Tourists' Behavioral Changes According to the Type of Communication in Online Travel Communities

온라인 여행 커뮤니티에서 커뮤니케이션 유형에 따른 관광객의 행동 변화

Due to advance in Internet technology, most tourists tend to search travel information in the Online Travel Communities(OTC). Given this new paradigm in terms of finding travel information, most of relevant studies in this area are still dealt with explaining tourists' behaviors regardless of the types of communications. Therefore, to overcome some limitations in previous studies, we attempt to examine the relationships between both formal and informal communications and tourists' behavioral changes in the OTC context. Specifically, we developed a research model by employing the PPM(push-pull-mooring) framework and tested it to understand why and how tourists' behaviors might be changed. Survey data collected from 323 online tourists were used to test the model the model using SEM(structural equation modeling). The implications of our empirical findings for both research and practice are discussed.