Word-of-mouth in social media : the case of Polish tourist industry

The core objective of this paper is to determine the level of online dialogue in social media between the tourist industry leaders and their customers. This study applies sequential explanatory industry-representative comparison with statistical and qualitative analysis of online word-of-mouth communication. Its main finding is that even if online marketing is a hot topic, online channels seem to be neglected by the companies failing to provide real-time dialogue services. This results in the loss of customer attention and engagement and can be linked with overall corporate relationship management immaturity. In addition, the article offers vital insight into customer value creation chain of hotel and tour operators.