comparison of online brand strength of leading asian tourism destinations

Comparison of online brand strength of leading Asian tourism destinations


Introduction

Present context is marked by the gradual shrinkage of regular and conventional

media and rapid rise of digital media. A large amount of media consumptions occur

over the digital channels. Like various other industries tourism is also not insulated

from the rising significance of the digital media.

Digital Media plays a very crucial role in the entire cycle, a traveler undergoes-

selection, planning, information gathering, booking, and visit. The following table

gives a list of e-marketing activities corresponding to various stages of travel

(Nguyen N, 2007).

Stage Activity

Selection E-mail, viral promotion, social media,

videos and photo sharing sites, SEO,

banner ads

Information gathering Travel websites

Planning Click ads, travel websites,

Booking Travel portals, websites, official sites

Visit Dynamic itinerary planner, SMS, emails

Table 1: shows the e-marketing activities corresponding to various stages of travel.

In order to up their ante in this transformed tourism landscape, it is essential for

tourist destinations to have a strong presence across various web platforms- travel

websites, social media, social media, and mobile application etc. The following

report will analyze the online brand strength of leading tourist destinations from

Asia- Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok, Dubai and Istanbul. It will do a

comparative analysis of the online brand presence across the following platforms-

Paritosh Kashyap


search engines (Yahoo and Google), travel websites (Trip Advisor, Frommer,

Virtual Tourist, official tourist websites) and social media (Face Book and You

Tube) etc.

Search Engines

Search engines play a vital role in any form of marketing. The following part provides a simple estimate of search results related to the five locations in Google and Yahoo, two of search engine giants.

Bangkok

Dubai

Istanbul

Singapore

Hong Kong

0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600

76.7

102

243

144

383

334

344

515

1230

1500

GoogleYahoo

Fig 1: shows the search results in millions on typing the name of the destinations in search engines.

Paritosh Kashyap


Bangkok Dubai Istanbul Singapore Hong Kong0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

200

32.7 36.9

15.1

37.5

190

8.63 9.81

47.6

120

189

YahooGoogle

Fig 2: shows the image search results in millions for the five destination in Yahoo & Google

Bangkok Dubai Istanbul Singapore Hong Kong0

5

10

15

20

25

0.47 0.3 0.79 1 0.56

7.6

14.7

7.04

17

20.1

YahooGoogle

Fig 3: shows the video search results in millions for the five destination in Yahoo & Google

Paritosh Kashyap


Istanbul

Dubai

Bangkok

Hong Kong

Singapore

0 50 100 150 200 250

16.5

35

20.1

57.5

43.8

7.93

12

13.3

176

211

GoogleYahoo

Fig 4: shows the number of search engine results in millions on typing- name of the

destination followed by hotels. Exp: Singapore Hotels

Istanbul

Dubai

Bangkok

Hong Kong

Singapore

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

14.2

31.6

19.1

42.1

56.4

2.19

1.8

4.18

31

4.5

GoogleYahoo

Fig5: shows search results in million in Google and Yahoo on typing <city name>

places to visit. For exp: Hong Kong places to visit.

Official tourist websites

Paritosh Kashyap


Websites are the representation of the tourist destinations in the web world. Not

only do they build the brand image of the destination but also guide unaware

tourist by providing all the relevant information in detail. It helps traveler make

travelling decision. Some of the essential requirements of travelers are- direction

information/map, visa and policy information, local information, photo gallery,

multilingual functions, content categorization, multimedia functions, utility

functions etc (Quan Z, Rich D, 2005).

All the above mentioned information could be gathered from the websites. Out of

all the available websites, the role of an official website is always much more

significant since it represents the official view point. The given part of the report

intents to analyze the popularity of official tourist websites of the five destinations

both In terms of web analytics as well as qualitative aspects of the website. For

web analytics measurement double click ad planner is used.

Official Websites of tourist destination

Singapore: YourSingapore.com (www.yoursingapore.com )

Dubai: DefinitelyDubai.com (http://www.definitelydubai.com/)

Bangkok: Bangkoktourist.com (http://www.bangkoktourist.com/)

Istanbul: Istanbul.com (http://english.istanbul.com/)

Hong Kong: DiscoverHongkong.com (www.discoverhongkong.com )

Paritosh Kashyap

http://www.discoverhongkong.com/

http://english.istanbul.com/

http://www.bangkoktourist.com/

http://www.definitelydubai.com/

http://www.yoursingapore.com/


YourSi

ngapore

Bangk

okTouris

t

Istan

bul.com

Discove

r Hong K

ong

Definite

lyDubai

050000

100000150000200000250000300000350000400000450000

050000010000001500000200000025000003000000350000040000004500000

Fig6: shows the total unique visits and page views for the five official sites, over the month of November 2011. The column chart shows unique visits, where as the line graph shows the page views. Source: double click ad planner.

BangkokTourist

YourSingapore

DefinitelyDubai

Discover Hong Kong

Istanbul.com

0:00 1:12 2:24 3:36 4:48 6:00 7:12 8:24 9:36 10:48 12:00

4:30

5:30

5:30

8:10

11:50

Fig7: shows the average time spent by a visitor in minutes: seconds. Source: double click ad planner.

Paritosh Kashyap


basic info Visa info No. of languages

Info categorization

Site map

Singapore yes yes 1 yes yesDubai yes no 5 yes yesHong Kong yes yes 14 yes YesIstanbul yes no 2 yes yesBangkok yes no 4 yes yes

Table 2: Compares the home page of the five official websites across some of the basic parameters.

Search option

Social media pages

Multi media packages Geographical customization

Singapore yes yes yes yes yesDubai yes no yes yes noHong Kong yes no yes yes yesIstanbul yes yes yes no noBangkok yes yes yes no no

Table 3: Compares the home page of the five official websites across some of the advanced parameters.

In terms of unique visitors and total page views, discover Hong Kong has an

insurmountable lead over others. This is followed by Singapore; others are far

behind. Discover Hong Kong is available in 14 different languages, a unique

feature missing in other websites. The closest to this is Definitely Dubai which is

available in 5 different languages. Other than the multilingual function most of the

websites provide all the basic function listed in table 1. It is the advanced

parameters which seem to be the differentiating factor. Yours Singapore has all the

five features, followed by Hong Kong with four. The other three have three each.

All the five websites have designed very attractive website with lot of multimedia

works-videos, photos, flash etc. One of the unique features, of the two successful

website is availability of geographical customization- provision of custom made

packages for different geographies.

Travel websites

Paritosh Kashyap


Travel websites play a very significant role in tourism marketing and destination

branding. Not only do they provide booking facilities for a range of tourism

activities but also share reviews for tourist destination in the form of – comments,

articles, videos and photos. These travel websites are loved by tourism enthusiast

and amateur tourists alike and some of them have huge fan following all across the

globe. A larger presence in such websites will ensure stronger brand image for

destinations. The given part of the report will compare the five destinations across

three of the most popular tourism websites- Frommer, Trip Advisor and Virtual

tourist

Frommer

Destination guides communities photos

Singapore 792 638 95

Dubai 2847 179 52

Hong Kong 822 678 152

Istanbul 635 761 57

Bangkok 9643 1110 98

Table 4: shows the no. of destination guides, communities and photos for the five

destinations in Frommer.

Trip advisor

reviews forums articles

Singapore 81, 472 45,761 255

Paritosh Kashyap


DUBAI 62,520 36,794 104

HONG KONG 66,102 39,119 235

Istanbul 93,995 23,149 164

Bangkok 118,811 61,955 224

Table 5: shows the no. of reviews, forums and articles for the five destinations in

Trip Advisor.

Virtual Tourist

Tips & reviews photos videos

Singapore 13,254 25,185 41

Dubai 2,580 5,721 34

Hong Kong 10,072 18,707 92

Istanbul 8,850 17,851 154

Bangkok 11,643 20,703 44

Table 6: shows the no. of tips and reviews, forums and articles for the five

destinations in virtual tourist.

With the help of the three tables it could be concluded that none of the destination

emerges as a true winner. There is a lot of variability across the three websites.

While Frommer and Trip Advisor are dominated by Bangkok; Singapore has

stronghold in Virtual Tourist. Even within the sites there are lots of variations. For

instance, Istanbul has the 2nd least number of tips & reviews in virtual tourist

where as highest number of videos. Another point to be considered is that if there

is no winner, there is no loser as well. All the five destinations have substantial

presence across the three websites in the form of- reviews, photos, videos, forums

and communities.

Facebook

Digital media landscape itself is transforming with social media playing a very

pivotal role. One of the most popular social media site across the globe is Facebook

Paritosh Kashyap


or FB. FB which is available in more than 70 languages has more than 800 million

active users across the world. More than 50 percent of active users log on to FB on

any given day. On an average every user is connected to 130 friends and 80

communities, events etc (Facebook statistics, 2011).

Due to its phenomenal popularity and sheer volume across the globe, FB provides

a very vibrant platform for marketers to communicate and interact with their

target customers. It also plays a very prominent role in building brand image for

tourist destinations. The given part of the report will compare the brand strength

of the five tourist destinations on FB. Since there are many FB pages related to the

destinations and comparing all of them not possible; most popular page for all the

destinations have been selected. The pages are:

Dubai: I Love Dubai

Istanbul: Istanbul, tours/ sightseeing

Singapore: YourSingapore

Bangkok: Bangkok, public places

Hong Kong: Hong Kong, Attractions, things to do

Bangkok

Hong Kong

Singapore

Dubai

Istanbul

0 50000 100000 150000 200000 250000

246

775

825

7386

9775

15,375

32,501

163,233

111,311

209,129

LikesTalking about

Paritosh Kashyap


Fig8: Shows number of likes and people talking about the given destinations on

their FB pages. Source: FB pages

Marketing a destination on FB also requires a lot of activities and updates on the

group page, besides just having a page. In order to comprehend the level of

activities done on each page, a seven day period- 19th Dec to 25th Dec, has been

selected under which all the activities- updates, likes, comments and shares have

been recorded.

Updates Comments Likes (for

individual

updates)

Shares

Dubai 14 1214 12,370 3125

ISTANBUL 37 848 4,311 778

Singapore 3 49 490 27

Hong Kong 40 75 1037 22

Bangkok 22 25 232 21

Table 7: shows the number of updates, comments, likes and shares during 19th to

25th Dec, for individual pages of tourist destinations. (Only updates related to

tourism has been included)

On FB, Dubai seems to have an edge over other destinations. Properly moderated,

it comes up with regular updates of photos and videos, reflecting the grandiose

and extravagance of Dubai. The beautiful photo graphs attract a large number user

likes comments and shares.

Other cities which come close to Dubai could be Istanbul and Singapore

(YourSingapore). Istanbul like Dubai is well moderated but is also fraught with lot

of irrelevant updates- political spoofs, funny pictures etc. Another flaw for page

Paritosh Kashyap


“Istanbul” could be predominant use of Turkish language, which deprives it of an

international appeal. YourSingapore is well managed page but needs more

updates. For the other two lots more is required. Large number of user generated

updates which include greetings and adieus, contradict with the professional

outlook expected out of such pages.

You tube

Another powerful social media tool is “You Tube”. Over 800 million of unique users

visit You Tube every month. Over 100 million of users take social actions such as

like, share and comment on You Tube every week (Youtube.com press statistics,

2011). You tube does not only play a pivotal role in branding a tourist destination,

but also absorb negative perception by interacting directly with the tourists (Sofia

R, Brain H, 2010).

Istanbul Hong Kong Dubai Singapore Bangkok0

500

1,000

1,500

2,000

2,500

3,000

3,500

4,000

4,500

0

100,000

200,000

300,000

400,000

500,000

600,000

107,000

478,000

212,000

504,000473,000

Fig9: shows the total number of tourism related searches and total views for top 10

searches for the five destinations. Column chart shows the no. of searches,

whereas line chart with data labels show the total no. of views. Source: You Tube

Conclusion and Suggestions

Paritosh Kashyap


It could be comprehended from various charts and tables that none of the five

destinations emerges as a clear winner. However, someone close to the numero

uno position could Hong Kong followed by Singapore. Both the city states appear

to be comparatively well equipped in building their brand on the web world. Based

on the analysis, there are following suggestion, which could help these states

further enhance their brand image -

Bangkok: With an intake of 10.2 million tourists it is Asia’s most visited

city. (enjoyyourholiday.com, 2011). The city also enjoys a high no of user

generated reviews, communities, photos and other user generated contents

in travel sites such as trip advisor, virtual tourist etc. However it has

comparatively lesser web presence as estimated from the search engine

section. In the social media segment it has strong base in You Tube, but

needs to use Face Book more aptly. It can also work on its website by adding

custom made packages.

Istanbul: Is the only city in the globe, stretched across two continents- Asia

and Europe. In most of the sections Istanbul has shown a moderate show-

neither too good nor too bad. An area where it needs to put some extra

efforts could be You Tube. Another could be official tourist page. The English

version (the Turkish version is doing good with 2,00,000 visitors over

November 2011) which is definitely engaging as reflected from the average

time spent, is still not attracting large volume of visitors like its counterpart,

Singapore and Hong Kong. One possible measure could be annexing a

Russian and German version as Turkey receives quite a good number of

tourist arrivals from the two countries.

Dubai: like Istanbul, Dubai has also showcased moderate performance

across most of the sections. One area where it has been exceptional could be

FB page “I love Dubai”. With arsenal of spellbinding photographs of Dubai,

Paritosh Kashyap


the page has been successful in its attempts of engaging and communicating

with people. Besides working on platforms like virtual tourists, Dubai can

rework on its official tourist site. Adding custom made packages and an

Arabic version can help in more traffics.

Hong Kong and Singapore: are already strong on the web. A small advice

for Hong Kong could be linking social pages with the official tourist website.

Limitations

The given report has some fundamental limitations such as:

Search engines: Based on the keywords the number of searches, give only

an approximate estimation of web content available. More ever the total

number of searches keeps on varying with time to time.

Reviews: Reviews themselves are not 100 % accurate estimation of the

brand presence since it is not just the numbers but quality of reviews that

also matters. More over a negative review can be detrimental to the brand

value.

Google double ad click: he unique visitors, page views and average time

spent, calculated by Google double ad click are just estimation rather than

the exact data. However out of many website measurement tools available

Paritosh Kashyap


on the internet, it is considered as the most authentic by many web media

evangelist.

Reference

1> Nguyen N, 2007,tourism trends and the effect of online booking for Vietnam

travel market, available <

http://www.findvietnamresorts.com/company/advertise/research.pdf>

2> Quan Z, Rich D, 2005, Usability issue in city tourism websites: content

analysis, p-3, available at http://www.arlt-lectures.com/cross-cult-city-

tour.pdf

3> Facebook statistics center, 2011, available at

http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

4> Youtube.com, 2011,press statistics, available at <

http://www.youtube.com/t/press_statistics>

5> Sofia r, Brain H, 2010, the use of you tube as tourism marketing tool,

available at < http://eresearch.qmu.ac.uk/2315/1/2315.PDF>

6> Enjoyyourholiday.com, 2011, top 10 visited cities in the world, available at <

http://www.enjoyourholiday.com/2011/04/18/top-10-most-visited-cities-in-

the-world/>

Paritosh Kashyap

http://www.enjoyourholiday.com/2011/04/18/top-10-most-visited-cities-in-the-world/

http://www.enjoyourholiday.com/2011/04/18/top-10-most-visited-cities-in-the-world/

http://eresearch.qmu.ac.uk/2315/1/2315.PDF

http://www.youtube.com/t/press_statistics

http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

http://www.arlt-lectures.com/cross-cult-city-tour.pdf

http://www.arlt-lectures.com/cross-cult-city-tour.pdf

http://www.findvietnamresorts.com/company/advertise/research.pdf

comparison of online brand strength of leading asian tourism destinations

Documents