How Other Social Media Threatens the Existence of Travel Blog Websites

The number of tourists using travel blog websites has decreased significantly. This is due to the increasing use social networks and people preferring them heavily over blogging. It is estimated that about 72% of all the social network users access their networking sites every day while on travel. Furthermore, of all the travel companies, 69% saw a growth in traffic from facebook. In addition, these companies also saw a 46% growth in traffic from twitter. In addition, the top five airlines are estimated to have a total of 2.5 million facebook fans (Danilles, 2014). The above findings show how threatened travel blogging is. They also serve to explain the decline in travel blogging.

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General y, blogging is done mostly by women and young people. There is also more blogging in countries like the United Kingdom and the United States. The majority of bloggers are those who post once in every month. According to (Zhang Jensen, 2014), there are also more travel bloggers who use more than one travel blog as compared to those who use one. Additionally, the majority of bloggers monetize their blogging. The most prestigious travel companies prefer other social media to blogging. Creating a diary, communication, constructing identities were the main motivations for blogging. However, there are other motivations such as monetary rewards, entertainment and also blogging as a way of passing time.

Background and Objectives

Background: travelblolg.org as a growing organization aspires to come up with a program to assess how other social media threatens the existence of travel blog websites. This information will be relied by travelblog.org to make standing improvement efforts. The main aim is to provide realistic bearing for these efforts.

Objectives: This form of research is aimed at achieving the following:

To determine how other social media threatens the existence of travel blog websites.

To identify who the main travel bloggers are.

To determine what types of trips the travel bloggers blog about.

To establish the websites used by bloggers and the travel blogs they post.

To determine the of blog by bloggers.

To determine the blogging motivations and practices of the travel bloggers.

Methodology

Questionnaire: the survey questionnaire was prepared and duly tested with the help of ten (10 travel bloggers. These bloggers were from travellerspoint.com and travelblog.com. It was then submitted to three (3) travel blog websites for permission and feedback. The questionnaire was posted by the administrators of travelblog.org on their travel forums.

Data collection: The research data was collected by travelblog.org through an online survey.

Sample design:

Qualified respondents; emails were sent to individual bloggers. The frequent bloggers were then selected alphabetically to number 13 of the alphabet.

Sample Source; the sample was provided by the travelblog.org company website.

Sample population; the study made use of 3,464 travel bloggers.

Methodology employed. Eligible respondents included a list of bloggers provided by the travelblog.org website.

Respondents

The administrators of travelblog.org sent private emails to individual respondents. This was done alphabetically by choosing the first thirteen (13) letters. Meanwhile, 3, 464 bloggers were emailed.

Gender

Women account for 59.9% of all the bloggers whereas men take 40.1% of bloggers.

Age

Young people are the most active bloggers. Bloggers between the age of 21 to 35 years account for 53.3% of all the bloggers. The following group takes 20.2% which include bloggers under the age of 20 years. The third group, which includes people between the age of 36 to 50 years account for 19.4%. However, bloggers above the age of 52 years claim the remaining 7.1% only (Danilles, 2016).

Location

The United States is the region with the largest number of blogger. It claims about 29.2% of all the bloggers. The second location with many bloggers is the Unite Kingdom with 6.75%. the other locations for bloggers are as follows: Japan with 4.9%, Canada with 3.9%, Brazil with 4.2%, Germany with 3.3%, France,, with 2.9%, Italy with,.2%, Russia with 2.3%, and Italy with 3.2% (Kjellberg, 2014).

Data collection: All the data was collected using a web-based questionnaire.

Data processing and analysis: The collected data was electronically processed and analyzed using Statistical Packages for the Social Sciences (SPSS).

Research Findings

The following are the key research findings:

Nature of travel bloggers: Most of the travel bloggers are tourists.

Bloggers motivation for blogging

The respondents mentioned the following as their main motivations for blogging: sharing their travel experience friends and family; reporting back to family and friends about experiences and activities during trips; keeping in touch with families and friends without necessarily incurring any phone calls or carrying diaries; keeping record of activities, experiences and events, that is a diary; social networking; sharing information with other tourists; for entertaining oneself; and as way of making money (Hinton $ Brownlow, 2014).

This chat shows that most blogs are those that are one to two years old with 59%. This is followed by the blogs that are in between three to four years. There are very few blogs on both extremes, that is, those that are one year old and those that are older than 9 years.

The majority of bloggers run more than one blog posts. However, the bloggers running only one post are not that little since they claim 41.1% (Man & Man, 2016).

From the above graph, more than 20 bloggers run only one blog. However, more than ten bloggers run two to three blogs. Conversely, Less than five bloggers run four to five blogs, whereas 1 bloggers runs more than seven blogs. Therefore, the majority of bloggers run less than 2 websites (Man & Man, 2016).

Number of Bloggers Number of posts written per month

3 5

16 5-10

20 10-15

5 15-20

3 20-25

2 25-30

3 >30

Table 1 a table showing the number of posts bloggers post per month

From the above findings in the table above, it is only three bloggers who post thirty or more posts in a moth. There are also only three bloggers who post the least number of blogs. That is three blogs in a month.

Variables used to determine blogging motivations and practices.

The first variable was timing of blogs which was described by whether the blog posts are entered during or after the trip.

The second variable was the regulatory of audience reading the posted blogs. This variable measured the frequency of reading the posted blogs by family, co-workers and friends. The respondents chose from 7 to 0 (Zhang & Jensen, 2012).

Forth variable; travel blog membership - This was defined by the travel website the blogger had joined. The respondents chose from: Realtravel.com, Travbuddy.com, Travellerspoint.com, Travelpod.com, Travelblog.org and others if any.

Fifth variable; the number of blogs posted this variable was defined by the total number of the posted with the following categories: 6 to 10 blogs, 11 to 15 blogs, 2to 50 blogs, more than 50 blogs ((Hinton & Brownlow).

Sixth variable blog produced this was defined by whether the blogger has produced at least one entry.

Seventh variable; for this variable the respondents were to show when they posted lastly. This was to confirm whether the blogger was active or not.

Eighth variable; motivation for blogging -this variable was to establish the reason for creating the travel blog accounts well as its level of importance.

Threats posed by other social media to travel blog website

Travel bloggers have opted for other social media due to a number of reasons. For instance, other social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Whatsup are considered to be cheaper than blogging. They also give the blogger more freedom than web blog since one owns his or her own account as opposed to web blogs where bloggers own your blog site (Azariah, 2012).

The following are some of the threats that are posed by other social media to travel blog websites: the other social media are considered to have large numbers of followers. Thus, travel bloggers prefer them since they are sure to reach their audience easily. Consequently, the bloggers are able to share their content faster and easier using other social media (Zhang & Jensen, 2012)). They are also able to build relationships with other travelers easily since these media offer independence and

It is estimated that about 72% of all the social network users access their networking sites every day while on travel. Furthermore, of all the travel companies, 69% saw a growth in traffic from facebook. Additionally, these companies also saw a 46% growth in traffic from twitter. In addition, the top five airlines are estimated to have a total of 2.5 million facebook fans (Kjellberg, 2014).

Data Analysis

There are more young people who are engaged in blogging as compared to old people. They account for 53.3% as compared to old people who only comprise 7.1%. This is probably due to the fact that blogging is not very old. There are more women bloggers than men. Nevertheless, the gap between these two genders for blogging is not very wide. However, this shows that women brows more than men (Pallant, 2011).

The developed nations have the majority of bloggers. This can be explained by the presence of many people with means to blog in these locations as compared to the rest. Additionally, most bloggers post five to fifteen posts a month (Pallant, 2011). There are 59% authors who run multiple blogs. The bloggers who monetize their blog account for 94%. 74% of authors regularly read the blog posts. Whereas 76% of those who monetize their blogs, blog solely for money.

There so many big travel companies which use other media platforms to connect to their customers. This explains why there is a decline in travel blogging. These companies go to as far as provide free internet connection for their customers to access these social sites. The available data shows that these companies have recorded exceptional rise in social media traffic with facebook and twitter during travels (Azariah, 2012). Consequently, travel blogs are left to receive minimal attention as a result.

Conclusions and Recommendations

Conclusions

Other social media such as facebook and twitter claim the majority of followers. There are quite a big number of travelers who prefer keeping in touch with family and friend through the alternative social site to blogging, this tells why the number of travel bloggers is decreasing. Additionally, there is a reasonable number of bloggers who run more than one blogs. As a result of this, there is no loy...