What Matters To Travel Bloggers Before The Trip? The Malaysian Travel Blogger And Tourist Perspective

Social media, particularly travel blog are increasingly relevant in tourism practices affecting
destination and business. With the growth of internet-based social media technologies, tourists
are able to communicate, interact and establish relationship with destinations, business and
other tourists. Pre-visit stage of tourist experience involves activities that focussed on travel
planning, in which travel blogs is considered as a rich sources of travel information. Through
interviewing 19 travel bloggers, this study aims to understand travel bloggers behaviour and
strategies at the pre-visit stage of tourist experience. The findings show that, travel bloggers
engage with travel blogs with different behaviour which influenced by different motivations. It is
also highlighted that interaction in blogosphere serves an important role in influencing travel
bloggers engagement with travel blogs before the travel. The implication of the study and
suggestion for future research are explained.
Keywords: Travel Blog, Blogging Motivation, Blog Engagement, Pre-Trip, Qualitative