to understand the factors influencing Iranian tourists’ behavioural intention to use consumer-generated contents (CGC) websites whilst browsing the web when it comes to travel planning, based upon the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) extension.

The total of 211 valid responses were collected through an online questionnaire survey. Data collected from Iranian online tourists were used to test the proposed research model by using the partial least squares structural equation modeling method of analysis.

The results of the study indicate that perceived source credibility is the strongest predictor for behavioural intention. Furthermore, in this study, the most significant relationship is between perceived enjoyment and perceived ease of use. However, the findings of this study show that perceived ease of use is unable to predict behavioural intention of Iranian tourists while using CGC websites.

This study provides clear evidence for the importance of additional key variables in improving the authors’ understanding of the Iranian adoption behaviour concerning CGC websites for travel planning purposes. Implications of this research can aid both academicians and practitioners towards a better understanding of tourists’ adoption behaviour when associated with the social media.

This paper adopts TAM and extends it with other variables, namely, perceived enjoyment, perceived source credibility and perceived risk. It examines their influence in the behavioural intention of using CGC for travel planning in the context of Iran for the first time.

Regulatory focus theory proposes that people make decisions and engage in the pursuit of goals based on either promotional goals indicating sensitivity to gains/nongains or preventional goals reflecting sensitivity to losses/nonlosses (Aaker and Lee, 2001). The purpose of this study is to examine the roles of regulatory foci and their impact on the perceived value and usage of location-based services (LBS) in travel experiences.

Travel planning strategies are framed along promotional or preventional lines to evaluate regulatory focus orientation and respondents’ perceptions of value in location-based marketing (LBM) services are examined. Regression analysis evaluates the primary relationships, followed by analysis evaluating the mediating effects of “travel interest messages” (discount coupons, etc.) in the regulatory-focus-perceived value in LBM relationship.

The findings indicate that the effects of promotional focus are significantly greater than those of preventional regulatory focus. Additionally, the importance of travel interest messages (discount coupons, maps, etc.) was more significant with a promotional regulatory focus than preventional regulatory focus orientation.

The findings provide proof of regulatory focus as a differentiator in travel consumption behavior and demonstrate how it can be used to effectively target marketing messages to augment the travel experience. Destination marketing organizations can apply regulatory focus theory in organizational settings in the areas of leadership, decision-making and front-line employee creativity that can enhance the delivery of memorable travel experiences.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first to examine the relationship between gains-focused/risk-averse travel planning and their impact on perceptions of value in LBS programs in travel experiences.

对比以收益为中心与风险规避为中心的不同取向, 及其在旅游中对定位营销服务的影响

调节焦点理论提出, 消费者决策以及目标达成行为可以基于对收益/非收益敏感的促进目标或反映对损失/非损失敏感度的保守目标（Aaker and Lee, 2001）。本研究的目的是研究调节焦点及其对定位营销在旅行体验中的感知价值和使用的影响。

旅行计划策略是按照促进或保守路线制定来评估调节的取向, 并检查受访者对定位营销(LBM) 服务价值的看法。本研究运用回归分析评估主要关系, 然后分析评估“旅行兴趣信息”（折扣券等）在LBM关系中的调节焦点感知价值中的中介作用。

调查结果表明, 促进型路线的效果明显大于保守型的效果。此外, 旅游兴趣信息的重要性（折扣券、地图等）在促进调节焦点（相比于保守型）中显得尤其重要。

研究结果证明了调节焦点是旅游消费行为的差异化因素, 并展示了如何将其用于有效地定位营销信息以增强旅游体验。目的地营销组织可以在领导力、决策制定和一线员工创造力等领域的组织环境中应用调节焦点理论, 从而提供难忘的旅行体验。

本论文是首次研究以收益为中心/风险规避为中心的旅行计划, 以及其在旅行经历中对定位营销服务计划中价值感知的影响之间的关系的研究之一。