Significance of User-Generated Content in Travel and Tourism: An Exploratory Study

The study examines the role of blogs as a source of information to travelers (residents of UAE) who wish to visit countries, choose hotels to stay and eat in different restaurants. The objectives of the study are to know the reasons why travelers are motivated to use blogs as a source of information, whether travelers share their views and experiences with other bloggers and to know the travelers future intentions towards blogging. The study revealed the following: The majority of the surveyed travelers have the motivation to blog to express what they feel about the countries visited, the hotels where they wish to stay, and the restaurants they plan to visit. Blogs help the travelers to comment on what other bloggers say about the hotels where the respondents have stayed and the restaurants they have visited. Blogging helps to search for information about hotels where the respondents can stay and restaurants at which they can eat. By blogging respondents: extract information about restaurants that interests them and countries that interest them, and are able to share information about food served by the restaurants they visited and customer services provided by the hotels they had stayed. A keenness to spend more time blogging in the future and their intention to continue blogging indicate the interest of the respondents to not only continue blogging but also motivate other travelers to blog.