User Interactions in Online Travel Communities: A Social Network Perspective

Abstract

Online travel communities (OTCs) enable users to interact and share travel information voluntarily. Extant research has primarily focused on the content generated through user interactions but neglected how user interactions are structured. This study employed exponential random graph models to examine the formation of user interactions and the outcomes of homophily in terms of network structure across levels (actor, dyad, triad, and network). A dataset of 2,926 posts and 25,854 replies involving 9,712 users in an OTC was used. Results reveal that users’ question initiating and replying ties in OTCs exhibit significant positive structural dependencies in terms of reciprocity, activity spread, generalized transitive closure, and multiple connectivity. Homophily serves as the basis of dyadic interactions and homophilous ties evolve after formation. The study advances hospitality and tourism network research and methodology by going beyond traditional dyadic user interactions, and provides insights into user interactions in OTCs from the social network perspective.