Travel information search on the Internet: An exploratory study

This research intends to investigate the process of travel information search and travel planning on the Internet and further investigate the satisfaction of travel information search on the Internet through the perspective of semantics of tourism. Two intermediate concepts, semantic mental models of travelers and the semantic model of the travel information space, are introduced. Each individual travel information searcher navigates through the travel information space according to his/her idiosyncratic semantic mental model, and the interaction between his/her semantic mental model and the travel information space will determine the specific information space s/he will encounter. The discrepancy between the semantic mental models of travelers and the semantic model of the travel information space reflects the different views toward tourism which are the root of usability problems and further influence the satisfaction of travel information search on the Internet.; This research used a travel planning exercise to explore the travel information search on the Internet. The results showed that travelers use a variety of web sites to search for travel information and they have different semantic mental models regarding the same travel destination. Accordingly, they encounter totally different travel information space during the information search. They tend to search for “information hubs” in which each information hub contains links to a cluster of web pages of different tourism attractions or accommodations regarding one destination. Their information search can be broken up into different episodes and each episode is targeting at a specific problem. Several episodes constitute a chapter which is one facet of a travel plan (accommodation, dining, attraction or transportation). Research results also showed that satisfaction of travel planning on the Internet is not only determined by the results of functional information search. As an extension of the travel process itself, the travel information searchers are also looking for exciting and novel information which is beyond their semantic mental models. The theoretical contribution of this study and implications for designing better information technology for tourism are discussed and future research directions are detailed.