TY - JOUR
T1 - Network Analysis of Navigation Paths of Tourists’ Trip Planning and Power Structure of the Online Tourism in China
AU - Li, Junyi
AU - Yang, Min
AU - Pan, Bing
N1 - Funding Information:
41001077 and No. 41428101, China Postdoctoral Science Foundation Sponsored Project No. 2012T50794, China Postdoctoral Science Foundation Project No. 2011M501429, and the program for Young Tourism Experts of China National Tourism Administration.
Funding Information:
The project was jointly funded by National Natural Science Foundation Projects No.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Asia Pacific Tourism Association.
PY - 2015/12/18
Y1 - 2015/12/18
N2 - In order to investigate the power structure of the online tourism domain in China, this study adopted a lab experiment and a network analysis method to examine the navigational paths of vacation planning behavior of Chinese college students. The analyses included the websites involved in the information search, network statistics of navigational paths, and clickthrough patterns between different types of websites. The navigational path network is a small-world network with shorter average path lengths and shorter network diameter than a web hyperlink network. The tourists generally followed a path of starting web page, general search engines, Online Travel Agencies (OTAs), and finally a specific business website. The clickthrough pattern indicated that search engines and OTAs were major intermediaries and thus exerted a higher power in the online tourism domain in China.
AB - In order to investigate the power structure of the online tourism domain in China, this study adopted a lab experiment and a network analysis method to examine the navigational paths of vacation planning behavior of Chinese college students. The analyses included the websites involved in the information search, network statistics of navigational paths, and clickthrough patterns between different types of websites. The navigational path network is a small-world network with shorter average path lengths and shorter network diameter than a web hyperlink network. The tourists generally followed a path of starting web page, general search engines, Online Travel Agencies (OTAs), and finally a specific business website. The clickthrough pattern indicated that search engines and OTAs were major intermediaries and thus exerted a higher power in the online tourism domain in China.
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U2 - 10.1080/10941665.2014.998249
DO - 10.1080/10941665.2014.998249
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84953357909
SN - 1094-1665
VL - 20
SP - 1451
EP - 1465
JO - Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research
JF - Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research
ER -