Online Advertising and Electronic Word of Mouth

After the United States, China, Japan, and Germany, the internet takes the largest share of gross domestic product in Asia, Europe and America. This is a result of the interaction among online players such as AT&T, Comcast, Google and Amazon, who configure the internet economy into a macroscale (Mikians, 2015). This implies that the internet gives efficient and high-quality operations in all economic sectors, and tourism as a commercial sector is not an exception to this. The internet creates a highly competitive ground with regards to marketing and advertising. Therefore, it is important for its players to keep up with the trends in information and communication technologies for competitive purposes (Batinic, 2013). This is because millennials respond to them positively, which makes them vital for the tourism sector.

Literature review. The tourism industry. In 2013, tourism contributed US$ 7 trillion to the global GDP and created 4. 7 million jobs (Kum, Aslan, & Gungor, 2015). Europe saw an increase of 6% and the MENA region, due to the Arab spring, saw a decline by 8% and 9% respectively (Bethapudi, 2013). Other trends are that 87. 4% of millenials prefer to travel at least twice in a year (Dabija, Bejan, & Tipi, 2018). Increase in popularity of adventure travel among ladies which accounts for 57% of all trips, popularity of food tourism which accounts for 95% of most journeys, business and leisure, and photography travels are the other trends (Burkhard, 2016). For DMOs to succeed in the tourism industry, the strategic goal is the integration of tourism with ICT. The first principle is that destinations are the primary bases of tourism.

Secondly, destinations are the critical units of tourism analysis as stated by the United Nations World Tourism Organisation. The third principle is that a brand is significant when marketing tourism and destinations are the brands. Lastly, governments are now funding DMOs to promote their countries, and this has made it a current trend in tourism (Pike & Page, 2014). DMOs are to market nations and cities, and the introduction of information technology has changed this role. However, the DMOs should look for more elaborate plans for co-creation purposes. Not all tourists are interested in co-creation. Therefore, the destination marketing organisations should segment people with interests in co-creation and in doing this they should consider factors such as cultural contexts, and time space between the hosts and the guests.

This will help in maximizing co-creation as it will help them in targeting the right people for internet marketing (Kastenholz, 2013). Online marketing strategies. To actively promote tourism through social media, the DMOs should start by creating accounts like Facebook and Twitter and then avail valuable information to tourists through them. The second step is to promote social media presence by engaging potential clients on their social media accounts, and lastly the DMOs should check-in tourists by making them aware of both famous and less known tourist sites (Chong, 2015). The world today is characterised by reduced levels of trust for both organisations and what they are advertising. This creates a gap that can only be filled by the eWOM as a marketing strategy.

It is in the form of a viral buzz, and it applies to the likes of the tourism industry, which offer products that have to be consumed before any evaluation. The consumer behavior is fundamental in the management of customer relationships, and the standard practice of millennials is that they love to buy (Ordun, 2015). Millennials are also loyal to certain quality brands. This feature, when combined with their love for buying, can contribute so much to the tourism industry when adequately exploited. Some of the characteristics of millennials are that they are born in the digital era, and they have strong digital skills. The other features are that they have a sense of permanent connectivity, and they are always in search of extraordinary experiences.

Starting with the ease of access, DMOs will influence the millennials into making destination decisions by creating and availing a classy, clean, and easy to navigate website. When it comes to the usefulness of the site, for the DMOs to influence the millennials, they will have to integrate their websites with certain useful features. These features may include search and booking functionalities, trip planner functions and social accounts functions that may direct the users to the destination’s accounts where they could get more information. Other important features to include are images with stimulating graphics and faster download speeds for documents that could be downloaded (Garret, Chiu, Zhang, & Young, 2016). Through the search engine, DMOs make themselves visible on search engine platforms such as Google, Yahoo among others.

The DMOs also influence the millennials through social media by inspiring them. They post quality pictures on their social media accounts and inspire travelers by offering discounts to those who share those photos. The other way is to encourage travelers to share post trips. They connect to past clients and inspire them to post pictures of a past vacation to influence new customers (Brown, 2018). The eWOM has higher rankings in propensity to travel among millennials, and therefore, it is more successful than the other forms of internet advertising (Lee, 2017). The issue of ads across various websites is eliciting mixed reactions among millennials. Most of them hate ads across the DMO websites and would have a better experience if those ads were not appearing in their screens when searching for information (Arnold, 2018).

Most millennials also do feel that websites should give their eyes an easy time with regards to the font and page width used in the site (Linh, 2012). The other concern is with reference to the clarity of language used, and most millennials prefer official websites that use simple languages that could be understood by everyone regardless of their geographical origin. The search engine through the use of Google also enjoys a relative positive attitude from the millennials. With social media, there are always notifications appearing on phones and tablets, and this is not the case with websites and search engines. The other reason why millennials like social media is that it has saved them from the boring marketing media such as billboards, brochures, posters, and mass media advertisements (Linh, 2012).

They think these outdated means were untruthful and could not be trusted as they were not offering any helpful information. Social media, on the other hand, has been handy in giving updated information and experiences on various destinations. Millennials also have a positive attitude towards the use of electronic word of mouth by destination marketing organisations to market destinations. To fully exploit the millennials, the DMOs and other travel agencies should improve the accessibility and quality of their official websites, create a wide range of key words for the search engine, brand their social media accounts and lastly manipulate online reviews and use them for their advantage. Among the internet marketing strategies, social media stands out as the favorite among millennials.

Besides social media, the credibility of eWOM is even higher from the view of tourists. This is because it is difficult to convince consumers, especially millennials to purchase intangible products due to the high risks that are involved. Therefore, it is only appropriate to convince them by availing to them the evaluation of people who have experienced these intangible products or services, and these evaluations can best be availed through eWOM. Lastly, we have talked about the buying power of millennials. Therefore for DMOs to influence the millennials to visit certain destinations, they should exploit this feature. This can be achieved by the DMOs working on the quality of the goods and services offered by their airlines and hotels (Salehi & Farahbakhsh, 2014).

When the prices are reasonable, and the facilities are of high quality, the millennials will visit the destinations being advertised. References. International Journal of Cognitive Research in Science, Engineering and Education, 1(2), 1-5. Retrieved from https://www. google. com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwid37aQtsndAhVwxYUKHVfLCiYQFjAAegQIAhAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fdialnet. unirioja. Travel Trends for 2017 that will drive the global tourism industry. Retrieved from https://www. trekksoft. com/en/blog/7-travel-trends-for-2017-that-will-drive-the-global-tourism-industry Brown, R. The Impact of Social Media on Travel Inspiration | Olapic. Tech in Asia - Connecting Asia's startup ecosystem. Retrieved from https://www. techinasia. com/how-to-promote-tourism-through-social-media Dabija, D. , Bejan, B. Online Journal of Communication, Media, and Technology, 6(3), 1-14. Retrieved from https://www.

ncbi. nlm. nih. doi: 10. Ivanov, S. , & Webster, C. Tourism's Contribution to Economic Growth: A Global Analysis for the First Decade of the Millennium. Tourism Economics, 19(3), 477-508. google. com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjPgZz6uMndAhWy4YUKHeg9DgkQFjAAegQIARAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww. apeejay. edu%2Faitsm%2Fjournal%2Fdocs%2Fissue-oct-2016%2Fajmst040108. pdf&usg=AOvVaw0Nksd0wDct7e9nbX8MhxiR Kido-Cruz, A. International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, 5(4), 1075-1081. Retrieved from http://http: www. econjournals. com Lee, J. Millennials’ perception of destination attractiveness. Botswana Journal of Economics, 11(15), 42-56. Retrieved from https://www. ajol. info/index. php/boje/article/view/94197 McKean, M. ac. upc. edu%2Fpbarlet%2Fslides%2Fjmikians_phd_slides. pdf&usg=AOvVaw1DyRmPdHK-eRPmabBo0yPR Mohammed Abubakar, A.

Does eWOM influence destination trust and travel intention: a medical tourism perspective. 5539/ijms. v9n5p135. Ordun, G. Millennial (Gen Y) Consumer Behavior, Their Shopping Preferences and Perceptual Maps Associated With Brand Loyalty. Canadian Social Science, 11(4), 40-55. Rajamohamed, H. Analyzing the Importance of ICT in Tourism Industry with Reference to Thailand. SSRN Electronic Journal, 1-12. doi: 10. 2139/ssrn. doi: 10. 1108/10662241211271563 Rowett, P. Best Practice Tourism Destination Website Marketing Examples. Retrieved from https://tourismeschool. com/best-practice-case-study-tourism-destination-websites/ Salehi, H. , & Parsons, J. Improving Student Engagement. Current Issues in Education, 14(1), 6-33. Retrieved from http://cie. asu. Retrieved from https://doi. org/10. 1108/WHATT-09-2017-0047 Pyoria, P. , Ojala, S. , Saari, T. Xiang, Z. , Pan, B. , & Fasenmaier, D. Benchmarking the Visibility of Websites in Google: Implications for Search Engine Marketing of Tourism Destinations.