Tourism Informatics:
    
    Visual Travel Recommender Systems, Social Communities, and User Interface Design
    Nalin Sharda Victoria University, Australia
    
    InformatIon scIence reference
    Hershey • New York
    
    Director of Editorial Content: Senior Managing Editor: Assistant Managing Editor: Publishing Assistant: Typesetter: Cover Design: Printed at:
    
    Kristin Klinger Jamie Snavely Michael Brehm Sean Woznicki Michael Brehm, Kurt Smith Lisa Tosheff Yurchak Printing Inc.
    
    Published in the United States of America by Information Science Reference (an imprint of IGI Global) 701 E. Chocolate Avenue Hershey PA 17033 Tel: 717-533-8845 Fax: 717-533-8661 E-mail: cust@igi-global.com Web site: http://www.igi-global.com/reference Copyright © 2010 by IGI Global. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or distributed in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without written permission from the publisher. Product or company names used in this set are for identification purposes only. Inclusion of the names of the products or companies does not indicate a claim of ownership by IGI Global of the trademark or registered trademark. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Tourism informatics : visual travel recommender systems, social communities, and user interface design / Nalin Sharda, Editor. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. Summary: "This book presents innovative research being conducted into Travel Recommender Systems, travel related on-line communities, and their user interface design"--Provided by publisher. ISBN 978-1-60566-818-5 (hardcover) -- ISBN 978-1-60566-819-2 (ebook) 1. Tourism--Computer network resources. 2. Internet. 3. Online social networks. I. Sharda, Nalin, 1952G156.5.I5.T68 2010 910.285'5678--dc22 2009031089 British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. All work contributed to this book is new, previously-unpublished material. The views expressed in this book are those of the authors, but not necessarily of the publisher.
    
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    Virtual Travel Community:
    Bridging Travellers and Locals
    Jin Young Chung Texas A&M University, USA Dimitrios Buhalis Bournemouth University, UK
    
    Chapter 8
    
    ABSTRAcT
    With the rapid development of Web 2.0 influence in tourism, this chapter aims to examine the current state of virtual travel community (VTC) studies, and to offer an additional perspective of VTC, beyond the conventional research trends. The notion of virtual community includes a group of people who tend to build relationships with one another via computer-mediated communication, regardless of geographical distances (Rheingold, 1991). However, current VTC knowledge has primarily focused on consumer behaviour from the travellers’ side (e.g., information search, decision-making process, sharing experience with other travellers), and little attempt has been made to examine the use of VTC for connecting travellers in the generating region to the locals in the destination region. Emerging information communication technologies (ICTs) and the use of technology in tourism e-tourism- make it much easier to communicate between people in both regions. This chapter brings empirical evidence from one virtual community – CouchSurfing.com – and demonstrates that the opportunity to build relationships between potential travellers and locals has increased dramatically through innovative technology services. Further research is recommended through the use of alternative methodologies, such as netnography or social network analysis. This chapter provides both policy and managerial implications by exploring how technology and VTC can support the bridging the gap between locals and prospective visitors.
    
    e-TOURISM DeVeLOPMeNTS AND WeB 2.0
    Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) have been transforming tourism globally. ICTs
    DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60566-818-5.ch008
    
    have been revolutionising the world of Tourism (Buhalis, 2003). This is already evident in a wide range of examples and cases around the world (Egger & Buhalis, 2008). ICTs empower consumers to identify, customise, and purchase tourism products, and support the globalisation of
    
    Copyright © 2010, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
    
    Virtual Travel Community
    
    the industry by providing tools for developing, managing and distributing offerings worldwide. Increasingly, ICTs play a critical role for the competitiveness of tourism organisations and destinations (Buhalis, 2003). ICTs are a key determinant of organisational competitiveness, and a wide range of technological developments propel the evolution observed. In addition, ICTs enable travellers to access reliable and accurate information as well as to undertake reservations in a fraction of time, cost and inconvenience required by conventional methods. Buhalis and Law (2008) demonstrated that developments in ICTs have undoubtedly changed business practices and strategies as well as industry structures. If the past 20 years have seen an emphasis on technology per se, then since the Year 2000 we have been witnessing the truly transformational effect of the communications technologies. This has given scope for the development of a wide range of new tools and services that facilitate global interaction between players around the world. Increasingly, ICTs play a critical role for the competitiveness of tourism organisations and destinations as well as for the entire industry as a whole. Developments in search engines, carrying capacity and speed of networks have influenced the number of travellers around the world that use technologies for planning and experiencing their travels. ICTs have also radically changed the efficiency and effectiveness of tourism organisations, the way that businesses are conducted in the marketplace, as well as how consumers interact with organisations. The ICT-driven business processes re-engineering observed in the industry gradually generates a new paradigm shift. This alters the structure of the entire industry and develops a whole range of opportunities and threats for all stakeholders. Not only ICTs empower consumers to identify, customise and purchase tourism products but they also support the globalisation of the industry by providing effective tools for suppliers to develop, manage and distribute their offerings worldwide.
    
    Since 2007, Web 2.0 has been developed to represent the wide range of peer-to-peer interactions between individuals online. The emergence of Web 2.0 or Travel 2.0 brings together the concept of social networking/virtual communities and applies it to the tourism industry. The integration of information processing, multimedia and communications created the ‘World Wide Web’ (WWW) to enable the near instant distribution of media-rich documents and to revolutionise the interactivity between computer users and servers. Perhaps one of the most interesting current developments is the development of Web 2.0, a phrase coined by O’Reilly (2005) that refers to a second generation of web-based services based on citizens/consumer generated content—such as social networking sites, blogs, wikis, communication tools, and folksonomies—that emphasize online collaboration and sharing among users. A Web 2.0 website may feature a number of the following techniques including: Rich Internet application techniques, optionally Ajax-based; Cascading Style Sheets (CSS); Semantically valid XHTML markup and the use of Microformats; Syndication and aggregation of data in Really Simple Syndication (RSS/Atom; Clean and meaningful URLs; Extensive use of folksonomies (in the form of tags or tagclouds, for example); Use of wiki software; Weblog publishing; Mashups and REST or XML Webservice APIs. Increasingly, the Internet is becoming a platform of data/views/knowledge creation and sharing which harness the network to get better information to all users (See Table 1)(O’Reilly, 2005). Based on the mainstream of online community research in social science disciplines, online community research is increasingly influential in tourism informatics literature as one of the emerging agendas. The terms online community, virtual community, or online virtual community have been interchangeably used. Virtual travel communities (VTCs) have become popular as credible information sources since they provide potential tourists with up to date, personalised,
    
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    Table 1. O’Reilly formulates the sense of Web 2.0 by example
    Web 1.0 DoubleClick Ofoto Akamai mp3.com Britannica Online personal websites evite domain name speculation page views screen scraping publishing multimap content management systems directories (taxonomy) stickiness Source: Based on O’Reilly, 2005 → → → → → → → → → → → → → → → Web 2.0 Google AdSense Flickr BitTorrent Napster Wikipedia Blogging upcoming.org and EVDB search engine optimization cost per click web services Participation Google Earth with content layers Wikis tagging (“folksonom”) Syndication
    
    user-generated content (UGC), including trustworthy reviews and recommendations (Buhalis & Law, 2008). Despite VTCs’ large potential impact on the tourism industry, Preece (2000) stated that research on the topic is still at an infancy stage when comparing to other geographical and physical communities. In a virtual travel community, functioning like social networking sites, users are able to find plenty of information from like-minded users from around the world, beyond their actual friendship circle of family members. They can also build relationships with other users or become involved in the community, regardless of geographical restrictions. They participate in communities for a wide range of purposes which may include fun, companionship, demonstration of expertise, enjoyment, and amusement as an end in itself (Chung & Buhalis, in press). A range of functional, social, psychological, and hedonic benefits have been identified as the main motivators leading online users to participate in VTCs (Wang, Yu, & Fesenmaier, 2002). For example, TripAdvisor
    
    (www.tripadvisor.com) is amongst the most successful social networking/virtual community in tourism that facilitates the reviewing of all hotels around the world and brings together individuals in discussion forums. The system provides users with independent travel reviews and comments written from TripAdvisor members and experts, and offers a powerful platform for interaction between peers (Wang & Fesenmaier, 2004). User satisfaction is a major factor for evaluating a travel organization. By analyzing VTCs’ content, travel organizations can understand their customers’ satisfactions and behaviour, and undertake corrective actions to improve their offering. They can also increase brand awareness and strengthen brand association through the assistance of VTCs. However, despite the various benefits of VTCs that have been explored, the need for a better understanding of the social aspects of VTC has been recently recognised and undertaken as a research issue. To date, the interactions between users (mainly potential travellers or hedonic surfers) have been investigated. Most researchers
    
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    have focused on VTCs only from a consumer behaviour perspective, and they have been trying to explain how consumers search/obtain information, maintain connections with other consumers, and eventually make travel decisions. However, little attempt has been made to research the use of VTCs for connecting travellers in generating regions with local communities in destination regions (Leiper, 1990). The extended networks encompassing locals in the destinations and the travellers have been neglected hitherto. Thus, in this chapter, this newly recognised social aspect of VTCs is analysed through a case study using one of the fast-growing VTCs, namely the CouchSurfing.com. This chapter consists of four major parts: introduction, literature review, a case study, and discussion and conclusion. The chapter begins with brief description of a tourism system and literature review on cross-cultural understanding studies. Then, it focuses on major VTC studies conducted over the recent years, and then explores the case study. Finally, it provides further research directions, followed by discussion of the results of a case study.
    
    games, and even falling in love. Preece (2000) also proposes four basic components for organising an online community including people, purpose, policy, and computer system. In other words, a virtual community is defined as a virtual place in which people with a shared purpose interact on the basis of the policies established, by using computer systems (Preece, 2000). From a multidisciplinary perspective, the following core attributes of VTCs can be identified (Whittaker, Issacs, & O’Day, 1997). • Shared goals, interests, needs, or activities that motivate individuals to belong to the community Being engaged in repeated, active participation, and often, intense interaction, emotional ties, and shared activities that occur among participants Access to shared resources, and policies that determine the access to those resources Reciprocity of information, support, and services among members A shared context of social conventions, language, and protocols
    
    •
    
    •
    
    • •
    
    A defInItIon of vIrtuAL communIty
    Although many researchers have defined virtual communities and have attempted to understand their features, the most frequently quoted definition is given by Rheingold (1991): “Virtual communities are cultural aggregations that emerge when enough people bump into each other often enough in cyberspace. A virtual community is a group of people who may or may not meet one another face to face, and who exchange words and ideas through the mediation of computer bulletin boards and networks.” (pp. 57-58). Further, Rheingold (1991) extends the scope of an online community to involve individuals’ daily activities: chatting, discussing, exchanging knowledge, sharing emotional support, finding friends, playing
    
    In brief, a virtual community is perceived as a cyberspace system in which people with shared goals and needs are engaged regardless of where people are located. Virtual communities are becoming incredibly influential in tourism as consumers increasingly trust their peers, rather than marketing messages. A Virtual Travel Community (VTC) makes it easier for people to obtain information, maintain connections, develop relationships, and eventually make travel-related decisions (Stepchenkova, Mills, & Jiang, 2007). Vogt and Fesenmaier (1998) stated that participation and attitude are the primary dimensions of consumer behaviour in the virtual communities. Since many travellers like to share their travel experiences and recommendations with others, VTCs have become one of their
    
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    Figure 1. The Tourism Industry and the Tourism Systems
    
    favourite areas to post their travel dairy (Vogt & Fesenmaier, 1998). Additionally, online travellers are enthusiastic to meet other travellers who have similar attitudes, interests and way of life (Wang, et al., 2002). As such, better understanding VTC users’ behaviour and motivation can assist tourism practitioners and policy makers to establish, operate, and maintain VTCs in a more efficient way. This, in turn, facilitates consumer centric marketing or relationship marketing (Niininen, Buhalis, & March, 2007). VTCs, however, may be at risk of losing members if their members are not satisfied with the content, design, security policies, and repercussions for non-compliance with community rules (Allison, Currall, Moss, & Stuart, 2005; Wang, et al., 2002).
    
    tHe tourIsm system
    The tourism phenomenon can be observed as a traveller makes a move toward a destination and returns back to the place of origin. Some areas generate travellers, and some areas host them, and vice verse. The transit route connects the traveller in the generating region to the destination region, and travellers are located only in this route. As demonstrated in Figure 1, Buhalis (2003) adopted Leiper’s (1990) tourism system and Cooper and Buhalis’ (1998) model to include five key elements: a traveller generating region; a destination region; a transit region including Intermediaries, Transportation, and Technology The tourism system model has been a theoretical framework in many tourism studies over the last two decades (Buhalis, 2002; Cooper & Buhalis,
    
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    1998). However, to date, many studies regarding tourist behaviour have examined the individual or group behaviour between prospective travellers, but failed to connect travellers to the locals in destinations. Even the research on Virtual Travel Communities, which operate on the cyberspace, and therefore are free of physical or geographical limitations, have only been examined mainly from a consumer behaviour perspective.
    
    InterActIon betWeen LocALs And trAveLLers
    The interaction between locals and travellers has been widely researched in the tourism literature. Research has particularly, focused on resident’s attitudes toward tourists or tourism development. However, several other studies (e.g. Fisher & Price, 1991; Gomez-Jacinto, Martin-Garcia, & Bertiche-Haud’Huyze, 1999) have attempted to investigate attitude changes caused by the interaction between hosts and travellers in terms of cross-cultural understanding (Nyaupane, Teye, & Paris, 2008). While research on residents’ attitudes toward travellers includes both intra-cultural and inter-cultural relationships, most studies on crosscultural understanding emphasize intercultural interactions. Fisher and Price (1991) argued that some factors such as motivation, satisfaction, and the degree of intercultural interaction need to be considered as predictors of positive attitude changes. Following the Fisher and Price model, Gomez et al. (1999) proposed a structural model depicting the influence of tourists’ intercultural experience on changes of attitude toward each other. In their longitudinal study, they added other predictors to Fisher and Price’ initial model: previous stereotype of destination people, the amount of tourist activities, and service quality. Most importantly, they found that overall holiday satisfaction has a mediating role of relationship between all predictors and attitude changes. Thyne, Lawson, and Todd
    
    (2006) examined the impact of cultural differences between tourists and hosts on local communities by a conjoint analysis. Their empirical study revealed that locals prefer visitors with similar cultural background, and more specifically, residents in New Zealand were more likely to greet with U.S. tourists than other cultures including Japan, Australia, and Germany. Interestingly, Australian tourists were relatively not welcomed to New Zealand residents despite of cultural similarity. Thyne et al. (2006) attributed the discrepancy of this finding to temporal tension between two countries due to a sports rivalry. Additionally, some other studies found that independent travellers including backpackers and students on study abroad programs are more likely to select exotic cultures, and as a result, to have prior attitude changed. The fact that individual tourists are more easily influenced by intercultural factors compared to organised tour groups is understandable since they are more flexible to experience cultural attributes at a destination, whereas organised groups have to only follow the pre-planned itinerary. It is apparent that a fixed travel schedule limits their opportunities to freely interact with local communities.
    
    vIrtuAL trAveL communIty reseArcH
    The aforementioned definitions and principles have influenced the VTC research. However, although many researchers in tourism have investigated the nature of VTCs, most of their research interests have focused on the consumer side of the tourism system (Table 2). Research has primarily concentrated on potential travellers’ behaviour from a consumer behaviour perspective (e.g. information search behaviour, interaction with information online, electronic wordof-mouth). Nevertheless, the inevitable relationship that develops between travellers and local people has been rarely dealt with as a topic of VTC research.
    
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    Table 2. Major VTC studies conducted over the recent years
    Authors Armstrong and Hagel (1996) Major argument(s) An online travel community meets four different consumers’ values: transaction, interest, fantasy, and relationship. VTC is composed of three core elements such as place, symbol, and virtual; and four peripheral elements including people, policy, purpose, and computer systems. Functional, social, psychological, and hedonic benefits perceived by online travel community members, social and hedonic benefits have a major impact on their level of participation in community activities. Three aspects of VTCs have influenced the members’ loyalty; and consumer loyalty is strongly associated with purchasing behaviour. A number of tourists are connected through virtual communities, and they share their own experiences, exchange valuable information regarding tourism destinations and service. Focal members in VTC Prospective travellers Main interest(s) Information search behaviour Decision-making Information search Network
    
    Wang, Yu, and Fesenmaier (2002)
    
    Prospective and experienced travellers
    
    Wang and Fesenmaier (2004)
    
    Prospective and experienced travellers
    
    Information search behaviour Motivation
    
    Kim, Lee, and Hiemstra (2004)
    
    Online community members who are interested in travel Experienced travellers
    
    Consumer loyalty Buying behaviour Information search behaviour Information source (e.g. electronic Word-of-Mouth (eWOM))
    
    Niininen, March, and Buhalis (2006)
    
    Armstrong and Hagel (1996) postulated that an online travel community provides four different values to its own members: transaction, interest, fantasy, and relationship. For example, community of transaction may refer to the purchase of airline tickets and making hotel reservations; while the community of interest offers the opportunity to share information and experience with other travellers and residents at the destination. In addition, community of fantasy is associated with hedonic features, such as a game or an event, whilst community of relationship allows community members to find their travel companions for a trip (Armstrong & Hagel, 1996). It is inevitable that multiple benefits may motivate users to participate in communities and this is also reflected in the value that is generated. Wang, Yu, and Fesenmaier (2002) pointed out that although online communities have been a central element of the Internet, less attention has been paid to the notion of online virtual community in tourism. Thus, in order to define a virtual community, they proposed three core elements,
    
    namely: place, symbol, and virtual. Place indicates a certain kind of space where individuals can develop or maintain social relationships. This may not necessarily be a physical space. Symbol refers to meanings or an identity which a virtual community provides to its users (Wang, et al., 2002). If a symbol for the community is absent or lacking, the online community may not be attractive to any online user. Being virtual is literally a salient characteristic which defines the difference between physical and online communities. In addition, it is suggested that there are peripheral components of a virtual community, including a group of people with specific purposes, policies, and computer systems. Wang et al. (2002) further argued that a virtual community fulfils three sorts of needs from an online user perspective: 1. 2. Functional needs (transaction, information, entertainment, and convenience), Psychological needs (identification, involvement, belonging, and relatedness), and
    
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    3.
    
    Social needs (relationship, interactivity, trust, and escape).
    
    Moreover, Wang and Fesenmaier (2004) attempted to empirically test Wang et al. (2002) propositions of benefits offered by virtual communities. As a result, they concluded that the main benefits of a virtual community are functional, social, psychological, and hedonic; where social and hedonic benefits have a major impact on the community members’ level of participation in its activities (Wang & Fesenmaier, 2004). This empirical research regarding relationships between benefits and member participation is based on a consumer behaviour perspective (e.g. information search and information source). Kim, Lee, and Hiemstra (2004) also conducted empirical research about the effects of an online community on customer loyalty and purchasing behaviour. They argued that four factors associated with a sense of belonging to a VTC include: membership, influence and relatedness, integration and fulfilment of need, and shared emotional connection. Excluding shared emotional connection, it was found that three senses are significantly related to online community users’ loyalty, in particular in engendering a higher degree of loyalty; i.e. a consumer is more likely to buy products or service within a VTC (Kim, Lee, & Hiemstra, 2004). Recently, Niininen, March, and Buhalis (2006) argued that numerous tourists from around the world are connected via virtual communities, and a variety of experience-based information on tourism places and service are exchanged in these communities. Accordingly, from a tourism marketing perspective, VTCs are becoming an important channel for spreading word-of-mouth to other travellers (Niininen, March, & Buhalis, 2006). Hence, they assert that VTCs provide the opportunity for meeting individuals across the world and making friendships, as it can be demonstrated on the case study on VirtualTourist.com, one of the largest VTCs.
    
    As previously discussed, most current research has dealt with core attributes of VTC such as goals, needs, members’ participation, shared resources and information, and computer systems. However, despite many researchers’ efforts to explore VTCs over the last decade, they have only focused on potential travellers; locals are of less interest with reference to ‘people’. Although developing communication between travellers and locals can be a unique and promising role of VTC, this feature has not been given adequate attention, thus far as VTC has been most widely examined as one of the information sources (e.g. eWOM) in terms of information exchange among consumers.
    
    cAse study: coucHsurfIng.com
    The aim of this study is to explore alternative applications of VTCs, and how these can play new roles as well as what additional benefits can be derived from these. To address these issues, an extensive case study was carried out based on the CouchSurfing.com website (www.couchsurfing. com). This travel-related online community is one of the social networking sites connecting travellers to local communities they will visit (boyd & Ellison, 2007). Information Communication Technology (ICT) including Web 2.0 technologies makes it much easier to communicate among travellers and also between travellers and locals at the destination. Specifically, empirical evidence based on a virtual community (CouchSurfing. com) demonstrates that the opportunity to develop relationships between potential travellers and locals has gradually increased. By definition, CouchSurfing.com encourages communications between prospective travellers and potential hosts at destinations. This case study also provides theoretical and practical implications of such interactions.
    
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    overview
    CouchSurfing.com has over 700,000 registered members all over the world (in almost 232 countries). With approximately 754,000 friendships created (CouchSurfing, 2008), it is one of the fast-growing VTCs. The original purpose of this online virtual community was to connect potential travellers to locals who are willing to provide them with free accommodation in their own homes. The statistics report of CouchSurfing.com shows that about 76% of CouchSurfers have experienced hosting or couch surfing some other members. Surfing refers to staying at the other member’s place, and hosting indicates the provision of one’s own place for accommodation. In particular, almost 99.8% of all hosting or surfing experiences are positive (CouchSurfing, 2008). The main features offered by CouchSurfing.com include: • • • Searching a member who is willing to provide you with free accommodation Making friendships with other CouchSurfers for consistent relationships Organizing off-line gathering or finding collated information for places you plan to visit Discussing your own area of interests Engaging in chat with other members Becoming an ambassador representing your country, city, or the World Making a donation to the CouchSurfing community
    
    vtc member Profiles
    CouchSurfing.com provides various real-time statistics including general website statistics, demographic profiles of online members, and member relationships statistics. Demographic profiles are derived from self-reported personal information only if a member agrees with the disclosure policy. In this study, only parameters related to the present research were collected, and analyzed to identify characteristics of members of CouchSurfing.com. Accordingly, as of 31st, August, 2008, profiles of online members (called CouchSurfers) are as given in Table 3. Table 3 show that over one half (51.4%) of members are male, and on average they are 27 years old. ‘Several people’ (6.4%) refers to couples or friends who were registered using a single user account. In addition, while the majority of CouchSurfers at a country level are located in the United States (24.1%), at the region-level Europe has the highest number (49.8%). Many CouchSurfers speak multiple languages, and English (83.7%) is the most spoken language, followed by French (32.7%) and then Spanish (29.6%). In terms of willingness to provide accommodations, 50.9 percent of CouchSurfers have a positive attitude towards hosting visitors. The social-demographic profiles of all members demonstrate that online members in CouchSurfing.com come from diverse regions spread all over the world despite the fact that English is the most spoken language among its members. Note that the dominance of English as the main language of communication is not because a majority of the community members are located at English-speaking countries, but because the majority of websites use English as the language for communication.
    
    • • • •
    
    Beyond the initial purpose, many members also use this website for communicating their personal interests and collecting information on destinations which they plan to visit. In addition, numerous offline meetings and gatherings around destinations have been organized on the website, and face-to-face relationships are expected to enhance online social networks.
    
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    Table 3. CouchSurfers profiles
    Item Top 3 countries where CouchSurfers are located United States Germany France Paris, France London, U.K. Montreal, Canada Europe North America Central Asia English French Spanish Yes Maybe Just coffee or a drink No Definitely! Travelling at the moment 18 to 24 25 to 29 30 to 34 35 to 39 40 to 49 50 to 59 60 to 69 70 to 79 80 to 89 Male Female Several people Unknown % 24.1 9.0 8.9 1.9 1.6 1.4 49.8 30.9 4.7 83.7 32.7 29.6 32.4 18.5 16.5 8.8 4.1 19.7 45.7 27.8 11.6 5.8 4.6 2.1 0.6 0.1 0.0 51.4 40.4 6.4 1.8
    
    Top 3 cities where CouchSurfers are located
    
    Top 3 world regions where CouchSurfers are located
    
    Most spoken languages (top 3)
    
    Willingness to give couches for surfing
    
    CouchSurfers by age groups
    
    CouchSurfer genders
    
    bridging travellers and Locals Data Collection
    In order to examine to what extent potential travellers and locals are connected, patterns of friendship in online networks were analyzed. In this case study, 100 dyadic friendships (including 100 actors and 100 corresponding friends) were collected from CouchSurfing.com. From November 5 to December 5, 2007, the profiles of subjects (actors and friends) were drawn from the front page of the CouchSurfing.com website where the registered users are randomly displayed. The front page of CouchSurfing.com is composed of
    
    search link directing currently available couches, some statistics showing real-time community using history, random CouchSurfers lists, and other quick links including latest news, FAQ, and CouchSurfing introduction. Randomly selected sample profiles such as gender, age, ethnicity, location, cultural background, language, and number of friends were recorded. These individual records and their attributes are open to the public, as per the privacy guidelines published on the website. In addition, one friend of each actor was chosen to analyse their dyadic relationship. Each CouchSurfer’s personal webpage shows a ‘Friends’ list. ‘Friends’ are registered using the feature of ‘friendship’, based on a mutual
    
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    Table 4. The profiles of sample (n=100)
    Item Gender Age Couched Location Number of friends Male Female Mean Yes No 33 countries Mean Median 27.7 13.0 59% 41% 27.7 53% 47%
    
    agreement between two online actors. Although two actors need to mutually agree to make a friendship with each other, the degree of friendship is not necessarily the same. Even if one designates her friend as “Best Friend”, he may register her as “Just Friend”. For this study, the ith friend in the ith actor’s ‘Friends’ list was therefore selected because friend lists were displayed not at random. For example, for the 8th sample actor, the 8th friend in the ‘Friends’ list was chosen. Additional friendship-related information such as the degree of friendship from 1 (Haven’t met yet) to 7 (best friend), when and how to meet each other, and whether they have met in person before were obtained by examining both comments and profiles of the actor and the friend. The vast majority of CouchSurfing members make profiles accessible to the public, but when someone who have refused to make them visible were encountered, the following actor or friend were alternatively selected.
    
    Data Analysis
    Frequency analysis and the Binomial test were used to obtain research findings. Binomial test is a kind of non-parametric statistical technique for dealing with binomial data when a measurement procedure classifies individual cases into exactly two distinct categories. In this chapter, dyadic friendship with actors and their friends
    
    were analyzed with regard to degree of friendships, the experience of face-to-face interaction, and pre-existing relations. The profiles of the sample (Table 4) are consistent with descriptions of profiles of whole populations in CouchSurfing.com: male (59%) vs. female (41%); average age = 27.7. Also, the majority of CouchSurfers (53%) have been couched (hosting or surfing) before, and the geographical locations of samples vary across 33 countries. The location refers to the place where the actor was currently staying. For example, if a White American who grew up in U.S.A. temporarily lived at Hong Kong when data was collected, his or her location belonged to Asia, instead of North America. However, this is not without limitations because the geographical location information was entirely based on selfreported data from each actor’s profile. In addition, the average number of each actor’s friends was 27.7, and the median was 13.0. To get more concrete findings, the binomial test was conducted (Table 5). The binomial test is generally used to identify two categories as A and B, and distinguish the probability (or proportion) associated with each category (p and q, respectively) (Gravetter & Wallnau, 2003). For instance, a coin toss leads to either heads (A) or tails (B), with probabilities p = .50 and q =.50. To conduct the binomial test, two assumptions are required. First, the sample must consist of independent observations. Each case should not be dependent on any other case of observation. Second, the values for each probability (pn and qn, respectively) must be greater than or equal to 10 (Gravetter & Wallnau, 2003). The two assumptions were met in this study. The binomial test was therefore appropriate for this study because the data-set was non-parametric based on the structural similarities. The null hypothesis was formulated as follows: H0: p = p(identical) = p(not identical) = .50. Depending on whether locations of two actors and friends are identical or not, ‘1’ indicating that
    
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    Table 5. Binomial test results
    Variable Locations Category identical Not identical N 32 68 Observed Prop. .32 .68 Test Prop. .50 Asymp. Sig. (2-tailed) .000
    
    both subjects are from the same geographical locations, or ‘0’ indicating that they are from distinct locations was given. The unit of geographical location is a country, and one of the authors made a scientific judgment on their identicalness. As a result, it revealed that geographical location similarity between actors and their friends significantly tends not to be matched (Prop. = .68, p <.001), indicating that the null hypothesis has been rejected. This demonstrates that the difference in location or cultural background of two subjects would be a main predictor of online friendship in VTC. Based on the fact that sixty six percent of the sample makes friendships after being couched, it is therefore argued that the majority of individuals tend to make relationships with others from different regions for couching. It is revealed therefore that there are lots of ties between travellers and locals who live at the destinations where travellers have visited or want to visit in the future. Assuming that many online users in CouchSurfing. com are potential travellers to search for free accommodations, undoubtedly they would be more likely to contact people who live at a destination. Nonetheless, the findings presented here need to be further investigated because this study did not empirically measure an actor’s intrinsic motivation to make a friendship with the other actor.
    
    future reseArcH dIrectIons
    This chapter can provide theoretical implications. As discussed earlier, the results of previous research on cross-cultural understanding, are
    
    somewhat mixed: some are consistent with those of the case study in this chapter, and some are not (Gomez-Jacinto, et al., 1999). While some studies showed that hosts or residents prefer travellers with similar cultural background (Thyne, Lawson, & Todd, 2006), some demonstrated that tourists who visited even similar cultural destinations experienced negative attitude changes (Nyaupane, et al., 2008). The mixed findings of previous studies about travellers’ or hosts’ cultural preferences therefore make it more necessary to investigate the relationship between travellers and locals. For instance, Thyne et al. (2006) argued that hosts in a destination are more likely to welcome travellers with similar cultural background. Yet, there may be somewhat difference in understanding the word of ‘host’ in their study. They applied the term of ‘host’ instead of ‘resident’, assuming that both terms are used interchangeably. In this chapter, locals (or hosts) indicate those who are willing to be acceptance of travellers, not merely individuals who live at that place. Therefore, it is not surprising for this case study to yield the different results from Thyne et al.’s study because it is understandable that people who are willing to see, meet, or host tourists are more tolerant of visitors with exotic and distinctive cultural background. Therefore, this study’s findings which demonstrate that people tend to make a friend with different cultural background online can be supportive evidence for one side of the debates regarding the role of tourism in cross-cultural understanding. However, to make the findings generalizable, this case study regarding the alternative role of virtual travel communities should be expanded to large-
    
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    scale empirical research. Specifically, the pattern of online friendship in addition to virtual travel communities can be examined in terms of cultural similarity, and also a survey to online community members will be able to complement the shortcoming of the content analysis-based case study. An email or mail survey will allow researchers to measure the motivation of making friendships online, and enable them to examine why people prefer similar or different cultures when travelling or hosting tourists. From a methodological perspective, a further study about bridging two sides (travellers in generating region and locals in destination region) is recommended using alternative methodology such as Social Network Analysis (SNA) or netnography. Social Networks refer to structures composed of actors (nodes) and their relationships (links) with a society (Scott, 2000; Wasserman & Faust, 1994). Accordingly, social networks theory is defined as a body of knowledge used to identify entities embedded in a social context, and measure their relations, roles, and ties within networks (Cook & Whitmeyer, 1992; Granovetter, 1985; Monge & Contractor, 2003). The most distinguishing characteristic of SNA is to pay attention to relational data in social structures rather than attribute data. Hence, it is very meaningful to analyse relations between actors in a network. In SNA, several key measurements have been employed to assess various properties at different level of analysis and explain a whole social structure (Wellman, 1983). Specifically, at the individual level, degree, centrality, closeness, and betwenness represent the roles and positions of actors in the network (Monge & Contractor, 2003). On the other hand, some measures such as density, centralization, and size are used to describe entire networks. Thus, the principles of SNA give insights to analyse patterns of relations between travellers and locals, and SNA would be recommended as an additional research method to study online communities. Netnography is also suggested to understand the nature of online communities. Netnography
    
    is a term of combining ‘Net’ and ‘ethnography’, and is literally an ethnographic methodology being adapted to study online communities (Kozinets, 2002). Kozinets (2002) argues that compared to ethnography, netnography is less time-consuming and elaborate. This method gives marketing researchers a chance to observe consumer behaviour occurring in an online community. More specifically, he suggests that four different types of online community be appropriate to conduct netnography: electronic bulletin boards (e.g. newsgroup, use-group); independent web-pages; e-mail mailing lists called listservs; multi-user dungeons and chat rooms. Hence, netnography can be a useful and flexible method when studying online communities.
    
    concLusIon
    This chapter examined the current state of Virtual Travel Community (VTC) studies, and offered an additional social aspect of knowledge about VTC to current research trend. A case study in this chapter also provides theoretical and practical implications. Specifically, the findings of this study assist to understand how a virtual space contributes to improving relationships between individuals from each other, and accordingly how online users extend their social networks throughout the VTC. It is thus expected that this chapter can give insights to understand how pervasive virtual ties between travellers and locals increase cultural understanding all over the world. Furthermore, the findings provide an alternative approach to the social value of VTC, and practical implications of designing and marketing VTC. Finally, additional methodologies including Social Network Analysis (SNA) or netnography are expected to complement the shortcoming of the case study in this chapter, and provide alternative perspectives to understand the interaction between locals and travellers. The importance of online or mail survey to Virtual Travel Community mem-
    
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    bers were also emphasized since a questionnaire enables researchers to measure diverse psychological constructs such as intrinsic motivation and satisfaction with appropriate scales.
    
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