Internet has an enormous diffusion and radically changed most of our economic and
social life and impacted the way we communicate, work and conduct business. 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 importance
of Travel 2.0 features and tools, and specifically of social media environments, is
growing fast and many tourism businesses are changing their approach to the manners
of presenting themselves online (Au, 2010; Jones & Yu, 2010; Schegg et al., 2008).
However, tourism operators have not yet fully understood the new technological
world by and still many concerns, such as credibility of the information online,
possibility to forge for particular interests by unscrupulous competitors, privacy,
overload of useless information, in addition to the usual (in the technology arena) lack
of resources or skill shortage are the most reported issues are brought forward.
This study analyzes factors that influence tourists’ involvement in virtual
communities and asserts that virtual communities and social network sites (SNSs)
support tourism organizations to develop and improve their marketing functions, as
they can understand better their customers’ satisfaction and behavior, to reach
worldwide customers in a cost effective way, to engage in a direct dialogue with the
customers and undertake corrective actions to improve their offering, and ultimately
influence tourists’ destination choice. Synergies and interdependence among those
involved can reinforce relations and coordination of activities when all parts involved
cooperate to promote a uniform and complete tourist experience. To this end, the role
of social media and information technology is of significance for destination
marketing.