UNCOVERING TRAVELLERS’ EXPECTATIONS THROUGH ‘NETNOGRAPHY’: A BIG DATA APPROACH FOR STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT
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Presentation done by Stefanie Gallob, during "Digitally bringing products and destinations closer to demand" workshop, of the ENTER2015 eTourism conference.
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UNCOVERING TRAVELLERS’ EXPECTATIONS THROUGH ‘NETNOGRAPHY’: A BIG DATA APPROACH FOR STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT
- 1. ENTER 2015 Destination Track Slide Number 1 UNCOVERING TRAVELLERS’ EXPECTATIONS THROUGH ‘NETNOGRAPHY’: A BIG DATA APPROACH FOR STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT Stefanie Gallob Head of Research European Travel Commission, Belgium stefanie.gallob@visiteurope.com http://www.etc-corporate.org http://www.visiteurope.com
- 2. ENTER 2015 Destination Track Slide Number 2 POWERED BY
- 3. ENTER 2015 Destination Track Slide Number 3 Destination Europe 2020 A joint initiative of the European Commission and ETC.A joint initiative of the European Commission and ETC. A programme of activities to enhance the promotion and visibility of Europe and its destinations in key extra-European markets. A programme of activities to enhance the promotion and visibility of Europe and its destinations in key extra-European markets. 57% 52% 41% 16% 23% 30%
- 4. ENTER 2015 Destination Track Slide Number 4 An innovative an cost- effective research approach Understand the mind of travellers through netnography Netnography = ethnography adapted to the online social world
- 5. ENTER 2015 Destination Track Slide Number 5 What netnography is and what it is not
- 6. ENTER 2015 Destination Track Slide Number 6 QUANTITATIVE netnography •Over 50 million microblog posts •Over 20 million blog posts •Search statistics from Internet search engines Baidu and Google •Clustering of bloggers into travel groups and extraction of themes and trends related to travel and Europe QUALITATIVE netnography •In-depth reading of individual blogs, microblogs, forum posts and other online content •Semiotic analysis of over 1,000 photographs •A qualitative analysis of travel types, motivations and behaviour The Chinese blogosphere
- 7. ENTER 2015 Destination Track Slide Number 7 The Chinese blogosphere
- 8. ENTER 2015 Destination Track Slide Number 8 ”Europe is a shopping heaven, it has all luxury brands, whether Louis Vuitton or Cartier or Hermes. So I go to Europe to get the most choices when buying luxury products.” ”Europe is a shopping heaven, it has all luxury brands, whether Louis Vuitton or Cartier or Hermes. So I go to Europe to get the most choices when buying luxury products.” Chinese Travel Budget 34% shopping 17% air fare 18% accommodation 9% entertainment 3% travel agency service Europe is “the” place for shopping
- 9. ENTER 2015 Destination Track Slide Number 9 ”Does Kiruna have a Chinese restaurant? I don’t care so much but I’m travelling with my mother and I’m afraid she won’t like the local food.” ”Does Kiruna have a Chinese restaurant? I don’t care so much but I’m travelling with my mother and I’m afraid she won’t like the local food.” Authenticity … but only in certain doses
- 10. ENTER 2015 Destination Track Slide Number 10 ”Renting a bicycle in the Netherlands costs 10 euro per day. For that price I can get a second hand bicycle in China.” ”Renting a bicycle in the Netherlands costs 10 euro per day. For that price I can get a second hand bicycle in China.” Food, accommodation, and transportation are items where most travellers try to save money, whereas entertainment and shopping are allowed to be more costly. Chinese travellers are still price conscious
- 11. ENTER 2015 Destination Track Slide Number 11 …but do not overlook the Traditionalists! Choose your tribe
- 12. ENTER 2015 Destination Track Slide Number 12 The new Chinese traveller • Looks for an in-depth travel experience (from standardized group travel to FIT) • Better educated (81% of Chinese outbound travellers hold higher educational degree) • Is skilled with social media and Internet usage (642 million Internet users, 3 times as active in social media as American Internet users) • Is an urban dweller • Remains price sensitive
- 13. ENTER 2015 Destination Track Slide Number 13 Peaceful, quiet and clean environments Peaceful, quiet and clean environments Lessons learned
- 14. ENTER 2015 Destination Track Slide Number 14 Promotion strategy: China 18-30 FIT and first-time travellers, affluent and well-educated 30-45 professional, higher income 18-30 FIT and first-time travellers, affluent and well-educated 30-45 professional, higher income ‘storytelling’ customised pan-European content games and competitions ‘storytelling’ customised pan-European content games and competitions
- 15. ENTER 2015 Destination Track Slide Number 15 THANK YOU FORTHANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION!YOUR ATTENTION! CONTACT:CONTACT: STEFANIE.GALLOB@VISITEUROPE.COMSTEFANIE.GALLOB@VISITEUROPE.COM
Editor's Notes
- Founded in 1498 as part of the Marshall plan. NTOs form Europe set up this org with a clear mission: work together to promote the beautiful and diverse countries of our region as toruism desitnaitond It was clear to them that success would come only thorugh collaboraiton and they focused on two main areas: research and marketing
- In a nutshell, netnography is a fast and cost-effective research approach that allows us (ETC) to better understand the mind of travellers, in our case long-haul travellers. Netnography is a technique that utilises the advantages of the emerging online social media (has a closer look at user-generated content) and applies both quantitative and qualitative techniques in the process (as we will see later) to extract knowledge usable for marketing strategy building. Netnographic research has been around for some 19 years (Kozinets, 2010), however, has only received headwind the past couple of years if the every increasing emergence of new possibilities in the Web 2.0 environment. Qualitative technique Kozinets, who is often named as the founder of netnography who developed the technique as a marketing and consumer research method already in the 90's, describes the method as ethnography adapted to the study of online communities. In order to grasp this concept we have first to be clear about two items: ethnography and online communities. Ethnography is a well-established research technique that is specifically designed to investigate a cultural phenomenon such as the behaviour of a certain group of people. It basically provides a window into naturally occurring behaviour outside the researchers influences. While techniques such as interviews and focus groups are readily applied, the researcher particularly engages in the observation of a group's dynamics and discussion. If observing online communities, the ethnographic approach is in need of being adapted to adhere to the digital environment and setting. As a method, netnography is faster, simpler and less expensive than traditional ethnography, and more naturalistic and unobtrusive than focus groups or interviews to generate information on symbolism, meanings and consumption patterns of online consumer groups. Naturally occuring behaviour
- Netnography captures and gives in-depth qualitative and nuanced insights of traveller's preferences, experiences and themes or associations with for example a tourism destination such as Europe. However, we would be overestimated the capabilities of this technique, or better we would choose the wrong methodology, if we would be aiming for results that can be generalised to describe the whole population including the assumption that the frequencies generating by the approach are actual market volumes. We have to keep in mind that we are here exclusively investigating online communities, and the profile of Internet users may devitate from the general population’s characteristics and cannot be generalised.
- Quantitative: 1. The entire available body of microblogs and blogs in selected social media platforms constituted the initial data source. 2. Broad keywords were used to narrow down the conversation 3A. Noise reduction – statistical clustering of data where irrelevant clusters were removed. 3B. Association analysis – based on the posts deemed relevant in the analysis above, what were similar posts in the entire data set, even if they did not use any of the keywords used for the initial selection? We used this method to find additional relevant posts. 4. Now the data set was complete and we started to carry out the various types of analysis. Algorithm detects pairs that keep occurring together. The analysis looks for “bursts” in the conversation, going beyond frequencies which would limit the results to rather obvious clusters of thematic interest.
- 11% travel related Other: 15% sports, 14% business, 13% culture, 12% people Visa: 1% in blogs Search statistics: 90% travel
- As you probably now, China suprassed both Germany and the United States in terms of tourism expenditure in 2012 as reported by UNWTO. CNTA reports that: 34% of expenditure during trips to Europe went to shopping, 17% to air fare, 18% accommodation, 9% entertainment, 3% travel agency service Ctrip found that the majority of travellers spend between $1,200 and $4,000, which is more than in the U.S. or Australia. 5% of travellers spend more than USD 4000 when travelling in Europe. Several brands and destinations have rolled out the red carpet for the Chinese shopper: The Parisian department store Printemps has created a special entrance for Chinese tour groups with store maps in Chinese. In London, Chinese travellers have become the group with the fastest growth in spending in the department store Harrods. It employs 70 Mandarin-speaking staff members and has installed 75 dedicated China Union Pay points. When Galeries Lafayette in Paris adopted China Union Pay, they found they doubled sales to Chinese customers within the first year. Tourism Australia unveiled its 2020 Strategic Plan in June, committing €24 million over three years to push Australia as a high-end destination for super-rich Chinese travellers. Luxury handbags, five-star hotels, exclusive restaurants, and glitzy casinos are all part of the offer. A marketing campaign has been rolled out to 13 cities in mainland China, and will expand to 30 cities by 2020. Meanwhile, Accor Hotels and others have arranged rooms according to feng shui principles and are contemplating adding Chinese TV channels to their guestrooms. Every Chinese New Year, Crown Casino in Melbourne holds a street festival with red lanterns and traditional Chinese food and dance. Hilton Hotels & Resorts has started a new program called Hilton Huanying, tailored specifically for Chinese guests. Participating hotels offer front desk members fluent in Chinese; traditional Chinese breakfast items including congee and dim sum; and a tea kettle, chopsticks, slippers, and Chinese TV channels in the guest rooms. In 2012, a similar program will be rolled out in select Starwood Hotels around the world to cater to the unique needs of Chinese guests. It includes Chinese-friendly menus in the hotel restaurants, local area information in Chinese, and in-hotel “Chinese specialists”. But why are Chinese such eager shoppers? As one Chinese blogger pointed out, although many items in European luxury shops are made in China, they are actually cheaper in Europe. This is because of hefty taxes on imported luxury goods in China and because of exchange rates. In Europe you are also sure to “get the real thing” and often the stores themselves are interesting attractions.
- Related to the trending of small town destinations. Chinese travellers in Europe like to sample the local cuisine, but beyond that the preference is for Chinese food, especially for breakfast. That means either finding a Chinese restaurant, or cooking for oneself. Many Chinese restaurants in Europe have special menus for Chinese tourists, offering “real” Chinese food. It is also common for Chinese backpackers to stay in Chinese owned hostels when travelling in Europe, which is considered by bloggers as a good way to o meeting like-minded Chinese travellers. Ironically, Chinese appear to have a certain fascination for anything Chinese during the Europe trip. There are plenty of photos featuring European shop signs or information in Chinese, visits to Chinatown, or random things like a Chinese fengshui course promotion. One blog summed up all the “Chinas outside China”, including rivers and towns with ‘China’ in their names.
- Despite the booming luxury tourism market, most Chinese travellers are often very price conscious. It is not necessarily a matter of spending as little money as possible, but rather of spending it on the right things. Price discussions in the Chinese social media sphere make it clear that food, accommodation, and transportation are items where most travellers try to save money, whereas entertainment and shopping are allowed to be more costly. There are many accounts in blogs of independent travellers cooking their own food – instant noodles are common – or looking for hotel deals that include breakfast and other meals. As illustrated by one of the quotes above, travel blogs frequently share price information about virtually every expense while travelling. This information influences travellers’ choices on everything from transportation and accommodation to food and entertainment. Some forums have sections on free or cheap attractions. On the Qiongyou BBS there is a guide to free attractions in Paris and Barcelona and a guide to cheap flight tickets. The Internet portal Netease has put together a list of top 10 free attractions around the world. Incomes in China are continuously rising, giving an ever-increasing number of new middle-class families the possibility to travel to Europe. Nevertheless, still many who dream about it cannot afford it.
- Make a summary Based on the netnographic analysis, five Chinese travel tribes could be identified. Traditionalists: They are the largest tribe which mainly consists of group travellers. For many, travelling to Europe has been a life-long dream. They often try to cover as many destinations as possible. Prestige is their main motivation. Wenyi Youth: This group includes the rapidly-expanding group of young people (“Wenyi” means literature and art). This group is characterised by the pursuit of freedom, life-quality, experience, uniqueness and self-realisation. Their main motivation is freedom and uniqueness. Experience-centred travellers: This covers a number of sub-tribes with one thing in common: they like travelling for its own sake rather than for prestige or status. They are mostly independent travellers and the experience is central to their trip. Hedonists: The smallest of the five tribes (less participative in open platforms hence small), many of them are overseas students. To them travel is about pleasure: shopping, eating, at good restaurants and having a good time in general. Scenery is unimportant. Connoisseurs: The Connoisseurs set themselves apart from other travellers by their refined tastes and deep knowledge of places they visit. Quality-oriented is the phrase that best describes them. Often they have a particular interest such as food or photography. They prefer an independent form of travelling.
- The netnographic study conducted in 2012 pointed that there is a new kind of Chinese traveller venturing abroad. 642 million internet users, that is 46% of the Asian population and dwarfs the United States (277 million). Internet penetration in China (47%) and United States (87%).
- Interests go deeper than the standard muti-country package tour. When planning a trip, to Europe for example, Chinese prefer destinations that trigger an emotional connection (e.g. historic figures – the city of Trier (connected with London) ranks top in Google search statistics), Can you imagine why?? Karl Marx was born in Trier and he is most frequently discussed historical person in the blogosphere. A major motivator for Chinese is the escape from the pressures of everyday life. Life in China’s big cities entails a lot of pressure on the white collar worker which involves challenges entailed in navigating a complex net of social relationships and meeting high expectations of his-her family. The alternative to choking city life (traffic, pollution) Chinese yearn for is an environment characterised by simplicity and authenticity. The concept of “small towns” is trending in the Chinese blogosphere: For Chinese travellers “small town” refers to anything away from the usual tourist hubs but it also appears that many of the “small towns” that have become popular among Chinese tourists have in common that they are home to one or more local Chinese residents actively promoting tourism to the location (e.g. Chinese hostel owners for backpackers). Barriers visa procedures: 26% of potential visitors to Europe cancelled their trips due to visa hurdles (ETOA). There are entire online forums dedicated to the topic of visa application advice. Efficient visa procedures a competitive advantage. For independent travellers, research on visa requirements and process. The application procedure, not least to European destinations, is often tedious and requires a lot of preparation and forward planning. The netnographic analysis shows that some travellers change their travel plans at this point. Research on specific routes and modes of transportation and decision of which route to take. Booking of hotels or hostels, when required for the visa application. Research on attractions and their prices. Some groups of travellers are very interested in the history of the places they will visit. Checking schedules of busses and trains, buying maps and guidebooks, and preparing equipment.
- Leveraging the power of social Target: 18-30 FIT and first-time travellers, affluent and well-educated 30-45 professional, higher income Objectives: pan-European experiences Storytelling and