Web searching has increasingly become a prevalent channel for tourists to conduct collaborative search for travelling information. In this paper, we report results of a user study on tourists' collaborative search behaviour on the Web. The study aims to identify the features of collaboration and factors affecting the collaboration while tourists search for tourism information. Data collection techniques included pre- and post-search questionnaires, Web search logs, online chat logs during collaborative search, and post-search interviews. The analysis of search logs and chat logs data reveals the types of information the users exchange during the collaborative search for tourism information which includes Web links, messages related to the travel plan, division of search tasks and sharing of search results. The participants selected different search engines and tourism related websites based on the search task and their needs. The results also provide the contextual factors which influence the collaboration for tourism information are: the budget for the travel, the previous knowledge and the previous visit and the technology. The findings have practical implications for the content and presentation of tourism websites as well as the design of interface that supports online collaborative tourism information searching.
['Abu Shamim Mohammad Arif', 'Jia Tina Du', 'Ivan Lee']
Exploring tourists' collaborative web search: implications for system design