Online Community and Its Benefits for Hospitality Industry

This paper discusses the benefits of online community for the hospitality industry. It covers topics such as social media and online community marketing, characteristics of an online community, theories behind explaining the online communes and more. The paper aims to create a relationship between the brand of the hospitality industry and the customer and create a commitment in the online community for the hotels and restaurant.

TLH312
E-Tourism
Hospitality Industry
1

Abstract
The online community is now a better community to create better relationship among the customer.
Various types of organizations (i.e., hotels and restaurants) have moved their business to the online
platform to create better communication with their customer. Studies have defined basic four
different kinds of benefits that are offered by the consumer such as practical, communal, emotional
and the hedonic. Even after having the advantages of having the four system it also have some other
benefits as well. The most important factor that is considered as highly beneficial for the hospitality
industry is the building up of trust and relationship. The project has been designed to create a
relationship between the brand of the hospitality industry with that of the customer and create a
commitment in the online community for the hotels and restaurant.
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Table of Contents
ABSTRACT 2
INTRODUCTION 4
REVIEW OF LITERATURE 6
SOCIAL MEDIA AND ONLINE COMMUNITY MARKETING 6
ONLINE COMMUNITIES 7
CHARACTERISTICS OF AN ONLINE COMMUNITY 7
THEORIES BEHIND EXPLAINING THE THE ONLINE COMMUNES 9
ECONOMIC THEORY 9
SOCIAL THEORY 9
ONLINE COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION 10
PARTICIPATION BENEFITS 10
CASE STUDY 11
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION 14
REFERENCE 15
APPENDIX 1 17
APPENDIX: 2 17
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Introduction
The internet network has revolutionized the mode of communication and helps to overcome the
geographical dimension of the working platform and created the world as a platform of business and
attracted the customer of the whole world. It is because of the internet that customer can share their
information and even discuss the matters of technological advancement and share the queries within
now time (Barrows and Powers 2008). As there is the growth of the technological it is now being
used on the as the social media or in the web version of 2.0.
Social media is a second generation of the web platform which offers a facility of communication
among the members of the community and helps to share the information which is totally safe and
secure (Jones,2002. ). There are a lot of social media platform which is being used now a day such as
Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and Instagram. Facebook is considered as the social media giant with
over 500 million users whereas Twitter has over 75 million users. It has been estimated that on an
average customer spends more than 5.5 hours a day on a social media platform. All these platforms
are considered as the online community platform which helps to provide advertisement of any
company and the product (Tranter,2009).
Various types of organization believe that social media is the best platform which offers the most
profitable marketing tool. They believe that with the conversation of the customer regarding the
product they can easily review their product and examine the issue within now time. Secondly, with
the help of online platform it is easier to acquire the latest trend and the needs of the customer.
Thirdly, companies can also check the requirement of the customer whether it is suitable with their
brand or not. They can even try for new and unique product which is suitable for the needs of the
customer. Online community provides the platform to involve with the needs of the customer
directly or indirectly and helps to promote brand easily (Nadiri and Tanova,2010).
There are two types of online community brand. The first is the consumer initiated brand and the
second is the company initiated brand. The consumer initiated brand is directly acquainted by the
customer itself whereas the company initiated brand is entirely based upon the initiative of the
company and the other sponsored member. With the help of online platform, a consumer can
compare the service of the brand check out the review of the product. It also helps us to acquire the
various information of the service and the product. It is also helpful to acquire a better relationship
with the customer and help to provide the benefits to the customer. It is also helpful to develop and
create better atmosphere with new experience and the customer like to share the knowledge and
experience with the other as well (O’Connor and Murphy 2004.).
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The variety of different organization believe with the creation of the successful community, the
online business of the organization can become highly benefitted with the variety of different
activities that the company might offer especially in the hospitality industry. The present studies
have been designed to mainly attract the customer on the online platform and helps to create a
platform to build better relationship among the customer and become the most trusted and the
recognized brand as well. The paper has been designed to successfully demonstrate the
understanding of the needs of the customer for the online social exchange. It is a well developed
connection which helps to promote the brand as well as well as the online market as well. With the
growing demand and the prosperity, the online business marketing strategy can help to become
active with the help of sustainable marketing strategy which will be helpful to demonstrate the need
of the customer and the community who is willing to participate and help create a relationship which
will be long lasting and highly beneficial for both the company and the organization.
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REVIEW OF LITERATURE
By this current scenario the literature on the social media and the community of online marketing,
and offers the original hypothetical establishment of the features of online communities(Allison and
Casey, 2001). The customers get benefitted in these online communities, member’s participation, and
the customer belief and the commitment to particular brands are to be going through or discusses.
The online communities in the hospitality industry are very conceptualized, by taking in their
account by the present usage of the social media for designing the organizations’ online
communities. The brand’s studies and the commitment of brand are to be examined to be elucidating
that why the members are to be choosing to maintain their relationship goals with a special brand on
which the online community is fully organized (Baines, Lightfoot, Benedettini, and Kay, 2009.).
Social Media and Online Community Marketing
According to Scott,2015. The social media are supposed to be very creative in Web-based
applications which are done in online marketing. The companies who use the social media to form or
organize the online communities to (1) create a new organization process which includes a new
output or product marketing channel and (2) create a strong relationship along with the clients by
overcoming the boundaries of time and also places.
Like a new marketing channel, the online communities can give permission to the marketers (a)
collection of data for the potential or present clients from their profile, (b) infer client’s wants and
preferences which is based on their history of the locality’s usage, and (c) taken a direct replies from
the client. The marketers can take up a new high level of the customization by promoting the content
which is posted by the community persons and which is to be obtained or gained an in-depth
meaning of the entire client’s wants, by using the data to increase a new product or output or any
services (Chen Fay and Wang, 2011.). This can help the marketers to do an advertisement to their
new offers for the aimed clients.
The marketers can view the online communities which is a very successive tool for creating or
building strong relationships with the clients. These kinds of relationships can be taken for future by
the main concept of “Website Stickiness’”. The term ‘stickiness’ is like a site which can define as its
capability to create and also retained by the client by drawing the client’s value, like rewards for their
loyalty, customization of output and services and also trust or belief which is the most important
things in it. The website stickiness can hearten the clients for interaction more often along with other
persons of the online community and with the corporation.
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Online Communities
As per the suggestion of Kozinets 2002 there were a lot of investigation have been go through for the
online communities, but still there are no normally acceptable demonstration for the term ‘online
community’. From the various description of this online communities, the likeness which is taken
from this has been included with (a) technology of communication like- chat room, e-mail and the
bulletin boards which are the very first precondition for the continuation of online communities and
(b) communication amongst members and interface amongst them are the main functions of the
relationship building. By the consideration of the aspects which is defined as the travel on the online
community is like a gatherance of people who can share the interest in their travel and also tourism,
who can interact by online surroundings which is used to support by advanced methods and
technologies, and by observing this the shared the values and the norms of the online community.
The current study and the scenario which can use the following definitions in online community for
the corporation of hospitality. A collection of people who can share their client’s experience with the
help of any social media, indulging with the communication along with another members or the
corporation according to their concern and ideas and offering the critiques of the provided services.
Characteristics of an online community
By the above definition of online communities, the characteristics of these types of communities are
also very educational type of discipline like the computer science, corporation and the sociology. For
this instance, from a computer science viewpoint, Butler, Sproull, Kiesler, and Kraut, 2002has been
characterized for the online community which is having two key components like synchronous and
asynchronous communication. The main response time is considered to be the measures which can
compare these things. Synchronous method or technologies like any chat room, wants people to be in
the computers just to communicate simultaneously, whereas along with the asynchronous method
like a bulletin boards and the e-mail, people may do response to another’s posts and also take a part
in their arguments or discussion at a later time. The online communities can offers both synchronous
and asynchronous method who can do support in various tasks or jobs of communications.
According to the perspective of business, Baym, N.K., 2000 can be identified that there are three
aspects of an online community; a Webpage is to be publishes in the content, surrounding and the
commerce. The content to be published in an online community which is the combination of the
members in communication based on the particular topics. The surrounding of the internet can
facilitate the people to create and distribute their own content without any boundaries of time as well
as place. The corporations can be served any commercial functions by offering the online
transactions in their online community.
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Kuo, and Feng, 2013 can be identified that the twelve elements of online transactions of
communities can be drawn from the sociological theory, aim, identity, reputation, governance,
communication, groups, surrounding, limitations, belief, exchange, expression and also the history.
These above twelve elements are regarded as the important aspects by which anyone can leads to the
success of any community. But the first six elements are only based on the particular’s wants and
requirements and the expectations of the community to which they belong, the remaining six are only
connected to the victory of the community:
1) Aim- The team member has to share a common aim and interest in the community.
2) Identity- The team members can identify another member’s identities and design good
relationships.
3) Reputation- The team members can create a status which is based on their works and another’s
appearances.
4) Governance- The whole community can control the member’s nature which is based on shared
ethics and values.
5) Communication- The team members can interact with one another to share the data or
information.
6) Groups- The team members can create a small group which is based on a particular interest or
jobs.
7) Surrounding- The team members can do interact in a synergistic surrounding, which can enables
the people to take their aim successfully.
8) Limitations- The members were have to be aware of those who belong to their community.
9) Belief or trust- The members can trust on other members and the community can be organized,
leading to the group of efficiency and the problems can be solved.
Harrell, and Bower 2011can be considered as the sociological aspect of online communities, along
with the individual regards to the questions of whether the people can apply the similar social roles
and the governance of those of physical communities or not.
Theories behind explaining the the online communes
There are different kinds of theories that have existence that explains the why people visit the online
platform and collect information and even conduct the transaction of their purchasing. They also
explain the experience of the people and even helps to entreat with each other. All these things have
been explained very delicately in te theories mentioned below:
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Economic Theory
The community that is based online has gained extensive demand from the research of the market
because of the economic prosperity which has created bandage between the sellers and the
customers. According to Ferber,. and Nelson eds., 2009, the online business community has made
the service towards their consumer very easier and reliable and the selling of the product very easier.
Customers have now the access of wide range of products and information.
Based on the latest research, the economic theory explains the model of the research and creates a
platform of economic participation. As defined by Drummond, and McGuire, 2001, the value and the
benefits of the opportunity can only be created when the consumers are more benefitted with the
information and the products as they will not have to sacrifice their time and money to acquire this
knowledge. Thus, it can now be assumed that the benefits of the consumer will attract them for their
participation.
Social theory
The social theory can be classified into two categories: social exchange and the social identity theory
which is very important to create social interaction between the customer towards the online
platform. Based upon the studies of Reckwitz, 2002, the social exchange is for the benefit of both the
customer as well as the seller. The involvement is awarded with several benefits. People interact with
one another as long as they receive status and respect and thus willingly contribute to create a
community of their own. The social exchange theory explains that the participation of the members
of the advanced groups will help to attract the other communities as well.
According to Shilling, 2012the social identity theory helps to explain the participation of the
individual among the group themselves. It is a theory based upon intellectual, operative and
evaluative element. The intellectual part is based upon the social recognition and its categorization
which is based upon the comparison of the individual among the group. The operative evaluation is
entirely related with the participation of the people with emotional attachment upon the online
groups. The last evaluative group includes the participation of the individual as the valuable member
of the association. It is entirely based upon the degree or the level in which they belong or identify
themselves as a part of the community in which they are actually participating.
Online Community Participation
The Researchers have been recognized that a lot of categories of online community members have
been available which is based on the stages of observation frequencies and the community
interactions. Not the all members can maintain the similar levels of interaction along with other
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members and along with the community as an entire (Wang, Chung, Park, McLaughlin and Fulk,
2012). ‘Observation frequency’ can indicates the extent of which the members can visit online
communities but will not going to participate in the community activities, although where the
interaction with the community can denotes with the extent in which the members can donated the
community activities.
Participation Benefits
In order to create successful online communities, the community marketers can be attracts with the
participants and encourages them to be loyal with their community. One this way to be remaining or
maintain the online community traffic is to offers the members along with the individual benefits
which they needs from the participation as community members which can emphasizes to the profits
to the members of the community, the victory of the online community which may be jeopardized.
When the members can perceive the advantages as a worthwhile, they are use to be more likely to
become very active participants.
The researchers can do the identification of a variety of reasons which the consumers can do possess
for the participation of an online community, indulging with the motivational and the most beneficial
factors. The earlier reasons which used to develop by Cardenas, D., Henderson, and Wilson, 2009
while latter it can be developed by Mossberger, Tolbert, and McNeal, 2007, his study can have
focused about the social pressure of the client participation in an online communities and which is
found five motivational factors which are purposive value, self-discovery, pursuit, maintaining the
interpersonal interconnectivity and the social improvement.
CASE STUDY
The Lumiere 2015 was a festival of four nights in the Durham City of UK. It is winter festival
celebrated with the fullest of light and enjoyment. It was held in the winter nights of 12th to 15th of
November. The festival was first help in the year 2009. It was UK’s most leading creative company
that first produced the festival in the ear 2009 on the large scale with the involvement of lots of
partners and organizers. This is the festival celebrated as the part of the City council of Durham
Country and it performs a variety of role in the national portfolio organisation it was funded by
England Art’s Council. The building number of audience participated in the program was more than
two lakhs. All this participation of people took place despite all the bad weather condition and the
heavy rain. In the previous festival, all day installation that were done in Lumiere was free of cost
10

but with an exception of one day conference which exhibited the program with a lot of light, art and
other facility and even some of the science shows which was spiritual in nature and conduct was
chargeable with some pounds. The chart will help to demonstrate the increase in the number of
visitors every year is presented below in the appendix 1.
In this case study the relationship between the online community and the participation of the brand
has been established and the commitment of the brand has been explored and developed. With the
help of online brand communities’ members of the other group help each other whenever they are in
need. The business of hospitality can never be conducted without the consumption of the product and
services. If the customer found the product to be highly reliable then the trust among the customer as
well as the product is itself generated which eventually leads to the development of the brand and the
commitment.
The present case study demonstrates the hotel and the restaurant brand as well as the promotion of
the winter night festival in Lumiere. Thus, Facebooks pages have been created in order to promote
the brand in the hospitality industry. These Facebook and the Instagram pages will be highly
beneficial for organizing the plan in the winter festival of Lumiere. These type of promotion will be
highly benefitted for the company as well as the customers who is visiting the festival and enjoying
their short visit to have an excellent view of the night life and the festival. These Facebook and
Instagram pages will be highly beneficial for the hospitality industry as it will going to offer facilities
like hotels and restaurants with unique features and help it to promote in an extensive level. Among
all the other Facebook sites and the fans four of the major hotels and the restaurants have been
selected which offers unique facilities and even encourages the participants to have to choose. The
Facebook page is going to be circulated with the name of “4 exciting deal of Hotels and Restaurants”
and one other as the “Best Restaurant of Lumiere”. These Facebook pages will be circulated by the
social media company named as the OnlineBusiness.com who is totally responsible for the
publishing of the online news and information through social media sites. The company will be
highly benefitted because they know all the flaws of the online assessment and will be able to handle
their client with ease on the online platform. The success of the page is also depended upon the
number of people joining the pages and they share the information on online platform. The higher
number of opportunities and the joining of the pages of the platform will also be highly extensive
with the number of fans will be going to chosen in the following criteria. Some of the hotels that
have been chosen that are based upon the criteria is the Victoria Hotel and Spa, The Dragon Wheel
Restaurant and The Heritage Hotel.
The Facebook page provided above is entirely based upon the most reputed brand and the
organization. It has been approved by the famous brands and companies that these brands are highly
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dedicated and are approved with various certificates and designation. Online survey has been
conducted by members of the organization of at least 18 years of age. The advantages that are
associated with the online survey is just for the benefit for the organization and will be highly
beneficial for the customer as well. Some of the advantages of the online survey has been mentioned
below:
(a) low cost of productivity.
(b) best mode of interaction.
(c) it is vey accessible to all the people
(d) convenient to enter all the data at the correct interval of time.
Some of the instruments that have been used for the development of the project is divided into four
different categories. (I) benefits for the participation of the people. (II) benefits for the community
which will help to promote the brand and the trust and offer commitment. (III) information of the
demographical situation. (IV) to check the manipulation of the work. With the beginning of the
survey at the very onset, the participants were at first asked to join the community with either brands
and the hotels will be provided the Facebook pages based upon their requirement. The survey will
only be going to be completed when the participants will admit that they are themselves the members
of the Facebook group.
The second part of the survey will gong to be conducted with the participation of the individual to
promote brand and trust and provide commitment of work. The second part will be consisted of 5
point scale ranging from number 1 which is considered as strongly disregarded to that of level 5
which is strongly agreeable. The second part of the survey is consist of creating the name of the
brand with commitment. The name and the trust of the brand was measured with the help of
Flyvbjerg, 2006and the questioner is being conducted which is basically a creation of highly
important questioner which is suitable for the creation of the brand and the name. Thus, in order to
measure the commitment of the brand and the name and the commitment some of the items are being
conducted for the chain of restaurant and the hotel which is considered to be as highly beneficial.
The last part of the survey consists of the demographical review and the information is being
provided based upon the education, gender of the individual with effective name, age and sex. The
range of the age as depicted by Yin, 2011. is (i) smaller than the age of 21 (ii) the individual
between the age of 21 to 30 (iii) the third range of age is between the age of 31 to 40 (iv) the range of
the age of 41 to 50 and (v) the last range of age is considered to be as 55 which is the last age group
of the survey.
The total number of audience that participated in the event consists of more than 200,000 which is
even larger than the crowd of the previous year. It must be noted that the elaborative increase in the
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number of audience was also in the bad and the extreme condition as the whether was not suitable for
the function to be performed. It is raining all day long and the temperature fell sown to the negative.
Despite of the bad and inappropriate condition of the weather the festival gained immense popularity
with the increase in the number of spectators. The evaluation and the commitment of the brand has
been created with the increase in the rise of the people because of the effective council members who
have promoted their brand and the name so effectively that despite of having the bad weather worst
condition various people came to attend the ceremony with full of spirit. Some of the other additional
activity was also being organized by the commissioned by the members of te organization with the
help of the local Durham business communities as well as the involvement of the online platform
which has proved to be the effective plan. It helps to gather a lot of audience from various part of the
country and even attracted the people of different other regions to make the even a successful one.
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DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
In the above case study the hotel business and the functional and the creative strategy has been used
in order to promote the brand of the hotel. The pages of the Facebook has been considered as the
highly effective plan for the creation of the online platform to attract a large number of customer and
the participation of the people in the maximum number which will help to benefit the organization in
the matter of social-psychological matter. In all the matters it is very essential to provide monetary
benefits to the organization as well as the customer. The positive interaction of the community of the
people and the participation of the people in the Facebook pages will going to prove as the highly
successful and highly beneficial for the company and the organization. In order to have the
functional benefits, the members of the hotels want to have better communication facilities with the
travellers so as to develop better efficiency in the mode of communication.
The present study has been conducted to create and identify the online facility of hotel and restaurant
in the Facebook page of the certain website. It also addresses the relationships between the various
members of the organization and their participation to promote the brand at different level. It is also
necessary to investigate the characteristics of the demographical nature of the environment with
different demographical suggestion such as the age, group and the gender of the people. The above
study suggests that the nature of the different set of community will be benefitted with the production
of different kinds of results depending upon the various approaches. The approaches suggest that the
participation of the people in the social media platform depends upon the behaviour of the customer
and their needs and requirements The hospitality marketers will have to apply different kinds of
strategies to attract different kinds of customers in relation to the build up of effective strategy which
is suitable and will be benefitted for both the organization as well as the consumer. The study of the
hotel has been demonstrated with the help of social media particularly based upon the Facebook
pages in order to promote the online business strategy in the marketing business.
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Appendix 1
The appendix 1 is basically created to demonstrate the participation of the people in the Lumiere and
the rate of growth of the people participation to attend the festival with a lot of enthusiasm.
Figure: Growing number of visitors in Lumiere from the year 2009-2015
Source: Self Created
Appendix: 2
In the next appendix, we are interested to provide a lot of benefits to the fan of the hotel brand
Facebook page. The scale has been provided to rate the agreement level of each of the following
statement.
Points Strongl
y
oppose
Oppose Neither
of the
both
Agree Strongly
Agree
To acquire the information of the brand 1 2 1 4 3
Conveniently communicate with each
other
3 3 3 3 4
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Better mode of communication online 4 4 1 2 2
Having belief in the community of
Facebook
4 2 2
Self identity 5 3 4 2 3
Having a brand of Facebook Fan 2 2 2 1 3
To acquire the better price of the
customer
1 2 2 1 2
18