Monday 23 April 2012

Understanding authenticity - survey by Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne

The Blue Yonder blog

Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne is doing a survey to understand how customers / travellers perceive the travel industry when it comes to authenticity. They have approached us to take part in this survey.

The objective is to understand how customers perceive the industry today in terms of authenticity, by taking a snapshot of the global current situation. Indeed, the altruistic nature of the industry often places it under scrutiny, and issues of authenticity are the subject of deliberation. The growing use of online communication tools is equally prone to raise issues of authenticity. Offering new possibilities in PR communication, corporate blogs were identified as the most relevant channel to frame the study.

Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne
 Through an analysis of companies across the world, the results will shed light on how customers perceive the RT industry globally in terms of authenticity, and help companies see where it stands in comparison with competitors and the industry mean. Moreover, insights may arise on which specific attributes are most important in constructing authenticity.

After a thorough review of existing literature, a model was developed to determine how authenticity is constructed in online environments, more particularly in corporate blogs. The main dimensions of authenticity are known as transparency, authority, origin, engagement and identity. Based on these dimensions, a survey was designed to gauge perceptions of authenticity in responsible tourism blogs. In an effort to minimize the length of the survey, the crucial dimensions were distilled into ten questions, which should not take more than three minutes to answer.

If you are interested in participating in this quick and short survey, please see this link. Any questions on the survey, please get in touch with Kamran Marwah