The Influence of Online Travel Communities on Customers Choice

With the rapid growth of number of Internet users, an increasing number of companies started building virtual communities as a mean for distributing information and products. No doubt that online communities have become very efficient tool for communication and enhancing relationships with customers. The current paper focuses on studying online communities in travel business. The main goal is to determine if there is an influence of online travel community on customers’ choice. The paper consists of three chapters. In the first chapter the theoretical background of brand communities and online communities is described. The typology of online communities and their role in customer life cycle is investigated. The second chapter contains the description of the main peculiarities of online communities in travel business. Popular foreign online travel communities are analyzed. Based on this analysis the recommendations on how to create a successful online travel community are given. The last chapter presents the practical part of the paper. The methodology is based on primary research through quantitative analysis that was accomplished by using online questionnaire made in Google Forms. The final results were obtained with the use of factor and cluster analyzes and Independent Samples T-test. After the analysis it was concluded that travel communities really influence on customers’ choice. However, in Russia the level of satisfaction from the membership in online travel community is not high. It is so because the customer oriented service is not well-developed in our country and the tourist sphere is not an exception.