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Hospitality Research

Blogging as a Social Media

Guillaume Thevenot
Tourism and Hospitality Research 2007 7: 287
DOI: 10.1057/palgrave.thr.6050062

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Blogging as a social media
Guillaume Thevenot
Received (in revised form): 7th June, 2007
This article is adapted from the presentation by Guillaume Thevenot, Founder of hotel-blogs.
com, at the 6th eTourism Futures Forum, School of Management, University of Surrey, Guildford,
UK.
ABSTRACT
KEYWORDS: blogging, social media,
networking
Blogging has become one of the most popular social
media and networking tools. The Travel and
Tourism Industry today is faced with consequences
that blogs have not only positive impacts but also
negative ones, if not managed properly.
Tourism and Hospitality Research (2007) 7, 287289.
doi:10.1057/palgrave.thr.6050062
In todays world, our society no longer relies
on traditional sources of information, such as
the BBC and The Times. We are in the era of
social media, where people are directly engaged
and become the media themselves. Along with
the increased use of online tools and platforms,
people share their opinions, insights, experi-
ences and perspectives with each other through
many different forms, including text, images,
audio and video. As noted in Wikipedia, the
more recent popular social mediums include
blogs, message boards, podcasts, wikis and vlogs
(Wikipedia, 25/03/07).
Blogging is one of the most increasingly
popular social media, where people are engaged
through being part of a conversation. The
conversation begins with one person publishing
an article, in which readers give their comments.
A measure of a blogs success is the number
of comments it receives. Eventually, readers
inputs become community postings where
discussions take place. As the traffic of this
2007 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. 1467-3584 $30.00
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Thevenot
conversation increased, people become parts of
the news.
As defined by Wikipedia (25/03/07), a blog
is a frequent, chronological publication of
personal thoughts and Web links. It is a
customer-directed website, where customer
provides information to each other, with
journal style entries in a reverse chronological
order. In general, readers need to adhere to
comments policy, and are able to search blog
by keywords, or by monthly archives. An
update can also be sent straight to their e-mails,
if they wish to subscribe.
According to David Sifry, Head of Techno-
rati a leading blog search engine, there are
currently over 70 million blogs (Sifrys Alert,
25/03/07). A total of 120,000 new blogs are
created every day worldwide, representing
about 1.4 blogs every second, as it is fairly
simple to set one up. In response to these blogs,
approximately 1.5 million posts are created per
day, corresponding to 17 posts per second. The
trend search tool by BlogPulse (17/04/07)
suggested that between 40 and 60 per cent of
all blogs postings include search related to travel
as depicted in Figure 1.
In general, a blog as a social networking tool
frequently provides a combination of a persons
personal life and the particular subject they
would like to provide comments or informa-
tion on. Indeed, blog derives from weB Log,
acting as both a diary and a guide on the web.
Needless to say, blogs are valued for the strength
and quality of its content, as well as peoples
opinions. Based on these descriptions, blogs
Vol. 7, 3/4, 282289 Tourism and Hospitality Research 287
 Practice Section

Generated by BlogPulse Copyright 2006 Nielsen BuzzMetrics

0.700
0.675 travel
0.650

Percent of All Blog Posts

0.625
0.600
0.575
0.550
0.525
0.500
0.475
0.450
0.425

Feb 18 Feb 24 Mar 02 Mar 08 Mar 14 Mar 20 Mar 26 Apr 01 Apr 07 Apr 13
Date

Figure 1 Percentage of travel search term of all Blog posts

Source: BlogPulse (http://www.blogpulse.com/trend, 17/04/07)

falling in the travel and tourism genre can be example hotels and hostels, flights, cars, vaca-
classified into four main classifications: indi- tions, etc. www.bedjump.com and www.boot-
vidual, collaborative, corporate and traditional snall.com are two examples under this category.
media. The Bed Jump as described by Patricia one
of the contributors (02/04/07), is a website
INDIVIDUAL BLOGS which unites and shares a common bond
The idea of individual blogs, or often called among the bedjumpers, mainly through pictures.
personal blogs, stems from the idea of an online In addition to the links, the blogs include
diary, that is a personal website/journal travel guides and hotel blogs. In Bootsn All
published online. In individual blogs, personal Travel, visitors have access to book reviews and
thoughts abound, taking many forms, for can pose detailed questions on worldwide
example daily experience, pictures, etc. www. destinations to insiders (the local experts),
hotel-blogs.com and www.travelrants.com are and are encouraged to join Bootsn All
examples of individual blogs. When Guillaume Community.
Thevenot created Hotel Blogs 2.0 Lets talk
about hotels in January 2006, his purpose was
to build a community between consumers, CORPORATE BLOGS
hotels and online travel agents. Through this Marriott on the move (www.blogs.marriott.
blog, he comments about whats going on in com) is an example of corporate blogs, in
the online hospitality world, for example which (Bill) JW Marriott (Chairman and CEO
increase in hotel rates, etc. In www.travelrants. of Marriott International) regularly updates his
com, the editor Darren Cronian writes and comments, for example on brand issues. In
receives comments from both consumers and Featured Post, he replies to the comments
companies in travel industry, as well as encour- posted by visitors and adds a personal touch to
ages submission of travel articles and photos. the corporate blog (eg news on the birth of
his daughter-in-laws baby girl).
COLLABORATIVE BLOGS McDonalds Corporate Responsibility Blog
In collaborative blogs, visitors have access to (http://csr.blogs.mcdonalds.com/) is another
links of other travel and tourism services, for example, where Bob Langert Vice President

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for CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility)
provides regular updates. The blog is open for
discussion as the company would like to learn
and improve by listening. For example, Bob
ended his response to the critique of a reader
with a question: What do you think we should
do? Other recent posting includes McJobs
(30/03/07) and CSR Performance Measures
(30/03/07).
TRADITIONAL MEDIA BLOGS
The Caterer Blog, Hotel Hotsheet and The
Cruise Log are a few examples of Traditional
Media Blogs. The caterer blog (www.cater-
ersearch.com/blogs/catering-news-blog/), for
example, has over ten bloggers posting infor-
mation on regular basis. The blog features cate-
gories about food, food critics, TV Chefs, and
Gordon Ramsey are among the few popular
categories. Hotel Hotsheet (http://blogs.
usatoday.com/hotelhotsheet/), one of the blogs
of USA Today discusses the hotel trends around
the world. The blog is maintained by Kitty
Bean Yancey, and covers the most up-to-date
news in the hospitality industry, such as new
hotel brands and celebrity involvement in hotel
properties. Another blog of USA Today focusing
on cruise industry is The Cruise Log (http://
blogs.usatoday.com/cruiselog/), and is main-
tained by Gene Sloan.
2007 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. 1467-3584 $30.00
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Thevenot
IMPLICATIONS OF THE EMERGING
COMMUNITY TOOL
The importance of the blogging community
(and thus larger society) is increasing rapidly.
Indeed, with the fast changing technology,
blogging is no longer accessible only from
desktop PCs, but also through laptops and
mobile telephones.
As blogs are becoming more popular as a
social media, some implications emerge. These
implications include the increasing power of
technology, increased power of communities and
decreased powers of institutions/marketers. Blogs
can be a powerful source of word of mouth,
while on the other hand can be the source of
negative influence from unsatisfied customers.
In conclusion, the industry is facing the needs
to look at blogs in a more serious way. The
publisher may need to consider the question
What strategies need to be taken to deal with
this new form of customer communication?
It may be that such community opinions now
have more influence than paid advertisements.
REFERENCES
BlogPulse. (2007) Retrieved 17th April, 2007 from
http://www.blogpulse.com/trend.
Sifrys Alert. (2007) Retrieved 25th March, 2007
from http://www.sifry.com/alerts/.
Wikipedia. (2007) Retrieved 25th March, 2007
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog.
Vol. 7, 3/4, 282289 Tourism and Hospitality Research 289