engleski

Social Media in Organizing Vacation: Testing the Concept of Perceived Benefits and Perceived Costs

The concept of perceived benefits and perceived costs of using social media in organizing vacation was proposed as the theoretical model in order to explain the factors determining the intentions to use social media when organizing and taking vacation trips. This model was than tested on a sample of residents who use Internet and had travelled on vacation in the previous 12 months. By applying the concept on tourists visiting a destination, the purpose of this paper is to examine its suitability in relation to tourist destination visitors. Data was collected through self-administered questionnaire on a sample of tourists staying in hotels in nine tourist towns in Istria County, Croatia. This study was conducted from July through September in 2015. A total of 1554 responders were taken into analysis. For measuring the perceived benefits and costs a five-point Likert scale was used. Responders were asked to state the level of agreement for items measuring the perceived benefits and perceived costs of using social media in organizing vacation. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used to examine reliability and validity of the constructs. The dataset was split randomly into half, so that the first half of the sample was used for conducting exploratory factor analysis, while the second half was used for confirmatory purposes. Through exploratory factor analysis two dimensions of perceived benefits were determined, while perceived costs formed one dimension. Through confirmatory factor analysis certain modification regarding items were made but the previous structure was retained. The main changes were made in factor measuring perceived costs. The original structure of perceived benefits and perceived costs was not confirmed. The results suggest that the proposed concept cannot be fully applied to tourist destination visitors.

social media, perceived benefits, perceived costs, tourist destination visitors

nije evidentirano