Consumer generated content - trends and implications for branding.

Abstract

Many travel and tourism operations have recognized the importance of including consumer generated content on their Web sites but usually do so in the form of edited testimonials. At the same time, travelers are provided with an ever increasing number of opportunities to voice their opinions in raw/unedited and honest form. Blogs, podcasts, wikis and personal Web spaces hosted on social networking sites such as MySpace.com are growing fast in use and popularity among travelers who want to document and/or share travel experiences. Given the growing use of the Internet for travel planning, an ever greater number of travelers will tap into this collective travel intelligence available on the Web. This will challenge established travel guide, travel agent, as well as travel supplier Web sites (Rand, 2006).