Author(s)

L. Huang

Abstract

This study explores travel blog marketing channel strategies and the conceptual business model of the marketing channel from the travel agency practitioners’ perspective. A three-round Delphi research design was adopted. According to the research, Taiwanese travel agencies consider four external environment forces, five internal motivations for investment, four developing differentiated strategies, and four channel performance measurement indicators. This study is quite innovative in that no related studies so far have analyzed nor tried to discern the issues of travel blog marketing channel strategies and the business model of travel blog for travel agencies. Finally, the construct of a travel blog marketing channel strategy model for Taiwan’s travel agency industry can address practical and theoretical needs. Keywords: travel blog, marketing channel, channel management, travel agency, Delphi. 1 Introduction The continuing rise of the Internet as a communications tool for travel organizations presents challenges for travel marketing activities and tourism enterprises that use blogs as part of their business strategy. Blogs that are interlinked with or integrated into a supplier’s website may therefore essentially contribute to an online booking at the later stage of a traveler’s online information search and travel planning behavior [1]. Blogs in particular have also proliferated rapidly in the last few years and are growing in popularity [2–4]. It is clear that blogs will continue to grow both as a medium for telling people about trips and as a source of information for potential travelers [5].

Keywords

travel blog, marketing channel, channel management, travel agency, Delphi