Friday May 9, 11:01 AM

Web sources are back-up: study

Travellers are increasingly turning to blogs, web reviews and interactive websites to source information, a new study has found.

However, the study by the Sustainable Tourism Co-operative Research Centre (STCRC), also found traditional tourism information sources such as state tourism websites are still considered the most credible and trustworthy.

The study surveyed more than 12,500 people about their travel planning behaviour.

It examined the effect of sites such as Facebook, MySpace and You Tube on consumer behaviour.

These interactive sites often feature user-generated content in the form of comments, reviews and opinions.

These types of sites have created a unique new word-of-web phenomenon that can spread rumours and information much more quickly than word of mouth to millions of internet users anywhere, anytime, Dr Carmen Cox, senior lecturer in marketing at Southern Cross University, said.

We found that potential travellers used user-generated content as an additional source of information to help with their planning process, rather than as a complete substitute for other information sources, Dr Cox said. - Travelpress travel news