Title: The effects of sign value of travel blogs on travellers' motivation, negotiation and intention to travel

Authors: Wee Kheng Tan; Chia Yu Kuo

Addresses: Department of Multimedia and M-Commerce, Kainan University, No. 1, Kainan Road, Luchu, Taoyuan County, Taiwan ' Department of Multimedia and M-Commerce, Kainan University, No. 1, Kainan Road, Luchu, Taoyuan County, Taiwan

Abstract: Few studies on sign value offered by tourism information are available. This study focuses on the effect of sign meaning of tourism information provided by travel blogs on leisure negotiation mechanism, i.e., whether sign value assists information seekers to enforce their motivation, initiate leisure negotiation to overcome obstacles and contribute to overseas travel intention. Partial least squares analysis of data collected from Taiwanese residents on their intentions to tour Thailand showed that sign value enforces motivation and intention but cannot initiate negotiation strategies. The nature of travel blogs is conducive for tourism information to provide sign meaning to the information seekers. This study has added to the literature in tourism information search behaviour that centred on travel blog and leisure negotiation mechanism, and suggests that destination marketing organisations and bloggers could enhance their service and symbiotic mutualistic relationship by working together to provide sign-rich information to their visitors/readers.

Keywords: travel blog; sign value; information search; leisure negotiation mechanism.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSTM.2018.093338

International Journal of Services Technology and Management, 2018 Vol.24 No.4, pp.338 - 355

Accepted: 22 Dec 2016
Published online: 25 Jul 2018 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article