a study on the perception of tourists and consumption...
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A Study on the Perception of Tourists and
Consumption Trends on Ethical Management
Information of Travel Agencies Serviced through User
eXperience oriented Web
Woong-Ki Min, Jin-Hee Ku, Nam-Jo Kim1,
College of Liberal Education, Department of Information Communication Engineering,
Mokwon University, 88, Doanbuk-ro, Seo-gu, Daejeon, 35349, South Korea
{sunppk, jhku}@mokwon.ac.kr 1 Department of Tourism, Hanyang University,
222, Wangsimni-ro, Seongdong-su, Seoul, 04763, South Korea
Abstract. With the development of information and communication
technology, it is becoming common to access contents of travel products
through various smart devices. From the viewpoint of UX, access to travel
agent web information through smart devices are oriented towards Sit Forward
that consumers have to search directly for a lot of contents about travel products
compared to offline access. On the other hand, the information that is released
to the people through the Internet media includes openness and public interest,
so it must fulfill its social responsibility for the accuracy of the information. It
is also necessary for people to receive equal opportunities to use tourism
packages, which have the value of public goods, in the process of consumption.
Recently, tourists have been becoming more interested in ethical management
by travel agencies that share these two characteristics. Therefore, contents
service through information and communication technology media and the
efforts to investigate the characteristics of tourists, who pursue social values
central to the relations of a virtuous cycle, are expected to form a crucial
process in exploring new relations between information technology and tourists'
information exploration.
Keywords: Information and communication technology media, tourism
packages, public interest, public goods, ethic management.
1 Introduction
Online tourist media has recently been providing tourists with information about
diverse types of ethical management practices. Tourists receiving this information can
exhibit different types of awareness, depending on their lifestyle [1][2].
1 Corresponding author
Advanced Science and Technology Letters Vol.141 (GST 2016), pp.155-157
http://dx.doi.org/10.14257/astl.2016.141.32
ISSN: 2287-1233 ASTL Copyright © 2016 SERSC
Companies are utilizing diverse types of ethical management. A type of ethical
management which has recently been drawing attention is Corporate Social
Responsibility (CSR). CSR is largely divided into economic, legal, philanthropic, and
ethical responsibility. Companies have recently started to pay attention to their
responsibility towards consumers who form a source of profit-making [3][4]. Travel
agencies in South Korea have also started to accept the characteristics of business
management in the pursuit of social values. South Korean travel agencies are not
funded by large companies, due to the uncertainty of the external environments which
surround tourism packages, and are mostly operated in the form of small or medium-
sized business. For this reason, travel agencies have had fewer chances to generate
profits through ethical management due to lack of funds or other related reasons.
Recently, however, travel agencies have made an active attempt to realize social
values based on ethical management through online information media in South
Korean society [5].
The development of information and communication technology has given
accessibility to information. Tourists consuming travel packages as public goods have
started to take an interest in information about tourism packages. This study aimed to
determine how tourists were made aware of information about the ethical
management of travel agencies, as publicized through online information media in
South Korean society, on the basis of the characteristics of information media [6].
2 Main Discourse
Online information media publicizes major travel packages into diverse categories.
Major online information can be accessed individually by consumers through a sit-
forward model, whose characteristics are different from those of a lean-back model
(i.e. information about tourism packages being exposed passively). Online product
information gives details of select institutions and items to display the superiority of
relevant goods and consumers may also take their time making minute observation
[7][8]. Thus they have recently begun offering useful information about the superior
aspects of major travel packages in order to differentiate them from others. Travel
agencies' CSR has also begun to give stronger stimuli to consumers according to the
characteristics of information and communication media.
A typical characteristic among the content of online promotional materials is to
describe the differences among similar goods to prevent customers from moving to
other agencies once they have used one of their tourism packages. This is also called
an attention economy system. A travel agency's CSR is a characteristic of goods that
can present the differentiated attributes of tourism packages in the same context
[9][10].
The information given to consumers through information and communication
media is expertise, which is not passively exposed to consumers. For this reason,
consumers searching for information about tourism packages online are likely to be
pursuing different social values than simply the existing information about general
travel goods. Therefore, if travel agencies' PRs are related to CSR they can be more
effective online. Consumers' responses to this information can vary based on their
Advanced Science and Technology Letters Vol.141 (GST 2016)
156 Copyright © 2016 SERSC
own lifestyle. Consumers originally pursuing social and public-interest values can
more keenly respond to the PRs by setting stricter consumption criteria through
information media.
3 Conclusion
This study explored the characteristics of the information provision process in online
information media, PRs concerning ethical management which travel agencies have
recently regarded as important in getting their tourism packages known, and the
characteristics of tourism consumers who log on to them to get information.
Information provisions using technology of online information media based on
public interests has also changed tourists' purchasing activity of tourism packages. It
has offered chances to take more interest in social values and public interest. Further
research should be conducted to make in-depth discussions about what consumption
propensity tourists have in terms of tourism packages of travel agencies performing
ethical management, in regards to their lifestyle.
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