Presentation done by Dr. Li Li, Miss Siming Zheng and Mr Zihao Wang, during "Social media" workshop, of the ENTER2015 eTourism conference.

1. An Exploratory Study on Social Media in
China
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Dr. Li Li
Miss Siming Zheng
Mr Zihao Wang

2. Outline
1. An overview of the study
1. why?
2. what?
3. how?
2. Findings
3. Reflective accounts
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3. An Overview of the Study
1. Prevalence of social media (SM) usage worldwide
• Over 1.4 billion Facebook members by July 2014 (Statistic Brain, 2014)
• 71% of online adults in USA using facebook, followed by LinkedIn (22%)
and Pinterest (21%) (Duggan & Smith, 2013)
• 43% of UK holidaymakers use social media while on holiday (WTM, 2013)
• By 2014, 7 million apps and websites being integrated with Facebook
(Statistic Brain, 2014)
Social media is playing an increasingly important role in business and tourism
domains in the West.
2. How do Chinese nationals engage with SM given the accessibility issues to
certain international SM websites in China?
3. To what extent, is SM being utilised by industry players in China?
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Why?

4. An Overview of the Study
1. Exploring the use of SM in tourism-related actives in China which is ranked No. 1
market for tourism (WTO, 2013).
2. The context: China
The users perspective
By the end of June 2014, Internet users: 632m, 47% of total population; Internet
mobile users: 527m (CNNIC, 2014)
The most widely used SM websites: RenRen (89%), Douban (62%) and Weibo
(44%) (CNNIC, 2014)
Blog entries on RenRen: over 12.5m/day (RenRen, 2013)
Weibo users chat online (84%), group chat sessions (62%) (Sina, 2014)
Virtual identity building (14%), maintaining friendship (15%), link-sharing (15%),
read posts only (14%), non-participation (21%) (Chui et al., 2012).
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What?

5. An Overview of the Study
1. The context: China
The business perspective
5% of Sina Weibo corporate accounts are tourism businesses.
The most active blogger - Korean Tourism Board posts (10 entries daily)
(Zhang, 2013)
Having the highest number of followers - Education Division of the British
Embassy
Over 1.9m Internet users have purchased air tickets, hotel accommodations,
train tickets and/or travel tours online (CNNIC, 2014)
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What? (Cont’d)

6. An Overview of the Study
1. Literature review: social media
SM not No. 1 channel of communication but can contribute to high levels of
interconnectivity facilitated by search engines (Gratzel, 2010).
SM permit the sharing of information and knowledge creation online at
various stages of decision making in tourism and travel (Edelman, 2010).
SM contribute to increasing pressures of businesses to utilise work-of-mouth
(WOM) marketing efforts (Litvin et al., 2008).
• The local government of Xi’an launched its micro-blog, attracted over
25K members in 2012 (Mu, 2013).
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What? (Cont’d)

7. An Overview of the Study
1. Literature review: social media
How does WOM work?
Consumer socialisation (Ward, 1974; Solomon, 2013)
SM make socialisation in a 24/7 virtual world possible e.g. eWOM
eWOM can impact destination’s image and perceived attractiveness
(Cao, 2011; Leinson, 2011; Li & Wang, 2014; Li, Law & Murphy, 2011)
Sharing information AS WELL AS personal lived and living experiences
• Implicit values (Baym, 2010);
• Altruistic and community-related motivations (Hsu et al., 2007);
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What? (Cont’d)

8. An Overview of the Study
1. Used Baidu (the dominant search engine in China) to collect tourism-related blog
entries on Sina Weibo and RenRen
2. Entered synonyms of “tourism”, “travel”, “holiday”, “visit” and “leisure” in Chinese
characters
3. Douban - selected the biggest two groups with 420K entries
4. Further grouping of the results into “information”, “experiences” and “interaction”
The first 10 pages of the search results from each SM site were administrated in
NVivo 10, and analysed by using Framework Analysis method.
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How?
information experiences interaction
Sina Weibo 460m 157m 210m
RenRen 1m 2m 347K

9. Findings
A. Information sharing
Transportation, international destinations, domestic destinations, tourist
activities etc.
Visa and foreign currency exchange
Themed-travel information, such as spiritual travel, the revolutionary route of
the Red Army.
B. Marketing
Chinese government offices post information about domestic tourism
destinations.
Commercial travel businesses such as Mafengwo, Qyer try to attract users to
switch to their websites by offering discounted prices.
On Douban, NGOs promote green tourism, sustainable tourism, voluntary
tourism.
Douban is organised by destinations, which may suggest that its users are
experienced travellers.
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Finding 1

10. Findings
A. Experience sharing
Sharing of inward engagement with the self and outward expression of that
reflection and evaluation
“It was really tiring but it was fun” … “Travelled from [C]airns to [S]ydney to [C]auberra” …
Australia has a beauty of tranquillity while China is beautiful for its grandness. There are also
places in China that are beautiful and peaceful.” … “[I] spent too much money this time, feeling a
bit of guilty. I don’t know how to earn money yet but know how to spend it. [I] spent Daddy’s
money. I feel terrible. But Dad tried to comfort me by saying that I could use his money to travel
and in the future I could pay for his holiday. He is really a brilliant dad!!!” … “It was my first time to
do scoop diving. It was really really scary. I felt breathless. [I] threw up terribly and was sick on the
boat. I’d better not to take boat anymore.” … “[I] found in fact scoop diving is really fun!!! Ha Ha!!”
(Xiaoxia)
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Finding 2

11. Findings
A. Experience sharing
Sharing of the appreciation of “Qiongyou” - a buzz word widely cited by
budget travellers in China
“[Qiongyou] is wonderful because you develop friendships with strangers” … “[It] should be
based on mutual respect and experience sharing” … “It is an attitude to life, a forward attitude to
life, walking on the path with freedom” … “In that journey of Qiongyou, you’re bound to get to know
people that you don’t know, some of whom may also like travelling. You can talk to each other
sharing experiences” … “Get to know people. You may find your partner for life”. (Xiaozhan)
“Travel is a way of living, a hobby” … “[I] love the feeling of walking on the road freely with
uncertainty, expectations and surprises” … “On the journey, wash away all the troubles in your
mind. Let the sun shine our hearts” … “[and] say to yourself: how can we give up the beauty
now for the past miseries?” (Jingjing)
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Finding 2 (Cont’d)

12. Reflective Accounts
A. Consistent findings: expression of personal views, values, attitudes derived
from users’ travel experiences e.g. Edelman (2010), Goldsmith and Pan
(2008), Wang et al. (2012)
B. Out study highlights the embodiment nature of travel and its importance in
experience sharing.
C. Sampled Chinese bloggers associate travel journey with life journey, which is
deeply rooted in the philosophical values of the Chinese society.
D. SM sites have provided a means for consumer socialisation;
E. More interestingly, SM sites have also provided a means to accelerate
the social construction of “travel”, shaping tourism as a social human
conduct;
social socialisation
F. We argue that SM is more than a communication channel, but a creator that
enables the expansion of tourism boundary and a shaper that constantly
shapes tourism as a human social conduct within that boundary.
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13. Thank you for your attention.
Questions?
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