Seeing the world via social media(2)

Like 57 percent of respondents to a Marriott survey conducted earlier this year, Li would decline a 25 percent discount of her stay, if it meant she could not log on to social networks during her vacation.

Suggesting that social media comprises a stronger component of travel than ever before, 44 percent of Americans said that photos or posts viewed through such networks drive them to their destinations; another 29 percent added that they receive contentment from reading comments left on their holiday posts.

Endless studies have further examined the phenomenon, with global research study Text 100 Digital Index: Travel & Tourism by Text 100 Global Communications revealing that 68 percent of travelers relying on their mobile devices to stay in touch with personal networks while traveling. Of the 4,600 respondents surveyed from 13 countries, another 33 percent of adventure-seekers turn to their gadgets for online research about their locations, more than half of whom pre-download travel apps on their devices.

The study determined that social media is particularly influential during young people's first and last stages of travel - the inspiration and experience phases - with 88 percent of respondents under the age of 34 sourcing Facebook as the social networking medium behind the inspiration for their choices.

When it comes to China, its people are no exception to the trend, with the Text 100 report noting that travelers from the Asia Pacific region stand out in terms of their use of social media platforms to inform leisure travel decisions. In particular, online travel reviews had the greatest impact on Chinese people when making initial decisions on travel destinations with roughly 70 percent of them searching online for such write-ups.

The vice general manager of popular Chinese news portal Sina.com, Li Zhenrong commented on the topic in a previous interview with TravelDaily.cn, saying that travel consisted of made up a large portion of the overwhelming Weibo posts related to daily life last year.

"In fact, the majority of daily content on Weibo were about food and travel," he said.

Mobile marketing 

Brand managers also agree that social media is changing the marketing landscape. A failure to tap into these networks is the chance lost to communicate with consumers and potential customers.

The movement has become so unstoppable that tourism and hospitality players are increasingly looking at ways to engage those in the wired world through improvements in "social care," or customer service via social media, said Elizabeth Pizzinato, senior vice president of marketing and communications for Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts.

Pizzinato said that the group is constantly minding its digital storytelling strategy, in a bid to win over advocates and ambassadors for hotel destinations and products. She said that the target is to engage with customers through meaningful dialogue that will ultimately convince them to invest in the brand's experience and authenticity.

"It's all about customization," she said. "If they communicate with you via mobile, social media or even fax - you need to understand that and use that as a marketer."

Mobile apps are becoming vital to marketers as consumers increasingly spend more time on social apps than on the Web, according to research by online booking website Hotels.com, which uses a number of social media platforms globally, including two Weibo pages in China.

Its app, which first launched two years ago, has to date been downloaded some 15 million times with over 20 percent of bookings now being made on mobile devices, said regional marketing director of hotels.com Jessica Chuang.

"We are seeing a trend of consumers shifting over to mobile devices. There is a higher proportion of our mobile transactions are for same-day stays compared to desktop," she told the Global Times.

"Mobile is a new distribution platform … [it] gives the same opportunities to both intermediaries and hotels directly. … So far, the intermediaries have been quicker and have made better progress from a technology and marketing perspective compared to the hoteliers but the latter have the ability to own the end-to-end customer experience and mobile opens up a new dimension for that. It is early days yet and it will be interesting to follow how fast and innovative this space will be," she said.

But as the reports are confident in social media and mobile applications set on having increasing influences on consumer travel behaviors, especially as travel brands continue to compete for target audiences, the answer to how that social capital can be easily turned into revenue is still being sought - with major players racing to figure it out before their competitors.

For travelers like Scarlet Li, however, there are other things to be excited about in the meantime.

"I'm so looking forward to sharing my Turkey trip with friends through Weibo and WeChat," she said. "I just hope there will be a lot of free Wifi spots there that I can take advantage of."