Comparison of online brand strength of leading asian tourism destinations

2012
Comparison of online brand
strength of leading Asian
tourism destinations

Paritosh Kashyap
[Type the company name]
01-Jan-12

Comparison of online brand strength of leading Asian tourism destinations

Introduction

Present context is marked by the gradual shrinkage of regular and conventional media and

rapid rise of digital media. A large amount of media consumptions occur over the digital

channels. Like various other industries tourism is also not insulated from the rising significance

of the digital media.

Digital Media plays a very crucial role in the entire cycle, a traveler undergoes-selection,

planning, information gathering, booking, and visit. The following table gives a list of e-

marketing activities corresponding to various stages of travel (Nguyen N, 2007).

Stage Activity

Selection E-mail, viral promotion, social media, videos

and photo sharing sites, SEO, banner ads

Information gathering Travel websites

Planning Click ads, travel websites,

Booking Travel portals, websites, official sites

Visit Dynamic itinerary planner, SMS, emails

Table 1: shows the e-marketing activities corresponding to various stages of travel.

In order to up their ante in this transformed tourism landscape, it is essential for tourist

destinations to have a strong presence across various web platforms- travel websites, social

media, social media, and mobile application etc. The following report will analyze the online

brand strength of leading tourist destinations from Asia- Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok,

Paritosh Kashyap Page 2


Dubai and Istanbul. It will do a comparative analysis of the online brand presence across the

following platforms- search engines (Yahoo and Google), travel websites (Trip Advisor,

Frommer, Virtual Tourist, official tourist websites) and social media (Face Book and You Tube)

etc.

Search Engines

Search engines play a vital role in any form of marketing. The following part provides a simple
estimate of search results related to the five locations in Google and Yahoo, two of search engine
giants.

1500
Hong Kong 383

1230
Singapore 144

515
Istanbul 243 Google
Yahoo
344
Dubai 102

334
Bangkok 76.7

0 500 1000 1500

Fig 1: shows the search results in millions on typing the name of the destinations in search
engines.



190189
200
180
160
140 120
120
100 Yahoo
80
47.6 Google
60 36.9 37.5
32.7
40
8.63 9.81 15.1
20
0
Bangkok Dubai Istanbul Singapore Hong
Kong

Fig 2: shows the image search results in millions for the five destination in Yahoo & Google

25
20.1
20
17
14.7
15
Yahoo
10 7.6 Google
7.04

5
0.47 0.3 0.79 1 0.56
0
Bangkok Dubai Istanbul Singapore Hong Kong

Fig 3: shows the video search results in millions for the five destination in Yahoo & Google



211
Singapore 43.8

176
Hong Kong 57.5

13.3 Google
Bangkok 20.1
Yahoo
12
Dubai 35

7.93
Istanbul 16.5

0 50 100 150 200 250

Fig 4: shows the number of search engine results in millions on typing- name of the destination

followed by hotels. Exp: Singapore Hotels

4.5
Singapore 56.4

31
Hong Kong 42.1

4.18 Google
Bangkok 19.1
Yahoo
1.8
Dubai 31.6

2.19
Istanbul 14.2

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

Fig5: shows search results in million in Google and Yahoo on typing <city name> places to visit.

For exp: Hong Kong places to visit.



Official tourist websites

Websites are the representation of the tourist destinations in the web world. Not only do they

build the brand image of the destination but also guide unaware tourist by providing all the

relevant information in detail. It helps traveler make travelling decision. Some of the essential

requirements of travelers are- direction information/map, visa and policy information, local

information, photo gallery, multilingual functions, content categorization, multimedia

functions, utility functions etc (Quan Z, Rich D, 2005).

All the above mentioned information could be gathered from the websites. Out of all the

available websites, the role of an official website is always much more significant since it

represents the official view point. The given part of the report intents to analyze the popularity

of official tourist websites of the five destinations both In terms of web analytics as well as

qualitative aspects of the website. For web analytics measurement double click ad planner is

used.

Official Websites of tourist destination

Singapore: YourSingapore.com (www.yoursingapore.com )

Dubai: DefinitelyDubai.com (http://www.definitelydubai.com/)

Bangkok: Bangkoktourist.com (http://www.bangkoktourist.com/)

Istanbul: Istanbul.com (http://english.istanbul.com/)

Hong Kong: DiscoverHongkong.com (www.discoverhongkong.com )



450000 4500000
400000 4000000
350000 3500000
300000 3000000
250000 2500000
200000 2000000
150000 1500000
100000 1000000
50000 500000
0 0

Fig6: shows the total unique visits and page views for the five official sites, over the month of
November 2011. The column chart shows unique visits, where as the line graph shows the page
views. Source: double click ad planner.

Istanbul.com 11:50

Discover Hong Kong 8:10

DefinitelyDubai 5:30

YourSingapore 5:30

BangkokTourist 4:30

0:00 2:24 4:48 7:12 9:36 12:00

Fig7: shows the average time spent by a visitor in minutes: seconds. Source: double click ad
planner.



basic info Visa info No. of Info Site map
languages categorization
Singapore yes yes 1 yes yes
Dubai yes no 5 yes yes
Hong Kong yes yes 14 yes Yes
Istanbul yes no 2 yes yes
Bangkok yes no 4 yes yes
Table 2: Compares the home page of the five official websites across some of the basic
parameters.

Search option Social media Multi media packages Geographical
pages customization
Singapore yes yes yes yes yes
Dubai yes no yes yes no
Hong Kong yes no yes yes yes
Istanbul yes yes yes no no
Bangkok yes yes yes no no
Table 3: Compares the home page of the five official websites across some of the advanced
parameters.

In terms of unique visitors and total page views, discover Hong Kong has an insurmountable

lead over others. This is followed by Singapore; others are far behind. Discover Hong Kong is

available in 14 different languages, a unique feature missing in other websites. The closest to

this is Definitely Dubai which is available in 5 different languages. Other than the multilingual

function most of the websites provide all the basic function listed in table 1. It is the advanced

parameters which seem to be the differentiating factor. Yours Singapore has all the five features,

followed by Hong Kong with four. The other three have three each. All the five websites have

designed very attractive website with lot of multimedia works-videos, photos, flash etc. One of

the unique features, of the two successful website is availability of geographical customization-

provision of custom made packages for different geographies.



Travel websites

Travel websites play a very significant role in tourism marketing and destination branding. Not

only do they provide booking facilities for a range of tourism activities but also share reviews

for tourist destination in the form of – comments, articles, videos and photos. These travel

websites are loved by tourism enthusiast and amateur tourists alike and some of them have

huge fan following all across the globe. A larger presence in such websites will ensure stronger

brand image for destinations. The given part of the report will compare the five destinations

across three of the most popular tourism websites- Frommer, Trip Advisor and Virtual tourist

Frommer

Destination guides communities photos

Singapore 792 638 95

Dubai 2847 179 52

Hong Kong 822 678 152

Istanbul 635 761 57

Bangkok 9643 1110 98

Table 4: shows the no. of destination guides, communities and photos for the five destinations

in Frommer.

Trip advisor



reviews forums articles

Singapore 81, 472 45,761 255

DUBAI 62,520 36,794 104

HONG KONG 66,102 39,119 235

Istanbul 93,995 23,149 164

Bangkok 118,811 61,955 224

Table 5: shows the no. of reviews, forums and articles for the five destinations in Trip Advisor.

Virtual Tourist

Tips & reviews photos videos

Singapore 13,254 25,185 41

Dubai 2,580 5,721 34

Hong Kong 10,072 18,707 92

Istanbul 8,850 17,851 154

Bangkok 11,643 20,703 44

Table 6: shows the no. of tips and reviews, forums and articles for the five destinations in virtual

tourist.

With the help of the three tables it could be concluded that none of the destination emerges as a

true winner. There is a lot of variability across the three websites. While Frommer and Trip

Advisor are dominated by Bangkok; Singapore has stronghold in Virtual Tourist. Even within

the sites there are lots of variations. For instance, Istanbul has the 2nd least number of tips &

reviews in virtual tourist where as highest number of videos. Another point to be considered is

that if there is no winner, there is no loser as well. All the five destinations have substantial



presence across the three websites in the form of- reviews, photos, videos, forums and

communities.

Facebook

Digital media landscape itself is transforming with social media playing a very pivotal role. One

of the most popular social media site across the globe is Facebook or FB. FB which is available in

more than 70 languages has more than 800 million active users across the world. More than 50

percent of active users log on to FB on any given day. On an average every user is connected to

130 friends and 80 communities, events etc (Facebook statistics, 2011).

Due to its phenomenal popularity and sheer volume across the globe, FB provides a very

vibrant platform for marketers to communicate and interact with their target customers. It also

plays a very prominent role in building brand image for tourist destinations. The given part of

the report will compare the brand strength of the five tourist destinations on FB. Since there are

many FB pages related to the destinations and comparing all of them not possible; most popular

page for all the destinations have been selected. The pages are:

Dubai: I Love Dubai

Istanbul: Istanbul, tours/ sightseeing

Singapore: YourSingapore

Bangkok: Bangkok, public places

Hong Kong: Hong Kong, Attractions, things to do



209,129
Istanbul 9,775

111,311
Dubai 7,386

163,233 Likes
Singapore 825
Talking about
32,501
Hong Kong 775

15,375
Bangkok 246

0 100000 200000 300000

Fig8: Shows number of likes and people talking about the given destinations on their FB pages.

Source: FB pages

Marketing a destination on FB also requires a lot of activities and updates on the group page,

besides just having a page. In order to comprehend the level of activities done on each page, a

seven day period- 19th Dec to 25th Dec, has been selected under which all the activities- updates,

likes, comments and shares have been recorded.

Updates Comments Likes (for Shares

individual

updates)

Dubai 14 1214 12,370 3125

ISTANBUL 37 848 4,311 778

Singapore 3 49 490 27



Hong Kong 40 75 1037 22

Bangkok 22 25 232 21

Table 7: shows the number of updates, comments, likes and shares during 19th to 25th Dec, for

individual pages of tourist destinations. (Only updates related to tourism has been included)

On FB, Dubai seems to have an edge over other destinations. Properly moderated, it comes up

with regular updates of photos and videos, reflecting the grandiose and extravagance of Dubai.

The beautiful photo graphs attract a large number user likes comments and shares.

Other cities which come close to Dubai could be Istanbul and Singapore (YourSingapore).

Istanbul like Dubai is well moderated but is also fraught with lot of irrelevant updates- political

spoofs, funny pictures etc. Another flaw for page “Istanbul” could be predominant use of

Turkish language, which deprives it of an international appeal. YourSingapore is well managed

page but needs more updates. For the other two lots more is required. Large number of user

generated updates which include greetings and adieus, contradict with the professional outlook

expected out of such pages.

You tube

Another powerful social media tool is “You Tube”. Over 800 million of unique users visit You

Tube every month. Over 100 million of users take social actions such as like, share and comment

on You Tube every week (Youtube.com press statistics, 2011). You tube does not only play a

pivotal role in branding a tourist destination, but also absorb negative perception by interacting

directly with the tourists (Sofia R, Brain H, 2010).



4,500 600,000
4,000
504,000 500,000
3,500 478,000 473,000

3,000 400,000
2,500
300,000
2,000
1,500 212,000 200,000
1,000
107,000 100,000
500
0 0
Istanbul Hong Kong Dubai Singapore Bangkok

Fig9: shows the total number of tourism related searches and total views for top 10 searches for

the five destinations. Column chart shows the no. of searches, whereas line chart with data

labels show the total no. of views. Source: You Tube

Conclusion and Suggestions

It could be comprehended from various charts and tables that none of the five destinations

emerges as a clear winner. However, someone close to the numero uno position could Hong

Kong followed by Singapore. Both the city states appear to be comparatively well equipped in

building their brand on the web world. Based on the analysis, there are following suggestion,

which could help these states further enhance their brand image -

Bangkok: With an intake of 10.2 million tourists it is Asia’s most visited city.

(enjoyyourholiday.com, 2011). The city also enjoys a high no of user generated reviews,

communities, photos and other user generated contents in travel sites such as trip

advisor, virtual tourist etc. However it has comparatively lesser web presence as



estimated from the search engine section. In the social media segment it has strong base

in You Tube, but needs to use Face Book more aptly. It can also work on its website by

adding custom made packages.

Istanbul: Is the only city in the globe, stretched across two continents- Asia and Europe.

In most of the sections Istanbul has shown a moderate show- neither too good nor too

bad. An area where it needs to put some extra efforts could be You Tube. Another could

be official tourist page. The English version (the Turkish version is doing good with

2,00,000 visitors over November 2011) which is definitely engaging as reflected from the

average time spent, is still not attracting large volume of visitors like its counterpart,

Singapore and Hong Kong. One possible measure could be annexing a Russian and

German version as Turkey receives quite a good number of tourist arrivals from the two

countries.

Dubai: like Istanbul, Dubai has also showcased moderate performance across most of

the sections. One area where it has been exceptional could be FB page “I love Dubai”.

With arsenal of spellbinding photographs of Dubai, the page has been successful in its

attempts of engaging and communicating with people. Besides working on platforms

like virtual tourists, Dubai can rework on its official tourist site. Adding custom made

packages and an Arabic version can help in more traffics.

Hong Kong and Singapore: are already strong on the web. A small advice for Hong

Kong could be linking social pages with the official tourist website.



Limitations

The given report has some fundamental limitations such as:

Search engines: Based on the keywords the number of searches, give only an

approximate estimation of web content available. More ever the total number of

searches keeps on varying with time to time.

Reviews: Reviews themselves are not 100 % accurate estimation of the brand presence

since it is not just the numbers but quality of reviews that also matters. More over a

negative review can be detrimental to the brand value.

Google double ad click: he unique visitors, page views and average time spent,

calculated by Google double ad click are just estimation rather than the exact data.

However out of many website measurement tools available on the internet, it is

considered as the most authentic by many web media evangelist.

Reference

1> Nguyen N, 2007,tourism trends and the effect of online booking for Vietnam travel

market, available <

http://www.findvietnamresorts.com/company/advertise/research.pdf>



2> Quan Z, Rich D, 2005, Usability issue in city tourism websites: content analysis, p-3,

available at http://www.arlt-lectures.com/cross-cult-city-tour.pdf

3> Facebook statistics center, 2011, available at

http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

4> Youtube.com, 2011,press statistics, available at <

http://www.youtube.com/t/press_statistics>

5> Sofia r, Brain H, 2010, the use of you tube as tourism marketing tool, available at <

http://eresearch.qmu.ac.uk/2315/1/2315.PDF>

6> Enjoyyourholiday.com, 2011, top 10 visited cities in the world, available at <

http://www.enjoyourholiday.com/2011/04/18/top-10-most-visited-cities-in-the-world/>


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