Discuss the role and significance of social media in tourism Essay

Discuss the role and significance of social media in tourism marketing. You must consider the broader context of ICTs, new chann - Essay Example Travel involves movement through geographic space and time. Technologies take parts in all functions of strategic and operational management. Nowadays, social media is the main route where information is being shared and delivered in tourism, and also where offers made by the tourism suppliers are promoted. â€Å"According to a study made by Lab42, more than 50% of people who use social media when planning their trips change their plans depending on what information they learn from social media. For those people who had changed their travel plans, 43% of them even changed their hotels or resorts.† As information is so important to tourism, technologies provide both opportunities and challenges for the industry (DimitriosBuhalis, 1998). Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein have define social media as â€Å"a group of internet-based applications that build in the ideological and technological foundation of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated conte nt.† The users of the internet form virtual communities where they each have an anonym and protected identity. Consumer-generated content (CGC) is generated by the use of social media. It includes a variety of new and up-and-coming sources of online information, which are created, begun, distributed and made use of by consumers. This is done with the intent of enlightening each other about products, trademarks, services and concerns (Blackshaw&Nazzaro, 2006). In contrast, to the supplier- generated content (SCG) that is made available by marketers and suppliers, social media are created by consumers to be shared among themselves. With the enormous amount of data available to the travelers, the internet constitutes an important platform for information exchange between consumers with shared interests, as well as industry suppliers (e.g. attractions, hotels, and transportation sectors,), mediators (e.g. travel agents), regulation bodies (e.g. governments and executive organizati ons and non-profit organizations (e.g. destination marketing organizations) (Werthner& Klein, 1999). Today, Web 2.0 also referred to as Travel 2.0 in tourism, includes a range of new technological applications such as media and content syndication, mash-ups, AJAX, tagging, wikis, web forums and message boards, customer ratings and evaluation systems, virtual worlds, podcasting, blogs and online videos (vlogs) (Schmallegger& Carson, 2008). These social media include a wide range of applications, allowing consumers to â€Å"post†, â€Å"tag†, â€Å"digg†, or â€Å"blog† on the internet (Xiang &Gretzel, 2010). For example, Facebook, which is a social media website, allowing users to add friends, send messages to people and update their personal profile to notify friends about themselves during the travel; weblogs, individual or a group of people maintain a website with regular entries of commentary, description of events, or graphic materials like videos or images. Some travelers write travel blogs about their experiences and memories of the trip, which are online travel journals, also known as travelogs. YouTube, which is a website for sharing videos, which users can upload and distribute videos. This is a platform where vloggers (i.e. video blogging people) can record their traveling memories into video and upload onto YouTube for others to view, instead of typing a passage for people to read. There are many other

Air Commerce Act of 1926 Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Air Commerce Act of 1926 - Research Paper Example Then in 1918, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) was form to provide regulation of air commerce, including licensing of pilots and inspection of aircrafts and airfields. The following year this organization drafted a bill for the congress to consider. This bill could lead to creation of a bureau of aeronautics within the department of commerce. Due to lack of adequate budget and the political philosophy of those days, that bill was not enacted. The efforts to have some form of regulation continued with the congress having a bill related to this every year between 1919 and 1926. During these years, several legislation measures were proposed but they failed at some point in the legislation process. One of these legislation measures was the Civil Aeronautical Bill of 1923, which sought to regulate airspace and establish federal licensing standards. This bill failed in the committee stage as a few steps to becoming a law. In the late 1924 and early 1925 two committees , the Marrow Board, and congressional hearings took testimonies on this issue and issued reports endorsing similar recommendations, which would later emerge as the Air Commerce Act of 1926. ... Another purpose was to achieve a uniform nationwide system allocation throughout all the states of America which was to ensure that air transportation achieve almost similar growth in all the states. Moreover, the government in enacting this law purposed to have a system for registering aircrafts and aircrew. This could help the country in the management of its airspace and in general coordinate its air transportation. This also aimed to ensure that all airplanes and crewmembers meet required standards for enhanced safety. The impact of air Commerce Act was that it established an aeronautical branch within the department of commerce. This branch was given the mandate of undertaking all the regulation involving the activities of the aviation industry. This branch had five divisions within it and each division was assigned a specific task concerning the aviation industry. These divisions were the airways division, Aeronautical Research division, Aeronautical mapping division, aeronauti cal regulation division, and the air information division. The airways division was responsible for control the activities in the airways. The research division was responsible for any kind of research required to improve air transportation. The aeronautical mapping division was responsible for identifying new places to develop airports. The aeronautical division was responsible for regulating all the activities in this industry and the air information division was responsible for the custody of any information belong to this industry. At the beginning most of the work within this branch was undertaken by other established branches of this department except aeronautical regulation and air information. This is because