During the Coronavirus illness (COVID-19) epidemic, young generations became accustomed to searching for travel and tourism information on the internet. As a result of the pandemic's limits on movement, Internet usage has risen dramatically. The developments in online information search related to travel and tourism must be investigated in order to aid the tourist industry's sustainability. During the Movement Control Order (MCO) period, this study looked at how young Malaysians searched for travel and tourism-related information online. The descriptive study was used to evaluate four variables: prior travel experience, online information participation, content, and travelling needs. An online poll was used to gather information from Malaysians across the country's 14 states. The replies of 348 people were analysed to see how the younger generation in Malaysia uses the internet to find information. According to the findings, nearly 90% of those surveyed have travelled at least once. Trivago.com is the most popular travel site, and Facebook is the most popular social networking platform, according to the statistics. In terms of content, the majority of searches are for travel destinations, although the majority of travellers' needs are for domestic travel. The findings of this research can be used to design marketing tactics for tourism products as well as recovery measures for the travel and tourism industry. This research can also add to our understanding of Malaysia's information search systems. This will assist Malaysia's tourism industry in making more informed decisions.
Cavagnaro, E., & Staffieri, S. (2015). A study of students’ travellers values and needs in order to establish futures patterns and insights. Journal of Tourism Futures
Dale, N. F., & Ritchie, B. W. (2020). Understanding travel behavior: A study of school excursion motivations, constraints and behavior. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, 43, 11-22.
Department of Statistics Malaysia. (2020). population. mycensus.gov.my.
Draper, J. (2016). An exploratory study of the differences in prior travel experience and tourist information sources. Tourism and Hospitality Research, 16(2), 133–143. https://doi.org/10.1177/1467358415600216
Dutta, C. B., & Das, D. K. (2017). What drives consumers’ online information search behavior? Evidence from England. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 35(November 2016), 36–45. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2016.10.015
Elliott, C. (2020). What Will Travel Be Like After The Coronavirus? https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherelliott/2020/03/18/what-will-travel-be-like-after-the- coronavirus/#241a3cf83329
Faat, F., Nasir, N. H. M., & Nor, N. M. S. N. M. (2017). Domestic travel behaviour among Generation Y.Journal of Tourism, Hospitality & Culinary Arts, 9(2), 75-84.
Grønflaten, Ø. (2009). Predicting travelers’ choice of information sources and information channels. Journal of Travel Research, 48(2), 230–244. https://doi.org/10.1177/0047287509332333
Gursoy, D. (2019). A critical review of determinants of information search behavior and utilization of online reviews in decision making process (invited paper for ‘luminaries’ special issue of International Journal of Hospitality Management). International Journal of Hospitality Management, 76(June 2018), 53–60. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2018.06.003
Hamid, M.A., Ismail, N., Rani, Z. M., & Najiah, K. (2020). A Study on Travel Patterns Among Students in Malaysian Public Universities. International Journal Of Academic Research In Business And Social Sciences, 10(2).
Hughes, K., Wang, J., & Shu, M. (2015). Exploring the travel patterns, preferences and recommendations of Chinese university students living in Australia. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, 23, 12- 22.
Jacobsen, J. K. S., & Munar, A. M. (2012). Tourist information search and destination choice in a digital age. Tourism Management Perspectives. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tmp.2011.12.005
Krejcie, R. V., & Morgan, D. W. (1970). Determining Sample Size for Research Activities. Educational and Psychological Measurement. https://doi.org/10.1177/001316447003000308
Lee, C. K., Song, H. J., Bendle, L. J., Kim, M. J., & Han, H. (2012). The impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions for 2009 H1N1 influenza on travel intentions: A model of goal-directed behavior. Tourism Management. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2011.02.006
Lehto, X. Y., Kim, D. Y., & Morrison, A. M. (2006). The Effect of Prior Destination Experience on Online Information Search Behaviour. Tourism and Hospitality Research. https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.thr.6040053
Liang-Pholsena, X. (2020). Where Is India Outbound Tourism in Asia’s Post-Pandemic Recovery Order?https://skift.com/2020/05/08/where-is-india-outbound-tourism-in-asias-post-pandemic-recovery-order/
Lim, K. C., Ramli, K. I., Yusof, N. S., & Cheah, S. T. (2015). Examining young Malaysians travel behavior and expenditure patterns in domestic tourism. Asian Social Science, 11(9), 420-424.
Lo, H.-Y., Harvey, N., & Thomson, M. (2013). Information search and product knowledge: Differences between shopaholics and general shoppers in the UK and Taiwan. Journal of Customer Behaviour. https://doi.org/10.1362/147539212x13546197910019
Nguyen, T. H. H., & Coca-Stefaniak, J. A. (2020). Coronavirus impacts on post-pandemic planned travel behaviours. Annals of Tourism Research.
No, E., & Kim, J. K. (2015). Comparing the attributes of online tourism information sources. Computers in Human Behavior, 50, 564–575. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.02.063
Oxfordeconomy. (2020). The-impact-of-online-content-on-European-tourism. https://www.oxfordeconomics.com/google/english
Pan, B., Litvin, S. W., & O’Donnell, T. E. (2007). Understanding accommodation search query formulation: The first step in putting “heads in beds.” Journal of Vacation Marketing. https://doi.org/10.1177/1356766707081013
Qian, Y., Hu, J., & Zhang, M. (2015). Study on the Online Travel Information Search: A Perspective of Social Media. Advances in Applied Sociology. https://doi.org/10.4236/aasoci.2015.58021
Ranasinghe, R., Damunupola, A., Wijesundara, S., Karunarathna, C., Nawarathna, D., Gamage, S., Ranaweera, A., & Idroos, A. A. (2020). Tourism after Corona: Impacts of Covid 19 Pandemic and Way Forward for Tourism, Hotel and Mice Industry in Sri Lanka. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3587170
Ting, C. S., Chiu, L. K., & Kayat, K. (2015). Travel lifestyles and outbound tourism intentions of young Malaysians. American Journal of Tourism Management, 4(2), 40-42.
UNICEF. (2020). Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19): What is it really?
https://www.unicef.org/wca/what-is-coronavirus
Wen, J., Kozak, M., Yang, S., & Liu, F. (2020). COVID-19: potential effects on Chinese citizens’ lifestyle and travel. Tourism Review. https://doi.org/10.1108/TR-03-2020-0110
Xiang, Z., & Gretzel, U. (2010). Role of social media in online travel information search. Tourism Management. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2009.02.016
Xiang, Z., Wöber, K., & Fesenmaier, D. R. (2008). Representation of the online tourism domain in search engines. Journal of Travel Research. https://doi.org/10.1177/0047287508321193
Yoo, K. H., & Lee, W. (2017). Facebook marketing by hotel groups: Impacts of post content and media type on fan engagement. In Advances in Social Media for Travel, Tourism and Hospitality: New Perspectives, Practice and Cases.
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315565736.
In-Text Citation: (Hamid et al., 2022)
To Cite this Article: Hamid, M. A., Ismail, N., Rahmat, N., Nawawi, W. N. W., & Deraman, F. (2022). Online Information Search Behaviour During Pandemic Covid – 19 among Young Travellers in Malaysia. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 12(4), 354–364.
Copyright: © 2022 The Author(s)
Published by Knowledge Words Publications (www.kwpublications.com)
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at: http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
